War of the Gods [Mass Market Paperback]

This novel is a fictional account of the legendary Danish King Hadding and others, based on information from ancient sagas, themselves a combination of fact and fiction. It is difficult to set an exact time period for the story. Names like Frode were common in the Fourth century.

In trying to make the tale sound like sagas, the author has used a writing style that is somewhat archaic and filled with words and terms not familiar to the average reader, particularly in the first part of the book. Also, Chapter 1 should have been a prologue. Periodically in the tale, people pause to give long poetic speeches. The latter part of the story steps back in time to set the scene with Hadding's daughter, and the timeline becomes somewhat tangled. Giants and gods drift in and out of the story at various points. The novel could have been aided by both a map (for readers unfamiliar with the area) and a glossary defining various words and terms.

Apparently, Poul Anderson is a prolific sci-fi and fantasy writer, and has been writing for a long time, too. I haven't read anything else of his, but based on this book, I am considering picking something else of his up. This wasn't one of the greatest books I've ever read, but it held my interest because of its use of Norse mythology and the supernatural. The narrative starts out relating the strife between Odin's Aesir and the Vanir, threatening to separate the gods forever, and perhaps have cataclysmic effects on the whole universe. It then focuses on Hadding for the rest of the book, who struggles to establish a stable kingdom, facing dangers both earthly and otherworldly. His role in bringing peace to the war between the gods may not be clear until the end, unless you're a lot more cunning than me. Following the interrelationships between the characters and geographies sometimes became a daunting task and confuses the narrative, but once I got past those things, the story became very engrossing. I'm not usually into fantasy, but I'm not sure this is entirely fantasy - its pseudo-historical/myth/fantasy/horror. The supernatural and pseudo-historic elements (some of which Anderson admits are inaccurate in a brief Afterword) don't really get in the way, though at times, as I said, the focus on detailed interrelationships and geographies can be a problem. The characterization is also a little weak; although there is some, I don't feel any of the characters were very fully developed, not even Hadding. There are flashes of some of the characters that reveal something profound about their personalities, but ultimately the narrative isn't very character-driven. Instead, the emphasis is more on describing action-packed battle scenes and the history of the characters and land. Still, as I said, the story became intriguing to me, and those few passages of characterization got me to care enough for the people that I wanted to know what happened to them. And eventually I did come to sympathize with Hadding as the text showed him as a leader of people, though something a bit more than human; fair and compassionate, yet stern and brazen; strong and courageous, yet rash and vulnerable. Also, fortunately, the action scenes weren't glorified or clichéd, but instead driven by metaphor and original description. For example, "Like two storm waves, a greater and a lesser, the hosts crashed together. Blood-foam spattered into the wind. The tides churned, swirled in among each other, became a seething that howled." The pages are filled with the typical fantasy fare: warriors, kings, princesses, sorcerers, witches, trolls, elves (though these are the scary kind), as well as some uncommon creatures such as jotuns (giants), drows, and land wights. And of course gods and goddesses. Recommended if you're into Norse mythology, or think you would enjoy a good, dark mythologically and pseudo-historically based fantasy.

"War of the Gods" tells the story of Hadding, a viking warrior and king of the Danes. While the tale has all the battles, intrigue, romance and valour I expected, it's told in a stiff, formal way that I had a hard time getting into.

To give Anderson credit, he seems to be trying to replicate the speech and tone of the sagas themselves, and he includes a wealth of historically-accurate detail about daily life in the viking era. But I found myself skimming big chunks of history and wordy speeches looking for the occasional, brilliant nuggets of suspenseful story-telling.

I would have liked to see more depth in some of the characters; even Hadding himself doesn't really take on dimension until the last third of the book. The last 100 pages are better all around than the beginning, and there's a nice twist at the end.

I picked it up because the book jacket suggested parallels to King Arthur - familiar elements of fosterage, leadership, sacrifice and betrayal give this story added dimension if you're interested in Arthurian stuff.