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Swords Of Good Men (2013)

by Snorri Kristjansson(Favorite Author)

3.65 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1782063322 (ISBN13: 9781782063322)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Jo Fletcher Books

series

The Valhalla Saga

review 1: I really wanted to like this, but found it disappointing and at times a little bit frustrating - there's a better book in there. The story of the build up and then attack on a small town in the Viking era (this itself isn't quite clear from the synopsis) the author uses a multiple character 3rd person narrative style. He jumps around a wide variety of characters so you get to see all angles to the story - but for me he doesn't then spend long enough with any single character to make them interesting. A number of the characters are just simple 2 dimensional listings, which is a shame as there were a couple of others that had more potential and sometimes, a glimpse of depth.Siege books usually build up a sense of dread with the approach and increasing desperation as the at... moretack goes on - this one doesn't last long enough (maybe a week?) but even then, it doesn't really bring the situation to life - Giles Foden's brilliant Ladysmith, is infinitely better if you want a book set around one siege (or even Helen Dunmore's "The Siege").I was also put off a bit by the 'supernatural' angle - I know the author wanted to make it like one of the Sagas where Gods and spirits or whatever cast the die. But this one - with the (overused) possessed teenage girl was bad - she rumbled away through the book, conjured up a mighty problem - that was then resolved in about 30 seconds before the main characters got back to the rest of the plot - it really didn't seem worth the effort to be honest.I actually liked the very end of the books - a bit of a twist. But still, I'm not in any hurry to look for the follow up. A shame really.
review 2: I’ve had my eye on this book for a while, and finally decided to buy it whilst I was in York (or ‘Jorvik’!) for the weekend. After visiting the castles and dungeons and museums (and, of course, the Viking Centre) I was very much in the mood for reading something along these lines.Swords of Good Men, book one of Snorri Kristjansson’s Valhalla saga, is a fairly fun bit of reading, once you become accustomed to the unusual format. The plot is quite nicely self-contained and focused: it takes place over the course of a few days, and depicts an attack on the Scandinavian village of Stenvik. We witness the battles, and the events leading up to them, from the point of view of various characters on different sides of the attack. The style and manner of the story are generally effective, but they also have quite a few drawbacks.Each chapter is split into short POV segments, and continually flits about between various characters. You can read a couple of pages focusing on one character, then three paragraphs on another, followed by another page from the point of view of a completely different one. This works great for the most part as it makes for a really fast-paced read, and gives a good sense of chaos during the battle segments. A very large portion of the book is focused on fighting, and the style paints a holistic view of the conflict and helps us understand all aspects of the battle, giving it an almost cinematic feel.However, this structure also makes the non-action segments feel a little disjointed, and doesn’t really allow much opportunity to explore any of the characters in much detail. As a result, it’s difficult to really get on-side with any of the characters, since we don’t know them well enough to empathise. The author’s prose is solid but not spectacular – which, to be fair, contributes well to the gritty atmosphere of the entire novel – and unfortunately many of the characters lack depth as a result of minimal page time and regularly shifting POVs.Criticism aside, Swords of Good Men is a decent, bloody, action-filled fictional Viking story. It has plenty of interesting story elements: Old Gods and superstition, the White Christ and black magic, berserkers and assassins, raiders and outlaws, healers and poisoners, blood and longships . . . you get the picture. And while I won’t be rushing out to buy the second in the Valhalla saga, Blood Will Follow, I’ll probably check it out at some point in the future, if only to see what happens in the aftermath of the somewhat shocking ending. less

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