Hrolf Kraki's Saga

First, I must mention that if you ever encounter a book in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series, if you ever stumble across a paperback with a unicorn-in-a-circle logo in the corner of the cover, a circle reading "Original Adult Fantasy," you should buy it without hesitation. Hrolf Kraki's Saga by Poul Anderson is a book in this series and it is one of the finest, most engaging, most imagination-sparking stories I have ever had the pleasure to read. For Hrolf Kraki's Saga, Mr Anderson, according to the introductory material in the book, coordinated, assembled, and retold "the scattered heroic literature" to bring us this "keening, blood-rimed tale of men who walked like gods."

Rarely have I been so thoroughly captivated and enthralled by a book. The language is vivid and potent, the story itself thrilling as it tells of various kings of Denmark down to the titular Hrolf Kraki. The book contains mighty deeds of heroes, including fierce battles wherein the flashing of weapons and spilling of gore are recounted in great detail; it contains rugged and beautiful landscapes through which the heroes and characters of the book move and ride in ships and on horses; it contains fell beasts, strange monsters, and weird magics; it contains half-breed Elf children; it contains great halls for feasting; it contains great mounds of treasure; it contains berserkers and shapeshifters; it is one of the most fantastic, stirring, wonderful, exciting, unnerving, beautiful stories I have ever read.

This is writing the way I like it, this is storytelling the way I like it: vital, vigorous, and strong, with passages of breathtaking beauty, scenes of gripping action, and otherworldly creatures and magics of great weirdness. This is a saga to fill a reader's heart with heroic longing and sense-of-wonder. I envision myself reading and re-reading this epic tale many times until the Weird of the World.