The Broken Sword

1954. The same year that [b:The Fellowship of the Ring|34|The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1)|J.R.R. Tolkien|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1298411339s/34.jpg|3204327] came out. And yet, this is arguably a better book.

What? No way! But what about JRRT's depth of world-building, the gradual easing of modest characters into epic ones? What about the language? How could a single fantasy novel by a popular SF author outdo one of the standards of literature?

Easy. Make characters as sharp and bright as arrows, fit them into the bow of a world, and let them fly straight and true. Give them immediate adventure, no superfluous quests or long-winded reliance on the little annoying things like lembas this and lembas that, and show more throw them deep into revenge, epic love stories, swords that will chop down the world-tree, incest, the undead, and the machinations of the Norse gods. And of course, you can't have a tale without witches, trolls, elves, and dwarves, especially when they are NOT the derivative of JRRT, that they are derived precisely from the epic tales of Norse legends, that they are as old and deep and rich as the real peoples who have been telling these tales for over a thousand years, and we're not forgetting Wagner's Ring Cycle, are we? Oh wait... who is taking what story elements from whom? Oh... right...

So why is this short and truly tight Norse epic pretty much ignored? Oh, I suppose it has something to do with the times it came out. Everything needed a Christian motif back then, and this sure as hell didn't have it, even if the Christian god had a walk-on role, as did the olympians, so of course Narnia and JRRT were given a lot more talk-time. But imagine, if you will, if this nearly perfect adventure-epic were given a fresh splash of paint and a huge advertising budget. Not as a movie, but as a fantastically rich book who's time has finally come?

I think we're ready as a culture to open ourselves up to a truly fascinating mythos that has really been left on the sideboard for way too long. Gaiman's Mr. Wednesday aside, or [b:The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul|357|The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (Dirk Gently, #2)|Douglas Adams|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388257271s/357.jpg|1096], of course.

This was one hell of a rip-roaring adventure, with cloven heads and high adventure, stormed walls, deceit, sex, revenge, and horror. It's easily all the best aspects of the huge epic fantasy door-stoppers in an easy to digest format, with beautiful poetry literally flowing through it, and best of all, it never has a dull moment or dull characters. It is, in short, a work of true brilliance.

And let's not let things like this disappear, shall we? Let's not assume that the most well-known works are always the best. (I feel like a traitor, saying so, because I've read JRRT's stuff over 7 times.)



A side note, my postscript:

Poul Anderson's opening to the novel was a real eye-opener. He just had to tell us that his intent was to call attention to the magic and the races as high-tech analogues, as per Clarke's law. There was no direct explanation or reveal in the text, though, so he wanted us to feel like we were in a perfect fantasy novel, but the fact that he did put the question to us first means that he intended us to read on several levels at once, and because I obliged him, this novel managed to blow my mind in several ways at once. This was no idle fancy. This was a master storyteller asking us to enjoy it as deeply as he wrote it.

What a guy. :) show less

The Broken Sword was written around the same time as The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and the Fellowship of the Ring, and is a foundational heroic fantasy novel, but unfortunately hasn't reached the same level of mainstream success as those novels despite being very on par in quality.

The Broken Sword blends together elements of Celtic and Norse mythology with a dash of historical fiction to create a novel that clearly influenced later writers like David Gemmell. There's larger-than-life heroes and villains, unexplained magic, mythological weapons, and tons of monologued poetry. It's not the easiest read, but it's evocative and lyrical and deserves more attention.

The first half of the novel is the stronger bit, in my opinion - the show more ending feels a bit rushed and descends into a pretty one-note tale of battles and slaughter that isn't as rich as the more heroic and romantic earlier acts - but this one is definitely worth a read if you're interested in heroic fantasy or sword and sorcery. It feels quite a bit like reading a myth, much like The Lord of the Rings in some ways but decidedly its own thing in tone. show less

This is absolutely fecking fantastic, though when the action moves to Ireland, the narrator's pronunciation is just shy enough of acccurate to cause winces, and overall, the use of modern British accents feels lazy, whereas the voices of the supernatural charcters bring chills. I thought I'd read Poul Anderson before, but I think I'd been mixing him him up with Frederick Pohl. I am an idiot.

Deserves its acclaim as a fantasy masterpiece. I love Anderson’s maximalist language and narration style, it makes the story fittingly feel like an Anglo-Saxon epic. The fantasy elements are wide and wild co-mingling many mythologies and many tropes from ancient epics. My biggest hesitation comes from the melodrama that the writing descends to at some points but overall it’s a well-paced, action-packed story that deserves more readers.

I came across this book while looking for Viking/Norse based stories. The Broken Sword started out so promising, but ultimately failed to deliver.

I literally flew through the first half of the book because it was so good. Anderson blends Viking themes with Celtic fae myth in a new and startling way. Skafloc was born to a Viking Lord, but because his mother was prevented from baptizing him (this being when the Roman faith had begun to take over) immediately after birth, an Elf fae Lord stole and replaced him with a changeling. Cool. Skafloc was raised by the elves and has special abilities because of it. He’s bold, exciting and a strong protagonist. Valgard is…wrong. He shouldn’t exist and that manifests in a brutal, violent show more nature. Very cool. Anderson also peppers the text with lyrical poetry that emulates the Norse Eddas in a Tolkien fashion, but also has some excellent action sequences. It gives the story a unique flavor.

Unfortunately, halfway through the story loses all momentum and turns into a star-crossed Oedipal romance. Trollheim has often tried to conquer the Elves, but always failed. Until now. In their arrogance, the Elves refuse to see the danger and their lands fall. Skalfloc the mighty iron warrior is reduced to hiding in a cave with a girl, whining about what happened. This goes on for far too long before he decides to find the fabled broken sword Tyr prophesied will give victory, but at great cost. He spends the rest of the book moping because his girl leaves him. Worse yet, the book ends on a cliffhanger when another child is born who is ultimately the one the prophecy refers to about the sword. *sigh*

Such wasted potential. I wish the author had skipped the “romance” and stayed with the myths. Not every book has to have a romance. The relationship between Skalfoc and his changeling should have been the focus. Overall, it wasn’t awful but I have found much better Norse and Fae based books out there. show less

Would give it 3.5, if such half-stars were available. It is a surprisingly (to me) dark and morally complex fantasy, pitting the ancient Norse gods against the "new" Christian god amidst a twisted family saga worthy of Greek tragedy, and coming to the conclusion that "man is fated to outlive the immortals." Its age shows in the portrayal of the female characters, and I realized that battle scenes bore me to distraction, but then I'd run across something like this:
The sun lowered until it was a far pale disc on a sullen horizon, briefly seen through storm clouds. The gathering cold was a relentless, searing presence, the soul of these grim waters; it gnawed through clothes and flesh and bone into the very soul...To touch metal was to show more peel the skin from the fingers, and breath froze in the mustache.
Resonates with my Norse heritage and MN roots... show less

I knew the name Poul Anderson, but I tended to see him as more of a science fiction author than a fantasy one. It was an unfair view, because like many of the early SFF authors Anderson crossed genres. He was actually well regarded as a fantasy author, being one of only 8 members of S.A.G.A (the Swordsmen and Sorcerors' Guild of America, Ltd), membership was limited to authors of the sword and sorcery subgenre of fantasy (the other 7 members were: Lin Carter, L. Sprague de Camp, John Jakes, Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock, Andre Norton and Jack Vance) august company indeed. The Broken Sword, which Poul Anderson wrote in the early 50's (it was first published in 1954) is a fantasy classic and it tends to defy categorisation, there are show more elements of S&S in it, but it's more than a barbarian hack and slash fest.

The Broken Sword is a short book, especially by today's doorstopper standard, it weighs in at just over 200 pages, but not one of those pages is wasted. The story follows it's hero; Skafloc, a child born of Orm the Strong, a Viking who settles in England, Skafloc is stolen by the Elf King Imric and in his place is placed Valgard, the result of a union between Imric and a captive troll lady. Eventually the two men clash and while the story builds to the inevitable battle between Skafloc and Valgard there is so much more to this story.

There's a vengeful witch, the war between elves and trolls, a forbidden love affair between Skafloc and his sister Freda. There's a patricide by the tortured Valgard, and the adventure of Skafloc and his Sidhe compatnion Mananaan to reforge the broken sword of the title. In fact the adventures that Skafloc and Mananaan have whilst trying to return from Jotunheim back to Alfheim would have made a book of their own, they are covered briefly, but you got the impression there was more material for Anderson here and it's a shame he never got to explore it.

There seems to be a misconception among readers new to the fantasy genre that hard edged, gritty and gory fantasy began with authors like George R R Martin and his epic A Song of Ice and Fire, this is not the case. While Anderson drew on Norse legends and the sword and sorcery work of Robert E. Howard, Martin has drawn on Anderson and his contemporaries. It even has the bleak sort of ending that is so beloved of Martin.

The Broken Sword is the work of a master and there's not a lot wrong with it. Some of the wording was a little old fashioned in parts, I could have done with a few less 'erenows', but even that assists Anderson in setting the mood he's was trying to evoke.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of Norse themed fantasy around if anyone enjoys what Poul Anderson has done with The Broken Sword. The only thing I can think to recommend are the works of Elizabeth Boyer, she wrote 3 Norse themed series between 1980 and 1995 (World of the Alfar, Wizard's War and Skyla), however she has stopped writing, so the books may be hard to find. show less