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The last Norse king of Caithness, Hrolf Earthstar and his 12 champions are woken from a centuries-long sleep when an archaeologist finds their grave. He decides to carry on his ancient war against the Sourcerer-King, and must face such perils as BBC film crews and the Bakerloo line along the way.Tags
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An impulse purchase, I can't believe I've not read Holt before. The surmise is simple, the execution deft, the result great fun.
Hildy Frederiksen is an archaeology student who is brought in to investigate a suspected Norse barrow burial. Only instead of finding bones, she discovers that the Norse crew of the boat burial are just waking up form a rather long snooze, 1200 years, or thereabouts. The culture shock impact of waking into the late 20th century is excellently played, with all the culture shock and incongruity you would expect. It was fast, fun, varied, yet had emotion and feeling. Great fun all round.
I sometimes struggle with fantasy, most noticeably when the fantasy seems to rely on illogical progressions, I like my fantasy show more to ask me to accept one illogical step, but that the remainder of the book follows logically form there. This seems, to me, to achieve that. show less
Hildy Frederiksen is an archaeology student who is brought in to investigate a suspected Norse barrow burial. Only instead of finding bones, she discovers that the Norse crew of the boat burial are just waking up form a rather long snooze, 1200 years, or thereabouts. The culture shock impact of waking into the late 20th century is excellently played, with all the culture shock and incongruity you would expect. It was fast, fun, varied, yet had emotion and feeling. Great fun all round.
I sometimes struggle with fantasy, most noticeably when the fantasy seems to rely on illogical progressions, I like my fantasy show more to ask me to accept one illogical step, but that the remainder of the book follows logically form there. This seems, to me, to achieve that. show less
It's an early Tom Holt book. That is, it has all of the elements- business mixed with magic, a few average characters thrown in to make that somehow become leaders of whatever magical creatures they encounter, in this case it's a bunch of 1200 year old sleeping Vikings until the return of the evil sorcerer-king (who has created Microsoft like company).
The story is rather unremarkable- the plot is a bit hackneyed. The characters were rather generic. The plot dissolved at the end, and the big show down at the end kind of fizzled. It's cute. I would have liked this book more if I read as a teenager.
Recommended if you like the author.
The story is rather unremarkable- the plot is a bit hackneyed. The characters were rather generic. The plot dissolved at the end, and the big show down at the end kind of fizzled. It's cute. I would have liked this book more if I read as a teenager.
Recommended if you like the author.
Quick, charming, and relaxing, this book’s title lies. The actual book has little-to-nothing to do with Beowulf. Instead, it is an example of the very rare Fantasy/Comedy story. It is also surprisingly gentle considering that it involves a busload of Vikings and an evil immortal wizard.
Highly recommended for fans of Douglas Adams, particularly “Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency”, as this was more like that than anything else I’ve ever read.
Highly recommended for fans of Douglas Adams, particularly “Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency”, as this was more like that than anything else I’ve ever read.
A delightful confection of a story. This is pure indulgent fun, and I absolutely love it, historicity be damned.
(But then, I am also short and mean well.)
(But then, I am also short and mean well.)
This was my first Holt novel and I enjoyed it. It was like an urban fantasy Dicworld.
I really liked that the Vikings weren't impressed by the modern world or any of the tech which they already had through magic.
The only criticism is that none of the characters were really devloped except Hildy, and even her not so much. If you're looking for a good fun read this is a good start. show less
I really liked that the Vikings weren't impressed by the modern world or any of the tech which they already had through magic.
Hildy wanted to say ‘I’m not sure’, but she realised that the man was being sarcastic, which was the last thing she expected. ‘I’m Hildy Frederiksen,’ she mumbled, aware that in all this vastness and mystery that one small fact could have little significance. Still, she wanted it put on record before it was wiped out of her mind.
‘Well, now,’ said the leader, still sarcastic but with a hint of sympathy in his voice, ‘you shouldn’t have told me that, should you? After all, when strangers meet by night on the
fells, they should not disclose their names, nor the names of their fathers, until they have tested each other’s heart with shrewd enquiry.’
Then his face seemed to relax a little behind the fixed scowl of his visor. ‘Don’t ask me why, mind. It’s just the rule.’
Something the King had said about magic had started her thinking and, although her idea was scarcely distinguishable from healthy American paranoia, that was not in itself a reason for discarding it. God, guts and paranoia made America great.
He had never believed in God or any other sort of conspiracy theory, and he could never summon up enough credulity to be entertained by spy thrillers. But even he had sometimes wondered about the telelogy of his own particular field of interest. All computer programmers have at some stage come face to face with the one and only metaphysical question of what happens to all the stuff that gets swallowed by the computer.
The only criticism is that none of the characters were really devloped except Hildy, and even her not so much. If you're looking for a good fun read this is a good start. show less
My new Terry Pratchett. The characters may be less engaging than Vimes or Vetinari or Lipwig, but very fun.
And it contains constant gems such as:
And it contains constant gems such as:
In my day, you had a small, highly skilled workforce--your sorcerers and their apprentices--turning out high-quality low-volume producs for a small, largely high-income-group market. Result: the ordinary bloke, the man on the Uppsala carrier's cart, was excluded from participation in the field. Magic was not reaching the bulk of the population. Given my long-term objective--total world dominance--this was plainly unacceptable.
The first Tom Holt that I have read, and apparently one of his earlier works. He has often been put in the same category as Terry Pratchett. and while there are some humorous gems and turns of phrase here, the book is lacking Pratchett's inventiveness and the warmth of his characters. The plot is also no great shakes, though it does probably hang together better than Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker books. Altogether a decent read, and I wouldn't necessary pass up a chance to read more by Tom Holt, but based on this novel, I wouldn't go out of my way either.
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67+ Works 15,179 Members
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Common Knowledge
- Original title
- Who's Afraid of Beowulf?
- Original publication date
- 1988
- People/Characters
- Hildy Frederiksen; Hrolf Earthstar; Zxerp; Prexz; Thoreir Storm-shepherd AKA Olafson; Kotkel (show all 12); Starkad Storvrksson; Brynjolf; Danny Bennett; Angantyr Asmundarson; Arvarodd; Geirrod the Sorceror-King
- Important places
- Caithness, Highland, Scotland, UK (historic county)
- Dedication
- For K.N.F.
- First words
- Someone had written 'godforsaken' between 'Welcome to' and 'Caithness' on the road sign.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)She lifted her head and looked out of the window. 'Until then,' she said.
- Original language
- English UK
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Statistics
- Members
- 758
- Popularity
- 36,648
- Reviews
- 14
- Rating
- (3.75)
- Languages
- English, French, German
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 12
- ASINs
- 9
