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| No man could defeat him. No woman could resist him. |
Alas, I had high hopes for this one, being a sucker for all
things Viking fantasy (is this a subgenre? If not, time to coin one.
Broad-and-battleaxe? Skald-and-shieldwall? Leave your suggestion below). It
sounded great. From the back cover:
Warrior,
leader, lover, conqueror… HAAKON.
OUT
OF A VIOLENT AGE, when longships and broadswords rule the earth, comes the
mightiest Viking warrior of them all—Haakon the Dark.
I'm in.
Haakon started out
with a bang, a desperate ship-to-ship battle in the North sea. This was the
best sequence in the book. I don’t know if there was anything quite like these
old longboat battles, with crews of desperate Vikings leaping over the rails
and murdering each other, with drownings and maimings and mayhem miles from
shore.
A
spear drove down toward Haakon. His shield rose to meet it. The spearhead
pierced the leather-covered wood, nearly skewering Haakon as it flashed by his
ear. He swung the shield, and the shaft of the embedded spear lashed through
the ranks of the enemy. A man screamed and clapped his hand to his face, where
jaw and cheek and one eye were bloody wreckage. One of Haakon’s men closed in
and struck with an ax. The man’s screams died as his head lolled on his shoulders.
The thud of the falling body was lost in the swelling uproar of clashing
weapons and cries of panting men.
Outrageous that these wild combats actually occurred. Not a
bad start.
After the initial carnage the battle scenes are not as
well-depicted or as plentiful as I’d hoped. I guess I’ve been spoiled by the
likes of Bernard Cornwell, who does the desperate, fear and sweat drenched
press of shield wall combat better than anyone. Author Eric Neilson’s prose is workmanlike.
Haakon flags
terribly in its second half, once Haakon returns home to Norway with his booty
and the willing English maid Rosamund under his arm. Like Arnold in Conan the Destroyer, my prevailing
thought plowing through interminable dialogue and dickering was, “enough talk!”
There’s too much Haakon lounging around his deceased father’s steading, pondering
whether to launch a pre-emptive strike on Ivar Egbertsson who has designs on
his lands and his lady. Politics and perception stays Haakon’s hand, but he’s
forced to take action when Ivar’s men steal his beloved Rosamund.
Haakon could
almost be classified as sword-and-sorcery, with its action-oriented central
hero, gritty historical setting, and light touches of magic, which possess a
bit of the weird unpredictability that makes for good S&S fiction. But the
feel isn’t quite right to me. I’d place it in the category of historical
fantasy. Haakon the Good was a historical figure and served as king of Norway circa 920-961, but nothing in the first book bears any resemblance to the events of his life.
Spoiler alert: Haakon
culminates with the rescue of Haakon’s beloved Rosamund following a pitched
final battle and the promise of more adventure in Book 2: The Viking’s Revenge. I may read it yet, sucker as I am this kind
of fiction. But overall Haakon: The
Golden Ax is sadly well outside the rarefied air occupied by the likes of The
Broken Sword, Hrolf Kraki’s Saga, and Eric Brighteyes.
Perhaps worth
a read if you enjoy the Northern Thing.
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