Sword of the Gael by Andrew J. Offutt, a review

Sword-and-sorcery typically works better in the short form than the novel, and I think I know why. It’s a lot harder to sustain breakneck action over 250-300 pages. I was reminded not for the first time of this maxim while reading Andrew J. Offutt’s Sword of the Gael (1975, Zebra Books), which I found to be a bit of a mixed bag.

Sword of the Gael is the first in a series of six books from Offutt (and later co-writer Keith Taylor) of Cormac Mac Art, a quasi-historical/mythic High King of Ireland out of medieval Irish legend. Robert E. Howard wrote a handful of stories about the character collected posthumously in Tigers of the Sea, two of which were completed by S&S author Richard Tierney. It is from REH’s interpretation of Mac Art that we get Offutt’s series. 

Got all that? If you want to learn more about Taylor's participation in the series check out this Q&A I did with him over on DMR Books.

Sword of the Gael opens with a couple fantastic chapters that hooked me out of the gate. A dragon-prowed ship bearing Cormac and his crew capsizes in a storm; many men drown but about a dozen or so including the mighty Dane Wulfhere the Skull-splitter cling to the wreckage and survive after they wash ashore on a rocky isle. Combing the barren spit for any signs of life or life-giving water they happen across a temple of anachronistic construction. Something not of Roman construction, nor even ancient Celtic, but of Atlantis. And it’s occupied by a hostile Viking crew.

Had Offutt ended there it would have made for an excellent short story. But after this well-done piece of Howardian world-building and weirdness we never see nor hear of Atlantis nor the temple again. A classic unused Chekov’s gun. Maybe we will in the second book, The Undying Wizard (1976) however this is not pitched as a series nor a book one. And after the great opening sequence the story begins to flag.

But hold your judgement for a moment. 

Though it fails to live up to its opening promise there are many interesting elements in the reminder of the book that carried me through to the end. Offutt says in the introduction he read millions of words and took thousands of words of notes researching ancient Ireland, aka., Eirrin, and in the process fell in love with its history and legends. This is evident. The story feels historical and interesting in a way a lot of generic fantasy does not, clothing and food and Irish culture faithfully depicted. We get so little of Ireland/Eirrin as the setting of fantasy novels (Taylor’s Bard is a notable exception) that this was welcome, and moreover well-rendered. Here’s a bit of that rendering, from a monologue delivered from Cormac’s love interest, the Irish princess Samaire:

There are no former sons of Eirrin, Cormac of Connacht! It’s a spell there is on the fens and the bogs, and the cairn-topped hills of green Eirrin called Inisfail, and it envelops us all at birth like a cloak about the mind. We are forever under it—even those who so long and long ago moved across Magh Rian to Dalriada in Alba. Eirrin-born is Eirrin-bound, as if by stout cords and golden chains.”

This stirs my Irish blood. What do you expect with a last name like Murphy? More than a bit of Eirrin is in me (as well as Danish blood from my mother’s side). 

Speaking of stirred/spilled blood, we also get a desperate pitched battle against Picts, and a fun battle against a pool dwelling giant squid. We get a reasonably well done and familiar story of a hero’s homecoming, back to the land that once declared him an exile. Cormac is the son of a murdered high king but cannot return to Eirrin because of a killing he committed years before at a great assembly, a sort of great fair and friendly gathering of competitive clan rivals where no quarrels are permitted (not unlike a Danish Thing). But the young and hot-headed Cormac is goaded to violence and flees his homeland for a dozen years.

Offutt isn't Howard but he’s a good storyteller in his own right. Sword of the Gael is earnest (Offutt even includes bits of his own verse); you cannot fake its enthusiasm. As a standalone novel it’s not entirely successful. But it’s an interesting failure, entertaining enough, and moreover instructive for writers working in the field. I’d give it a tentative recommendation to S&S fans.