Haakon: The Golden Ax, a review

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.

Paying tribute: The Priest and AD/HD

Some day in the not too-distant future my favorite heavy metal bands will be retired, the big concert halls silent, and only memories remaining of the glory days of Iron Maiden, Megadeth, and their ilk. And I will be reduced to watching tribute bands.

Frankly, I’m very much OK with this, if they are anything like the caliber of The Priest and AD/HD.

I would be happy until the end of my rocking days watching good tribute bands perform. I don’t feel any need, whatsoever, to seek out new music. That’s not to say there are no new good bands on the scene. Far from that. Nor do I actively dismiss new music. I have had a few finds over the years that I find enjoyable.

But the fact of the matter is, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, KISS, AC/DC (and throw in Rush for good measure), have massive and varied catalogs of studio and live albums that are more than enough for my limited listening time. I don’t feel the need to seek out new bands. And now, if I want the experience of listening to live music—and there is nothing like live music—I have the tributes.

This past Saturday I got the opportunity to check out two tributes playing locally. I live some 20-odd minutes from the venue, Uncle Eddie’s in Salisbury MA. It was an absolutely beautiful summer evening. I pulled out of my driveway, alone, around 8 p.m., rolled the windows down, and started blasting Unleashed in the East. Route 110 in Amesbury passed too quickly as I drove the two-lane blacktop, wishing I was on Desert Plains to some far-flung destination. I wish that drive was long enough to get me through the album, and a few other discs besides. It was a divine experience. 

Ahead was the knowledge I’d be meeting up with an old friend of mine and his wife, for some conversation and cold beers. And then a full evening—three-plus hours—of some of the best hard rock and heavy metal ever written. Yes, played not by the original artists, but by bands of talented performers who dedicated countless hours to perfecting their craft, and paying homage to a pair of rock and metal greats.

Uncle Eddies is right on the beach, and you can hear the waves of the Atlantic rolling up the sands outside the club. It’s not much to look at inside, with a stained drop ceiling and restrooms with broken mirrors and ill-cleaned graffiti, and a low stage in the back. But it’s got a charm of its own, and the owner works hard to give local music and heavy metal in particular a voice. It’s a hard-working, blue-collar venue.

I paid more to park ($10) then the cover to get in ($5). I would have gladly paid five times that over. The lights of Salisbury beach pizza joints and arcades made for a fun walk to the club. Uncle Eddies was as packed as I’ve ever seen it. Judas Priest, AC/DC, and other various metal T-shirts were ubiquitous (dude with the Kreator T--nice work. This one’s for you). The beer was flowing. Life was great.

As for the show, my words can’t do it justice. The level of musicianship was incredible. Both lead singers were excellent, in particular Ron Finn of The Priest, who not only is Rob Halford reincarnated, but can pull off a very credible David Coverdale, among others. The Priest crushed hits like The Ripper, Beyond the Realms of Death, Devil’s Child, and Victim of Changes. AD/HD was a crowd favorite and packed the dance floor. I was so pumped to hear If You Want Blood (You Got It) and Have a Drink on Me, both in my top 5.

I took a lot of clips with my crappy cell phone, but they don’t do these bands justice. For a better idea of how good these guys are, here’s The Priest playing Devil's Child.

The two Brians.

Afterwards I thanked as many members of each band as I could. I praised The Priest’s Bryan

Shepherd for owning the guitar solo of Beyond the Realms of Death. I hugged Ron Finn and his wife. And I told the hyper-talented AD/HD guitarist “Angus Young” that he was performing an amazing service, keeping alive a breed of rock that is slowly becoming a relic of the past.

And I meant it.

Priest, AD/HD, KISS Forever, and legions of others playing small clubs across the USA and in parts unknown—this post is your tribute. Keep rocking, brothers in metal.

Check out The Priest on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thepriestnh/

Here’s AD/HD’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ADHDNE/. Worth a visit and a like, too.

Revival

It’s official, The Silver Key is coming out of retirement. “Rising from Ruins,” to quote the great Judas Priest.

So where have I been the last six years?

Still reading, still writing. Still thinking about sword-and-sorcery. Still enjoying heavy metal. In short, still living the dream.

There were a few reasons why I stopped writing this blog. I was burning the proverbial candle on both ends, with too many competing responsibilities. Maintaining the blog started to feel like a chore. Along with every other adult on the planet I have many obligations, mainly related to a full-time job, my home, and other responsibilities. Writing for a personal, unpaid, bit of electronic real estate of ruminations on fantasy books and music should not become weekly content churning. It started to feel that way toward the end.

I have not vanished from writing. Former Cimmerian site editor Deuce Richardson had managed to rope me into a few posts over at DMR Blog (publisher of the awesome Swords of Steel, among other sword-and-sorcery related fiction). Here’s a link to one of them here. I wrote a review for Skelos.

But principally I have been working on a book-length non-fiction project, one that has consumed most of my free writing time over the last 4-5 years. The principal writing is complete and I hope to have it published. I will explain in some upcoming posts.

If you enjoyed the material I posted here from roughly 2007-2013, I plan to bring more of the same. It may be weeks or longer in between posts. But I do feel the urge to do some writing again, and this will be the space. Although I’m on Facebook that’s not an option for my ramblings. Too many cat pics and kids’ sporting activities to compete with. I debated blowing this blog up and starting fresh somewhere else, but I think some of my old posts are OK reading. So I’m dusting off the older Blogger site and opening up shop a second time.

I hope this is not a false start. I don’t intend it to be.

Rising from Ruins

Conan Meets the Academy: Multidisciplinary Essays on the Enduring Barbarian: A review

Conan Meets the Academy: Multidisciplinary Essays on the Enduring Barbarian (McFarland and Company, Inc., Publishers, 2013) offers a broad selection of essays on Conan, but not just the Conan of Robert E. Howard’s stories. It covers Conan in all his various forms, from the original Weird Tales barbarian, to the hulking brute of the Schwarzenegger film, to the various computer generated avatars in the Age of Conan computer game. In this way it differs greatly from its predecessors The Dark Barbarian and The Barbaric Triumph, which reserve their analysis for Howard and Howard’s stories alone.

This book will, I suspect, set many Howard fans’ teeth on edge. It opens with an unapologetic defense of the L. Sprague de Camp/Lin Carter-edited Lancer/Ace Conan paperbacks, positing that without these books Conan and Robert E. Howard would be all but forgotten today. Writes editor Jonas Prida, “The problem of de Camp’s decision to re-order the chronology and list himself on Tales of Conan’s cover as one of the authors has been alluded to, but what must also be admitted is that without the controlling hand of de Camp, both Conan and Howard may have gone the way of Kull, relegated to footnote status in investigations into fellow Weird Tales’ contributor H.P. Lovecraft.” Now I personally have no issue with placing the DeCamp/Carter pastiches, or even the Conan films and videogames, under the academic microscope; far from it, I think it’s an interesting and worthy exercise. However Prida seems to think that the root of De Camp-ian resentment is purists defending the Conan canon, but I disagree: What draws the ire of many Howard fans is De Camp’s often mean-spirited assessment of Howard the man in these books’ introductions and elsewhere.

In addition, Conan Meets the Academy: Multidisciplinary Essays on the Enduring Barbarian trumpets itself as a trailblazer in what Prida describes as a limited field of traditional literary analysis (“The first scholarly investigation of Conan,” according to a blurb on the back cover). Though it tips a cap to Mark Finn’s Blood and Thunder and Glenn Lord’s The Last Celt, Prida has apparently either not heard of The Dark Barbarian and The Barbaric Triumph or does not consider them "scholarly," as these fail to garner a mention in the preface.

Ah well, some troubling early signs aside, on to the contents.

Happy birthday to JRR Tolkien; jeers to Philip Pullman

Philip Pullman is another notable fantasy author who, alongside the likes of Michael Moorcock and Richard Morgan, has grossly missed the mark in his appraisal of The Lord of the Rings. Listening to this recent Geeks Guide to the Galaxy podcast I was dumbfounded not only by Pullman’s ignorance of The Lord of the Rings, but the gall he exhibits throwing around opinions on a work he admittedly read only once—and as a teenager. “I’ve tried to read it since, but I was unsuccessful,” Pullman says in the interview (note: the Tolkien portion starts around the 17:10 mark; its only a two minute segment or so of the interview). Admitting this fact should automatically invalidate any opinions you have on The Lord of the Rings. I was forced to read Moby Dick in high school. Had that been the only time I read it, and 40 years passed, how much would my opinions on the book matter? None, right?

But since Pullman is a big-time successful author, in the eyes of some we must take him seriously. So I’m taking this opportunity on what would be Tolkien’s 121^st birthday to show just much how much he gets wrong.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, a review

Warning: Spoilers follow.

As I left an IMAX 3D showing of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey early Saturday evening, I struggled at first to determine why I experienced such ambivalence about the film. Then I hit on it: Director Peter Jackson has taken what is a tightly-plotted, 300-page novel and turned it into the equivalent of a multi-volume fantasy epic, with all the good and the bad that change entails.

My short review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey deserves the mixed ratings it has received (65% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes as of this writing). It was a qualified success, with some high points and some low points. It’s good, but not as good as The Lord of the Rings films, in my opinion. And in places it’s downright annoying.