Mother of Kings, by Poul Anserson

Mother of Kings

Poul Anderson

Not too long ago I read and reviewed Cecelia Holland's The Soul Thief.  (Review)  It was about a young Irish lad who has to face and overcome some daunting Scandinavians, including the witchy wife of Erik Bloodak,  Queen Gungilde.  Well, she's who this historical fantasy novel is about.  Queen Gunhilde, that is.  Erik is in it too, but sh likes him a lot more in Poul Anderson's book.

We begin with Gunhilde as a headstrong young girl who sees Erik for the first time when the gorgeous young Viking visits her father's holdings.  She sets out to get him,, and she does, after a crash course in shamanistic magic at the hands of some lustful Finnish sorcerers.  First she gets Erik, whom she refers to as her "stallion", and we ladies know what that means, then sets out to make him King of Norway and anything else she can manage.  Unfortunately, his father, Harold Fairhair, the present king also had tons of other sons on both sides of the blanket.  Gunhilde has to help Erik kill them all one by one before she has any hope of success.  They proceed to have son after son themselves, keeping them busy until Haakon, called Athelstan's Foster, a half brother of Erik's, kicks him out of Norway.  They head to Orkney, then Northumbria, which is where we meet the two in The Soul Thief.  Anderson's account of Erik's death is different, probably more accurate, but nonetheless it happened about this time and Gunhilde and sons and daughter  have to hightail it back to Orkney.  Once the boys have all grown up they start in on the kindship themwselves, agreeing to share it with the est suited, Garold Grayfell, as the head king.  One by one, in spite of every witchy thing Gunhilde can manage, they die while rivals cement their own hold on Norway.

The novel throughout addresses the sea change from Paganism to Christianity with a little primitive magic thrown in.  In one of the final scenes, Gungilde, who has genuinely puzzled over religion throughout much of her life, always choosing the most expedient for her purpose, has a vision of three men on a bluff, one hanging from a tree, namely Odin, another nailed to a cross, do I have to say who that is, and one between them dancing about like a Finnish shaman.  Her conclusion appears to be that it is all the same thing, a power men define to suit themselves.

First and foremost Gunhilde is about getting what she wants, Erik, then promoting their bloodline through her sons and to a lesser degree her daughter.  To these ends she will balk at nothing, drawing the ship Erik captains to her location with the Finns, then convincing his crew to kill the men and take her with them.  Once she has Erik she uses the talents developed under these same men's tutelage to turn into a swallow to go  spy on rivals, to know what is happening to her family members. then to fashion a deadly arrow to kill Haakon the Good, finally to fight the female warrior deity Haakon Jarl has protecting him.

The most remarkable thing about this novel is how gorgeously Anderson mimics the saga and poetry styles of the the Norse skalds of the time.  Perhaps the most gifted, Egil Skalagrenson, is a character in the book, and Gunhilde's ime nemesis.  I have always enjoyed the four accented beat per line alliterative style of Norse poetry.  I enjoyed the use of its characteristic features in the prose of this novel immensely.  In fact, it was my second favorite part.  My first was how Anderson, a native of Denmark,  manufactures words and phrases that evoke the language of the people and time.  One small example is to call migratory birds "wanderbirds", and there are many many more and more poetical examples throughout the book.

Unfortunately, the book shares another characteristic of the sagas, and that is that is very long and full of intricate detail that might be more appealing to Biking ears than our own.  I felt some of the expeditions could have been summarized, and the point gotten to, but that may just be me.  Though I doubt it.

I know that technically this novel is fantasy, but so long as there are no unicorns or dragons, I tend to regard the magic as alternate technology, so I gave it a chance.

I downloaded this novel from NLS's BATD site and read it on my digital talking vook machine.  Forgive my spellings.. I read this book by ear.

An Unlooked-for Benefit for Print Impaired Readers?

On this morning's Future Tense with John Moe I heard of a possibly advantageous benefit of the recent popularity of small mbile devices such as the Apple iPad (pictured left).  In a piece called "Screens everywhere - does that help?" Moe spoke with a fellow who said that thanks to the small screens web designers are going to be changing the look of web pages.  They will concentrate on content and stop using so many small boxes and pop-ups on typically cluttered pages.

Could this shift to accommodate all the itty-bitty screens result in an unanticipated benefit to print impaired people who use screen magnification and screen reading technology to access what's on their computer monitors? 

Right now there are two main applications that allow people who are blind, partially sighted or otherwise unable to use the standard visual interface of a monitor to use the web.  One is the combination screen magnifier and reader, such as Zoomtext by AiSquared.  With it the user sees only a fraction of the page depending on the magnification she uses.   (See image below.)

With applications like JAWS from Freedom Scientific the monitor need not even be turned on, as the software is designed to read all content aloud.  The following video is a demonstration of JAWS and other screen readers.



The narrator on this video observes that a person who must use audio access to web pages needs to learn how to navigate the indivdual web site thoroughly.    With today's busy web pages this can be a challenge.  Imagine if every time you went to a new page you had to read every single word on the page before you became facile with it.  If anything, that is what I notice about using my eyesight.  I cannot scan across a scene or screen and pick up information peripherally.  I have to examine an area to locate what I want.  That is not even always possible, such as with a print book. 

Imagine then how handy it would be if the new style of web design was truly content focused.  If a person using a screen magnifier invariably had the bulk of information central on the page without the visual chatter, that would make browsing so much faster and easier.  It is the same with screen readers which will read every word based on a specific order.  Experienced users can develop ways to jump about on a screen,  but imagine if getting to the main content was so readily achieved?

My understanding is that the fellow John Moe interviewed was talking about all sites and their design and not just the mini-apps particular to the device.  If this is so, a person with a print impairment using assistive technology may inadvertently benefit fro the new simplicity of design.  It will be interesting to see if and how this develops.
Your comments are welcome.

Eaters of the Dead, by Michael Crichton

Eaters of the Dead

Michael Crichton

I have a phone call into the English Department at Northern Michigan University to revoke my Outstanding Senior of 1981 since I did not recognize this as Beowulf until at least halfway through.  Shame on me.

This novel appears to be another of the many attempts to rewrite the famous poem, whether to explain the spookier elements or simply make it entertaining to modern readers.  (If you listen to Seamus Heaney's translation and his own reading, you won't need that.  It does it all b itself.)

You may recognize the story as the basis for The 13th Warrior, a movie starring Antonio Banderas.  I honestly cannot decide which I think you would like better.  They each have their attractions.  While the great deal of pseudo-scholarship Crichton  laces throughout the novel adds a great deal to it, it is less certain that you will find the narrator's storytelling style fascinating or annoying.  Crichton is telling the story from the point of view of an Arab court functionary from Baghdad.  Somehow while traveling to Bulgaria on behalf of his Caliph, the Arab is conscripted into a band of Northmen from Russia who set out to save a kinsman from Mist Monsters who are devastating the land.  The Arab takes a sort of skeptical scientific approach until, as he says over and over, "I saw it with my own eyes!"

Take the basic Beowulf story, arrival at the hall of the inept king Hrothgar who brought the visitations on himself, the attack of the monster on the hall and Beowulf's success in pulling off the monsters;s arm, and the attack by and destruction of the monster's mother, and you have Eaters of the Dead.  There are two major differences.  One is that Grendel is now a whole host of Neanderthals who sneak up on the Northmen when the mist comes down from the mountain.  The dragon, who shows up early in this version, is just a line of these Neanderthals carrying torches down a mountainside.  Grendel's mother far from being Angelina Jolie is a greatly aged Neanderthal Venus of Wilendorf.  The sed is that you get to know several of the warriors who, however unflattering Crichton's portrayal, inspire admiration in both the Arab and the reader.

This is a short novel.  I borrowed the cassette audio book from my local library, and it was on only six cassettes.  My favorite part of the book is that it is written as if by a scholar presenting an old and much analyzed and debated account, written by the Arab whose name I obviously do not know how to spell having listened to the book.  The author, or the character portrayed as the author, frequently interrupts the "manuscript' to comment on scholarship about it and to add notes about historical and archaeological facts related to the tale.  i finally caught on to this when a scholar named "Joseph Cantrell" was obviously meant to be Joseph Campbell.  The reader needs to realize the scholarship itself is fictional every bit as much as the Arab's tale..  Don't start quoting Cantrerll in paper's for your Old English Lit class.

All the same, this made for a different sort of reading, entertaining and enlightening at the same time, and extremely well done.

Loki's Daughters, by Delle Jacobs

Loki's Daughters

Delle Jacobs

Please, I beg you, don't let this cover predispose you one opinion or assessment of this novel.  It is a wonderful romance, but it is lots more than that.  I am glad since I downloaded it as an ebook from Smashwords.com that I had not seen the cover all that clearly.  I like erotic historical romance but I may have set it down before I discovered what a beautifully crafted story it has.

Loki's Daughters is the story of a community in Cumbria, Celtic northwester England, in likely the 10th century.  The women in the community have lost nearly all their men to Viking raids and are struggling to keep body and soul together through their own hard work and the leadership of one strong but not invincible woman, Arienh.  Not only has  she lost her father and brothers to the attack, her sister Birgit, was raped and suffered a head injury that is destroying her eyesight.  Along comes what the women interpret as a Viking ship:  a swan instead of a dragon at the prow, big tall muscular men with swords... what else could they be?  But they turn out to be Northmen, and farmers, and their leader, Ronan, who is half Celt, once saved her life and fallen in love with her.  He wants a farm and village to live a happy and fruitful life with her and has come to earn it.

One of the things that impressed me in this book was the clear insight into what communications and trust problems were inherent in the two communities, the Celtic women and the Northmen, and how hard overcoming them must be.  The cultures clash particularly in Arienh and Ronan.  He has come to make her his wife and their valley his, while she has been all there has been between life and death for her family and neighbors, and me who looked just like Ronan were the ones who forced her there.  Her take on it is "You are savages and will soon show your true colors by taking control of all we hold dear."  That includes the Liam, the son of her sister, whom all are sure the Northman Egil will take from Birgit, as they have always been told Bikings do.  This seems all the more certain since someday Birgit will no longer be able to hide her diminishing eyesight.  The conflict intensifies as Arienh cannot ignore the sexual attraction she and Ronan have for each other.  As the other women slowly come to see the Northmen more clearly for the peaceful men they are, she clings to her resistance to them and her tight hold on her control.

This novel does such a good job of alternating between the opposing points of view, the inner longings, the fear, the cultural norms and expectations, that I kept marveling at what I was reading.  The main and secondary characters are completely believable and draw your understanding and concern.  There are terrifyng events that reinforce the women's fears but also some funny and endearing situations that can't help but melt your heart just as it did them.  For one, when the women steal the men's clothes while they are bathing in a pool, the men decide to give the women a bonus for their voyeurism and march past them not only naked but in full arousal.  That was as refreshing and playful a scene as I have read.

I had two problems with the novel, neither of them all that significant.  The Celtic seem to have a mix of Celtic, Saxon and even Norse names.  The boy, Liam, has an Irish name that I am pretty sure came from William, a Norman name.  Like I said that is not really that important except to someone like I who gets caught up in that.  I know my own novel suffers from the same thing, but there is a purpose in my case.

The other element of the story I could not quite feel blended into the the whole is the earlier meeting of Arienh and Ron when they were children.  It is such a significant event  in both their lives but never, at least to my mind, holds a central enough emotional place both in the novel and with the characters.  I might have liked some sort of moment of recognition, of revelation that pushed the reconciliation forward. The opening scenes of the novel are so dramatic and disturbing to have Arienh more or less shrug her shoulders and think, "Oh, it's he!" and go on without saying anything rather ruined the intensity.

All in all, however, I found this a compelling story with characters I will always hold dear in my memory.

I read that the author, Delle Jacobs, plans someday to rewrite the novel now that she has a lot  more books under her belt.  Two things I would ask.. give the former acquaintance a better setting in the plot and get a new cover.

I bought this novel at Smashwords.com and read it on my Kindle.