William Hall
A young man, down on his luck and working a dead end job, finds out from a passing acquaintance at a party about an LA apartment building with outrageously low rent and great views. After looking into
it he agrees to rent an apartment in the very old brick building known as the KAVACH. As the main character Nate begins his stay at the KAVACH he meets other residents of the building and soon he and they begin to trade notes on the building's many mysterious peculiarities (padlocked doors, other apartments with strange dimensions, cold spots, electrical anomalies, etc.). Nate and his cadre of other residents start to explore the building's mysteries, ignoring eviction threats for continuing to go down this path leveled by the building's manager. However, as they begin unlocking the building's secrets they are ill prepared for the “Pandora's Box” they are about to open. I found this story to be well-written and fast paced. It falls into the Sci-Fi/Horror genre and is a satisfying modern day Lovecraftian tale.
The Innswich Horror is a somewhat farcical homage to H. P. Lovecraft's horror fiction. Obviously the title is a combination of the Lovecraft titles The Dunwich Horror and The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Set in the 1930s, a very rich young bachelor with a devotion to Lovecraft's fiction takes a side jaunt from his Lovecraft pilgrimage by bus into the unlisted picturesque seaside town of Innswich Point. His excitement grows as he learns that Lovecraft had actually visited Innswich Point before the town had been given a facelift and had based his story The Shadow Over Innsmouth on the town. One of the very noticeable peculiarities of the town is the number of friendly, beautiful, pregnant female residents. Strangeness leads to growing horror as the plucky traveler begins to uncover the many dark secrets behind the town's happy façade. The author weaves together subject matter from many of Lovecraft's better known stories, especially The Shadow Over Innsmouth, Herbert West - Reanimator and Colour Out of Space, with some Cthulhu mythos thrown in for good measure. It's a grisly romp but without the brilliance of the master of horror himself, Lovecraft.
I had a hard time getting through this book (putting it aside for long periods of time while I read other material) and will probably skip the other novels in this series. There is definitely something foreign between the Communist Chinese and Western style. It's hard to put a finger on it, but it was just difficult for my Western mind to really enjoy the concepts in the book. It was just too bizarre and unsatisfying. Some think this is a very frightening story of a coming Earth invasion in which the invaders have managed to destroy the very advancement in Earth science prior to the invaders physically being able to reach Earth. But, for me, I just couldn't take the concept seriously and most of the characters seemed very two dimensional and unappealing living in their very hive-like Communist world. I wound up asking myself “Who are the real aliens here?”
After many years of seeing various movie adaptations of Dracula or movies loosely based upon the story, it was refreshing to finally read the original. Delving into the classical language and customs, especially between men and women, from a bygone era is always quite interesting and while many might find reading such classics difficult, I rather enjoy such writings. I found the other two novels, The Jewel of the Seven Stars and The Lair of the White Worm equally intriguing. I was also impressed with the variety of subject matters of Stoker's several short stories found at the end of the book; the last story The Dualists: Or the Death-Doom of the Double-Born especially. It is a rather flippantly narrated tale of two psychopathic youths that provides a shudder or two.
Area X is expanding, taking with it the Southern Reach border facility and its occupants. And, like an infection, the locations where the copies of the surveyor and the anthropologist appeared are also becoming part of Area X. The copy of the biologist, Ghost Bird, and Control have passed into Area X though an entry point created by Ghost Bird. In flashbacks the story of perhaps how the phenomena came into being is slowly revealed and how the lives of the psychologist, the lighthouse keeper, Control's secret-agent mother, Control's maternal secret-agent grandfather, the lone survivor of the first expedition, and two enigmatic people from a group called the Science and Séance Brigade are intertwined in that story. We also follow Ghost Bird and Control within Area X as they travel toward the island and through their characters learn more secrets, find more unanswerable questions and experience more horror.
VanderMeer, in his writing, is able to bring about a feeling of true alien otherness in which the characters in the story can never hope to understand or deal with Area X in any humanly rational way. We receive hints that it is a piece of a larger whole escaping destruction and pulled into Earth existence intentionally through a secret scientific/alchemical experiment gone wrong. Does it come from the stars or does it exist in another time, place and/or dimension? Is it an area controlled by an alien entity (the tunnel/tower creeper)? Is the entire biome the entity? Is it an actual intelligence or is it made up of more than one intelligence? Is it trying to communicate, invade or is it simply indifferent in its existence? What it does do is change/absorb everyone and everything that it comes in contact with into itself through destruction and/or unfathomable mutation and mimicry.
Thirty-eight-year-old agent John Rodriguez, better known as “Control,” on a downward slide in his career, has been sent into the thirty-year-old Southern Reach facility as the new director and a “fixer” to try and get answers to Area X. Three of the women from the 12th expedition into Area X have suddenly appeared in various locations; the biologist, the anthropologist and the surveyor. The reader knows that from the original book the psychologist, the anthropologist and the surveyor were all killed in Area X and the biologist, who was going through transformation, decided to stay in Area X and travel further into its interior.
The Southern Reach has become a backwater secret facility, since in its thirty years of sending teams into Area X (many more than 12) nothing tangible has ever been learned. The staff has been reduced and the equipment in the creepy facility is aging or abandoned. The frustration, fear and losses of thirty years of fruitless efforts to understand Area X have taken their toll on the remaining staff. We learn that the missing psychologist from the last 12th expedition was the prior director of Southern Reach and, for unknown personal reasons, decided to join the 12th expedition into Area X.
As Control tries to get a better understanding of Southern Reach, the staff and Area X he always appears psychologically outmatched and stymied by the females that surround him, whether it be the uncooperative facility's assistant director; his main interest for information about Area X, the uncooperative biologist; or his domineering, but almost never present, secretive, high-ranking agent mother. And, he has to constantly check in with, and be harangued by, an enigmatic phone contact at Central (the CIA?) only known as the “Voice.”
The reader witnesses the events that take place at Southern Reach through the eyes, experiences and thoughts of Control as he attempts to figure out just what happened and is happening at the Southern Reach facility and begins to wonder if he, like the members of Area X expeditions, is just another pawn for Central in something larger.
The feel of John Langan's long, detailed, narratively driven Horror novel is very Lovecraftian. Veronica Croydon's tale, she being the younger member of the May/December marriage between herself and the missing professor Roger Croydon, reminds one of a Lovecraft story in which the narrator relates a horrific event or situation that happened to a friend or colleague (or in this case husband) that the narrator witnessed and took part in. Like in Lovecraft stories, the reader is given a glimpse into another, almost indescribably dark reality or dimension that the character(s) have unfortunately opened a way into. Langan doesn't rush the reader through Veronica's tale of her husband's disappearance, but slowly lets the horror build with all its many faceted details. A short excerpt from the book gives you some idea of what I'm talking about. “I had more information than I knew what to do with. Alcoholic painter-shamans; magic formulae for bringing houses to some kind of weird life; malevolent entities offering sinister deals; ghosts trapped who knew where by paternal curses; strange visions and sensations; and, to cap it all off, a spirit map; I wasn't living one horror story; I was the screaming heroine in a B-movie marathon.” The reader must me patient because Veronica has a lot of ground to cover, but it's a long, strange trip well worth travelling to its final dark destination.
This was a short, quick Science Fiction read. While the plot and characters were interesting, the story never broke any new ground for me, an avid Sci-Fi reader. Some of the plot points and characters reminded me of the streaming series The Expanse (I haven't read the books). The four main characters are Saga, Michel, Wei and Gregor. Wei (the corporate connection) and her pilot Gregor (a belter) have hired hacker husband and wife team Michel and Saga to go with them on their ship, the Sigurd, to the abandoned huge luxury space-liner, the Martian Queen, on an illegal salvage mission. The ship floats in the space lanes somewhere around the outer planets in the solar system and Michel and Saga consider it will be a big score if they can carry off the mission. But nothing seems to go right once Michel and Saga have entered and breached the ship's systems. Saga receives the heartbreaking news that her mother has died out of her reach back on Earth and being able to afford new treatments for her mother's illness was the main reason she had agreed to do the mission. Following this tragic news, Saga's grief and guilt puts a strain on her relationship with Michel. Saga and Michel soon learn that Wei has been keeping secrets about the Martian Queen mission from them while at the same time Wei becomes ever more paranoid and controlling. Gregor is a melancholy alcoholic who wanders the corridors of the ship and stays in a state of inebriation once he comes across some leftover liquor in the ship's bar. Weird things begin to accelerate aboard the supposedly abandoned ship with its creepy reanimated server bots and when Gregor is found dead and then appears to be resurrected for a deadly purpose, tensions mount. Finally, as the danger continues to spiral out of control Saga will be forced to make a life-changing decision in order to save the lives of her husband and Wei and stop a threat that could endanger the lives of everyone in the solar system.
This book finishes the tale of the “idyllic” town of Wayward Pines located in a mountainous Idaho valley. As the story progressed from the first book reveal, it reminded me in some ways of H. G. Wells' Time Machine. In this case the few hundred residents of Wayward Pines are a bit like the Eloi and the world outside the valley that of the Moorlocks. But here the people of Wayward Pines are kept in the dark by the psychopathic leader that put them into their situation and rules over them like a demented god. When Ethan Burke, now acting as town sheriff, takes a big gamble and decides to reveal to the town's population the truth about Wayward Pines, it sets in motion a series of events that will lead to the town's destruction and the deaths of most of its inhabitants. That leaves the final question to be answered “Is there any way out for the remaining inhabitants of Wayward Pines?” Even though this story included some sappy love story drama that really didn't add much to the tale, the basic imaginative core of the story and the many action sequences had me racing through pages ‘til the end.
Another thriller from Blake Crouch with a wild, bizarre ending. I only took away one star for the over-the-top physical endurance displayed by the main character, Secret Service Agent Ethan Burke. I just couldn't accept that any human being could take the physical punishment this character went through and still be able to function. Otherwise, the way Crouch builds up and slowly unveils the mystery surrounding the Idaho town of Wayward Pines kept me furiously turning pages.
This was my first introduction to Philip Fracassi's writing. These short Horror stories were very well written in the style of Stephen King with well developed characters and truly horrific imaginative ideas. Like Stephen King, Fracassi understands the world of children and young people in the stories where such characters are the main protagonists. Perhaps my favorites in this anthology are “Altar,” “The Baby Farmer,” “Mother,” “Fail-Safe,” and “Mandala.” Many of the characters, like most people, are flawed. Some have drinking problems, some have fallen into infidelity, some are careless or non-caring, some are susceptible or broken, but they could be you or someone you know living everyday lives until the “dark” reaches out and grabs them. In Fracassi's Horror universe monsters may not always be supernatural and both human and supernatural acts of horror may coexist within the parameters of the story. In most cases the final outcome is dire or left open to the reader's imagination, but Fracassi does allow for redemption in the final, nail-biting tale “Mandala.” A truly satisfying Horror anthology read.
This second book in the Commonwealth Saga reveals that the Starflyer alien entity from the ancient crashed ship, named the Mary Celeste and found on the planet Faraway, actually exists. It is this hidden-in-the-shadows enemy that has infiltrated the Commonwealth's galactic society for centuries and through its controlled human agents, has brought about the mutually destructive war between the released Dyson Alpha Prime species and the Commonwealth. Old Commonwealth enemies must now come together in the fight to stop the Starflyer from returning to its refurbished spacecraft on Faraway and escape to continue its own deadly quest to conquer known inhabited space.
While sometimes slow in parts, this huge book, with an almost overwhelming cast of characters, was able to keep my interest until the spectacular, action-packed conclusion. Peter F. Hamilton has created a very imaginative and descriptively detailed version of a far-off multi-planet spacefaring society in which interactions between enhanced humans and other alien species is a given. Part detective story, part Sci-Fi action-packed thriller, and with just a hint of fantasy, the Commonwealth saga is well worth the read for those who enjoy well-written space opera fare.
Even though this huge book ended on a cliffhanger, it was one of the best Sci-Fi books I've read in a long time. The Commonwealth is another tale of multi-planet human civilization set far in the future. It uniquely mixes together imaginative qualities of Frank Herbert's Dune, Isaac Asimov's Foundation and Dan Simmons' Hyperion. The core of the plot hinges on the discovery of highly advanced Dyson Spheres suddenly enveloping two star systems hundreds of light years away and the tragic cascade of events that occur when humanity builds and sends a special ship with its crew to investigate (hence the opening of Pandora's box). But there is so much more detail to the story, with its many well-developed characters, that includes the concept of life regeneration and body enhancement; practical wormhole travel, trade and communication between hundreds of unique worlds; a super AI assistant that inhabits its own world; interactions with truly strange known alien races; political manipulation and intrigue; and an over a century old, ongoing detective investigation into the terrorist activities of a group trying to stop what they believe is a shadowy alien entity, released from an ancient derelict spacecraft, manipulating humanity towards its own destruction, and who just may be right.
This was a short read of three horror short stories and my introduction to Adam Nevill's writing. The main connection running throughout the three stories deals with creepy haunted houses. The first story “Where Angels Come In” doesn't have much to do with angels, but has Lovecraftian undertones in that the main protagonist has been touched and horribly damaged by his encounter with something not of this world that is centered on a cursed house in his town. He relates his horrific tale to another damaged survivor of an encounter with the house, an old crone. The second story “The Ancestors” is for those creeped out by tales of haunted dolls and toys. It is told from the perspective of a little girl whose down-on-their-luck parents have moved into a house, ignorant of what evil lies within. The spirit within the house plays upon the innocence of the child who at night is drawn into the world of evil by a creepy, otherworldly playmate who seems to be the leader of an animated toy assembly. This is no happy “Toy Story” tale. The third story “Florrie” is a tale of possession in which a young man's dreams of renovating the old fixer upper he has just purchased will simply not be allowed to come to fruition by the spirit of the former owner who likes things just the way they are. These stories were quite chilling with definite beginnings, middles and ends, but also leave the reader with open-ended questions that make such writing so weirdly satisfying for those who enjoy horror.
If you've read John Scalzi's “The Last Colony” then this will be a rehash of that tale. However, now we live that story through the eyes of John and Jane's adopted teenage daughter Zoe. Even though I knew the outcome of the tale I found Zoe's teenage perspective interesting and the banter between her and her other teenage friends often amusing. This story has many emotionally uplifting and sad parts as well. And, Scalzi filled in some gaps that were missing from the original story. Now we learn more about the “werewolf” species that killed some members of the Roanoke colony. Now we know what happened when Zoe was sent away from the Roanoke colony on a mission to meet with the Conclave leader General Gau. My only slight criticism is that Zoe comes across a bit OP at times. I had put this book aside for a bit while I delved into some horror novels, but when I returned to the book, I ripped right through it. So, I recommend it for anyone following the “Old Man's War” series.
These are truly strange stories but I can't really say I enjoyed reading this anthology of Robert Aickman's works. As was mentioned in the Afterword by Jean Richardson, Aikman's style of writing has the feel of having been written by someone from the late 19th or early 20th century, even though it is made clear that one of the stories is set after WWII, “The Clock Watcher.” This is not always bad, and very Lovecraftian, except when the writer, through the story's characters, embellishes or drones on upon minor occurrences or details that don't appear to add any substance to the meat of the story (perhaps I'm just missing some symbolic significance). The thing I'm finding reading much of strange fiction is that though the stories are somewhat unsettling, they never seem to go anywhere. It's often frustrating. The one exception in this anthology would be “Pages From a Young Girl's Journal”; a vampire story told from the naïve written perspective of the vampire's young, and I might say parentally neglected, victim. Its significance is that, with tweaking, the story could be written as an account from the diary of a pedophile victim from today. However, in the majority of cases the protagonists seem to be overly self absorbed and strange in their own right. One wonders if they are in need of psychiatric help and if what befalls them or what they experience is just a manifestation of their own psychosis. Okay, that's strange, but strange and weird happenings can really grip a reader when the main protagonist is relatable to the reader. I just didn't find that here and so the weirdness in a way felt false.
We learned in the first Alex Hunter book that Hunter's physical abilities and senses were mysteriously enhanced when he survived a Russian agent's bullet to the brain, the bullet's location making it too dangerous to be removed. Hunter then became part of the Arcadian project in which his abilities were studied and scientifically enhanced even further. He is a type of super-hero berserker soldier, like a cross between Captain America, The Hulk and Dr. Strange. He and his HAWC team are reserved for the most dangerous covert American military missions, and so far their missions have brought them up against Lovecraftian monstrous entities as well as human enemies.
In this story, an Iranian scientist has stumbled upon a way to open a black hole in a covert underground facility. The first time this happens, in a nanosecond the laboratory is destroyed, personnel disappear and a huge burst of gamma radiation is released. Horribly mutilated bodies of some of the irradiated personnel appear in various parts of the world and the burst of gamma radiation has alerted detectors in the United States and Israel.
Hunter, men from his HAWC team, members of Mossad, led by a tough and beautiful female Mossad officer, and a nerdy Israeli scientist are tasked with the mission to either capture or destroy the technology that created the strange gamma burst in Iran. Unbeknownst to both sides is that the black hole, while open, has sucked into the Iranian desert a monstrous creature from some other place and this creature finds humans very appetizing.
The story is action packed and bloody. My biggest complaint about such stories comes from my personal standing on current world geopolitics. The Iranian leaders have to be portrayed as radical religious fanatics. The United States and Israel must be the good guys stopping the Iranian fanatics from destroying the world, and so it is just okay to drop into a sovereign country and create havoc. In such two dimensional writing the story must be written in a way to present the current propaganda narrative without any nuance. I can only give this three stars for the action, especially with the creature.
This story has all the makings of a big special effects Sci-Fi/Horror movie. Alex Hunter is more than just another special forces soldier after surviving being shot in the head by a Russian enemy. The inoperable bullet still lodged in his brain inexplicably has awakened formerly unused parts of his brain, heightening his strength, his senses and his recuperating abilities, but also leading to bouts of rage that he must learn to control. He's like Doc Savage on steroids (yes, he even ends up bare chested by the end).
When a small private jet crashes and punches a hole in the Antarctic ice a team of scientists and military is sent in to look for survivors and explore the opening, but soon disappears without a trace. Alex, along with a few of his hand picked men and another scientific team, equipped with specialized gear and weaponry, is sent in to see what has happened to the first team and as a side mission to look for oil under the Antarctic ice.
What they discover in labyrinthine caves under the ice is an ancient world of deadly creatures that may have wiped out one of the first post Atlantis civilizations. To make matters worse, a covert team of Russians has been sent in after them, led by the vicious assassin who put the bullet in Alex's brain. They are there to steal any uncovered oil secrets and murder all in Alex's group.
What follows is a race for survival in the deep caves under the Antarctic ice with assassins pursuing from behind and a large, intelligent, very hungry, Lovecraftian creature stalking everyone who entered the cave system. It's touch and go as members of Alex's team are picked off one by one in the frantic race to try and reach the surface and safety.
While typical of the genre, the story kept me turning pages to reach the big finish ending. With the creature, or one like it, now appearing to have been released from its Antarctic tomb, I'll have to check out the next adventure of super soldier Alex Hunter, and I'm sure his Russian nemesis will be dogging him along the way.
Like many others I am drawn to Lovecraft and Lovecraftian stories. This is my first dive into Laird Barron's work, having come across others recommending it as some of the better Lovecraftian weird fiction. Laird Barron is quite the wordsmith, detailed in descriptive prose to say the least (perhaps overly so), but for the most part I found his character creations loathsome and their story arcs unsatisfying. Having some simpatico with the main protagonists in a story makes what happens to them more gut wrenching and that just doesn't happen here. Barron is very capable of building up dark dread, but never delivers the final punch in any satisfactory way. I often left with a feeling of frustration bordering on a headache finishing some of the stories in this anthology. Perhaps that is what the author is going for and, if so, he has succeeded.
Like the first two Black Wings anthologies the stories within are a mixed bag, however there are enough really weird tales to make the book worth reading. Some of the short stories I found most to my liking were: Richard Gavin's The Hag Stone, Donald Tyson's Waller, Jason V. Brock's The Man With The Horn and Brian Stableford's Further Beyond. I'm not too keen on the stories that have deviant sexual ideas or themes. It's not that I am a prude but I don't think of such stories as very Lovecraftian.
In this third book in the Old Man's War series we now find John Perry and Jane Sagan following their time in military service and, along with their adopted daughter Zoë, now living as colonists on an established Colonial Union colony planet. They are living a peaceful farming life but that will soon end when they are contacted by a military officer from the Colonial Union and tagged to become the leaders setting up a new human colony on the planet named Roanoke. What will be different about the new colony is that its 2500 colonists will be made up of members from other established rival CU colony worlds and not from Earth. To make things even more interesting, 400 alien races have joined together to form the Conclave of planets and have made it clear that they will not allow any other race that is not part of the Conclave to form any new colonies. When John and Jane decide to accept the challenge of starting the new colony they will find that the CU has not been completely honest with them about the world they are being sent to or about the Conclave and its activities. They will soon find themselves caught in the middle of an interstellar conflict and with their colony on Roanoke at the center of that conflict. Like the previous two novels in the series there are many twists and turns with lots of action, making this another page-turner.
As the title indicates this second book in the Old Man's War series focuses on the Special Forces of the Colonial Defense Forces (CDF) of the Colonial Union known as the Ghost Brigades. As we learned in the first book, unlike the regular CDF forces who are taken from Earth's elder population, volunteers that sign up for off-world military service for a second chance at a youthful, enhanced existence, the Ghost Brigades are generated from the DNA of volunteers who died before they could become regular CDF soldiers. With generated personalities and even greater enhancements the Ghost Brigades from day one are created solely to be supreme military fighters and they and their missions are, for the most part, kept separate from the CDF regulars. Both CDF regulars and the Ghost Brigades are sent out to protect human colonists on worlds threatened by various alien races and most of their ranks never live to finish their term of service. And, even if they make it to the end of their period of service, they may never return to Earth.
We met one of those Special Forces soldiers in the first book, Jane Sagan, who was generated from the DNA of the dead wife of the main character in that book, John Perry, a CDF regular. When it is discovered that a traitorous CU scientist has escaped, leaving a dead clone of himself as a deception and working with three alien races to defeat the CU forces, which could possibly lead to the extinction of humanity, Jane Sagan and her Special Forces team is brought in to lead a dangerous mission to recapture the scientist and defeat the alien plot.
A kink in the mission is that Jane must use and watch a new member of her team, Jared Dirac, who was created from the DNA of the dead clone of the traitorous scientist Charles Boutin and whose consciousness was experimentally downloaded into the new soldier. Wanting to know what had made Charles Boutin turn traitor and where he fled to, the experiment to try and recreate Charles Boutin so he could be interrogated didn't appear to work and Jared Dirac develops his own personality and becomes a good Special Forces soldier. However, as time goes on memories from Charles Boutin begin to creep into Jared's consciousness. Through their integrated Brain-pals Jane must keep watch on Jared to make sure he remains loyal to the mission and eliminate him if he starts to show the same traitorous tendencies as Charles Boutin.
As in the first book the action is non-stop and there are new surprising reveals about the Colonial Union and its never ending conflicts with alien races, raising many questions. These reveals will most certainly be further delved into in the next book in the series.
John Scalzi thanks and acknowledges Robert A. Heinlein at the end of this book and I can understand why. Although I've never read Heinlein's Starship Troopers (I must correct that at some point), the movie based on his story is one of my favorites. I couldn't help but think of the film Starship Troopers while reading this book. But what a clever twist on the interstellar warfare theme where old people get a chance for a new life by joining the Colonial Defense Force fighters for not less than 2 and very likely a 10 year hitch, and where the vast majority of them will never survive to the end of their term of service. And, if they do manage to survive they may never return to Earth again. The description of advanced technologies both biological and technological (kept secret from the general Earth population by the CDF) along with fantastical descriptions of various intelligent alien enemy races is fascinating, but the story told from the viewpoint of 75 year old widower John Perry and his experiences from raw recruit to blooded veteran contains a lot of heart also. For instance, what would ensue from a chance encounter with your dead wife who really isn't your wife? There is never a dull moment in this page-turner.
This was an exciting story about one Norwegian Viking long ship crew and its ordeal in an Ireland of long past. When during a storm at sea the Viking ship leaders and their men make the decision to attack a smaller Irish vessel for plunder they are surprised to find that the Irish men on board are well equipped fighting men and all fight to the last man. But not much in the way of plunder is found on the boat until Thorgrim Ulfsson (known as Thorgrim Night Wolf) finds a gold bejeweled crown. The crown of the three kingdoms was to be delivered to one of the minor Irish kings in order for him to gain the right to unite the minor kings under his reign. Sensing that the crown can bring them bad luck, Thorgrim and his father-in-law and leader, Ornolf Hrafnsson, make the decision to bury the crown along the shore until they can return at a later time to retrieve it. Having knowledge of the crown will be the cause of much adventure, suffering and death among the Viking crew when they make port in Dubh-Linn, not knowing that rival Nordic Danes have taken over the port from the Norwegians. There is much subterfuge and swordplay among the rival powers of the Irish, Danes, and Norwegians as they all vie for the crown of the three kingdoms. And, there is always time for some lovemaking with strong-minded fair maidens that the Vikings encounter along the way. It is a rousing historically-based fictional tale from the violent past that would make for a great movie.