The action has to speed up if Hadding, orphaned and raised in the wilderness, is to become a benign ruler through most of the narrative. Hardgreip is killed mysteriously. Hadding reaches the sea and laughs aloud. (He is the god of the sea.) He meets Gangleri whom we recognize:
tall
lean
wide-shouldered
blue cloak flapping in the wind
wide-brimmed, face-shadowing hat
long, wolf-gray hair and beard
long spear
empty left eye socket
cold blue right eye
two ravens flying nearby
eeriness
Hadding needs a following. Glangleri introduces him to a viking band. The rest is - not history, exactly.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
WAR OF THE GODS is not that LONG a book, Anderson knew how to both pack a lot into a relatively small text and to speed up the action.
And I knew at once WHO was "Gangleri"!
Just to show show what an Andersonian geek I am, I completely filled up a 200 pages composition book with notes more or less about Anderson and his works not that long ago, what I pretentiously called my CODEX ANDERSONIANUS. Then I wondered if I had anything more I could think of writing about from Anderson's works--and then started a SECOND volume of that CODEX, with another composition book.
I'm beginning that second volume with some notes and quotes from "Delenda Est" and IS THERE LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS? on the preconditions necessary before a true science could arise. There seems to be no end for material worthy of thought in Anderson's works!
Ad astra! Sean
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