Note: I know the author of this book socially, and I received an advance reader copy in exchange for a fair and honest review.
As someone who loves historical fiction, I was extremely excited when a friend of mine started working on a Viking saga many years ago. In a novel which spans many lands and characters, the broader narratives of power and conquest are told primarily through the experiences of a brother and sister, Ragnvald and Svanhild, and how their lives intersect with Solvi, the son of a king. Ragnvald is betrayed within the first chapter by Solvi and then learns that this was the result of a far larger betrayal carried out by his stepfather Olaf and by Solvi's father, one of the many kings of small holdings of land throughout Norway. Ragnvald is determined to take back the land and status he considers to be rightfully his, but he must weigh his desire for revenge against the shifting tides of allegiance among the various rulers of the land. This personal struggle plays out against the larger reality that Harald, one of the kings in question, has far greater ambition than to simply rule a small part of Norway: he wants to rule it all.
Ragnvald's experience is contrasted with Svanhild's constrained life as a woman, and in particular as a woman with no living father and no brother present to help protect her. She makes brave and often reckless choices in order to avoid an untenable fate for herself, and her decisions result in her being at odds with her own brother at times. I really loved her journey, especially given that at various points Ragnvald bears more than a passing resemblance to Hamlet: he almost always knows what he wants to do, but often his sense of obligation and honor and self-preservation prevents him from taking that action. He is very conscious of what the long-term consequences of his actions might be, and what his place in a world ruled by Harald would be (and what it would be if Harald fails), and he sometimes hesitates when he would be better served to act (and vice versa). Svanhild, on the other hand, doesn't have the luxury of such contemplation, which makes her arc incredibly vibrant and unpredictable as well.
The POV of this novel also manages to walk a very tricky line of presenting the religious and, at times, supernatural beliefs of the culture as being real to the characters, while not making a judgment for the reader as to the truth of them. I really liked that approach, and I felt it worked extremely well for this particular story and world. It allowed me to simply accept their reality without questioning my own interpretations of events, which never disrupted the flow of the story.
One of the things I love most about reading historical fiction is the opportunity to learn about various historical periods and cultures that I know very little about. The Half-Drowned King drops you right into the middle of its tale, and the reader is left to swim their way to shore, much like the titular character. That isn't a complaint, by the way; I found the experience of genuinely not having a sense of where the narrative was going to be fascinating. I didn't have a level of familiarity with Viking culture in the 9th century to know what was likely to happen, and I definitely didn't want to google the real life inspirations for many of these characters and events and inadvertently spoil myself. Preventing myself from doing so will be even more difficult as I wait for the second and third novels of the trilogy, but I am positive that my patience will be rewarded in the end.
Grade: A
As someone who loves historical fiction, I was extremely excited when a friend of mine started working on a Viking saga many years ago. In a novel which spans many lands and characters, the broader narratives of power and conquest are told primarily through the experiences of a brother and sister, Ragnvald and Svanhild, and how their lives intersect with Solvi, the son of a king. Ragnvald is betrayed within the first chapter by Solvi and then learns that this was the result of a far larger betrayal carried out by his stepfather Olaf and by Solvi's father, one of the many kings of small holdings of land throughout Norway. Ragnvald is determined to take back the land and status he considers to be rightfully his, but he must weigh his desire for revenge against the shifting tides of allegiance among the various rulers of the land. This personal struggle plays out against the larger reality that Harald, one of the kings in question, has far greater ambition than to simply rule a small part of Norway: he wants to rule it all.
Ragnvald's experience is contrasted with Svanhild's constrained life as a woman, and in particular as a woman with no living father and no brother present to help protect her. She makes brave and often reckless choices in order to avoid an untenable fate for herself, and her decisions result in her being at odds with her own brother at times. I really loved her journey, especially given that at various points Ragnvald bears more than a passing resemblance to Hamlet: he almost always knows what he wants to do, but often his sense of obligation and honor and self-preservation prevents him from taking that action. He is very conscious of what the long-term consequences of his actions might be, and what his place in a world ruled by Harald would be (and what it would be if Harald fails), and he sometimes hesitates when he would be better served to act (and vice versa). Svanhild, on the other hand, doesn't have the luxury of such contemplation, which makes her arc incredibly vibrant and unpredictable as well.
The POV of this novel also manages to walk a very tricky line of presenting the religious and, at times, supernatural beliefs of the culture as being real to the characters, while not making a judgment for the reader as to the truth of them. I really liked that approach, and I felt it worked extremely well for this particular story and world. It allowed me to simply accept their reality without questioning my own interpretations of events, which never disrupted the flow of the story.
One of the things I love most about reading historical fiction is the opportunity to learn about various historical periods and cultures that I know very little about. The Half-Drowned King drops you right into the middle of its tale, and the reader is left to swim their way to shore, much like the titular character. That isn't a complaint, by the way; I found the experience of genuinely not having a sense of where the narrative was going to be fascinating. I didn't have a level of familiarity with Viking culture in the 9th century to know what was likely to happen, and I definitely didn't want to google the real life inspirations for many of these characters and events and inadvertently spoil myself. Preventing myself from doing so will be even more difficult as I wait for the second and third novels of the trilogy, but I am positive that my patience will be rewarded in the end.
Grade: A
