Welcome to the Vikingverse!
The Vikingverse series is a NorsePlay of stellar proportions, epic in scope & reframing, written in two books and one graphic novel by Ian Stuart Sharpe.
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| [Marines at Iwo Jima? No, Space Vikings raising the Raven Banner!] |
The only thing I can literarily compare this to is Kim Newman's Anno Dracula series, where a certain event changes the landscape of history to the present day, except instead vampires becoming societally dominant, it's Vikings instead.
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| [Empress Trumba is based on a certain president ... !] |
The in-use of the Norse Lore is deep, and feels like it's been written for the Norse Lore hound by a Norse Lore hound, and at times I marveled at how much was drawn & woven into the Vikingverse by this, and conversely wondered how much was probably lost or rendered less effective for readers with less Eddaic & saga background. At the end of the day, I don't think one's required to have read the sources to enjoy the Vikingverse, but if you have, your enjoyment of it will increase nine-fold.
Stylewise, the Vikingverse is a sophisticated & varied construct. Sometimes written more like passages of a history text, this technical conceit makes it feel true, as if there's a world next door where this all happens, which as things unfold was likely the author's intention. When switching to character focused prose, there's a close third person with internal thoughts. And like Icelanders going to court in the Sagas, there's a fair amount of Byzantine maneuvering in the plot given the politics of empire, except here it's a Viking Empire, and that means swords at your hip and accountably deadly consequences for what you say -- something even beyond the historical grithstead peacekeeping rule that supposedly (mostly) guarded against violence at parliamentary functions.
While driving to & from Southwest Frith Moot, I had the pleasure of listening to Keith Leo O'Brien's nuanced & dramatic reading of The All Father Paradox (2018 CE) and sequel Loki's Wager (2020 CE), yet part of me wondered what engaging the text instead would've been like had I read the two as books, though I found them utterly evocative in their world-building, and it was supercool for a roadtrip.
Later reading The Jötunn War graphic novel (2021 CE), originally a crowdfunded four-issue comic, I found that perhaps my internal visualizations from the novels seemed to outstrip some of the artists' style & decisions, but the writing fills-in some portions within the novels nicely, and for a reader less familiar with say Warhammer 40K material, the depictions will be a treat anyhow.
Details from the Vikingverse include drakkar-based spaceships, Skald Vilhjalmr Shakageirr & Scientist Aðalbriktr Einnsteinen (OMGs, see what he did there?!?), Old Norse-isms (†) peppering the text, the bio-physics of Yggdrasil, genetic engineering, and way, way, way more that you won't even anticipate in terms of technology and plot.
Normally NorsePlay politely forewarns and then writes merciless spoilers since such examinations are more important to critical thought than commercial or receptive preservation, but the Vikingverse is an exception to this. I loved the Vikingverse so much, it's understately my new favourite thing, and I cannot bring myself to spoil it for anyone, and can safely say it's saga-riffic & brutally brilliant. And given how broadly NorsePlay casts its nets into the ever-widening Vikingsphere of media, that's quite an endorsement. Go buy it and enjoy.
(† -- Note that there's a Vikingverse adjacent book by Sharpe, Old Norse For Modern Times, which I've ordered this week. While NorsePlay already strives to craft neologisms and re-imbue Old Norse into today's language, I'm pretty excited to see how this frasabók can help out, especially given how clever Sharpe was at slipping so many words in.]
Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there was something special in the Norse Lore when he picked up a copy of the d'Aulaires' Norse Gods and Giants at age seven. Since then he's been fascinated by the truthful potency of Norse Mythology, passionately read & studied, embraced Ásatrú, launched the Map of Midgard project, and spearheaded the neologism/brand NorsePlay. If you have employment/opportunities in investigative mythology, field research, or product development to offer, do contact him.
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