The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson is amazing and I get all excited each and every time I pick it up. It’s a solid adventure story worthy of being read even by people who don’t get all knocked off kilter when it comes to Vikings. Michael Chabon thinks so, too, and he’s a lot better than me—not just in general, but also/especially when it comes to being taken seriously. He even wrote the introduction for the new version that was just released here in North America by New York Review Books.
Yes, that’s right! After many years of neglect, this book can finally be found in Vinlandic bookstores! It used to be that you could pretty much only get an English language version in Britain or in places that carried British imports (and it was a version that suffered tragically from some very unflattering cover artwork). This new version rectifies what was once a dire situation indeed.
Yes. The art has improved so much even the fellow viking featuring on the cover has a huge horn. There has been some dispute though whether the horn represented comes from the now extinct european bison or is some residual mammoth tusk sloughed from a scandinavian ice sheet. We have found that the resonance of a narwhal horn is far superior to either and the pointy end has some interesting functionality in other applications.
Cheers earslings.