Publication Date: May 26, 2015
Blank Slate Press
Formats: eBook,
Trade Paperback
Pages: 400
Genre: Historical Fiction
Driven from the flaming ruin of his Iceland farmhouse, young Odd Tangle-Hair, the only survivor of a feud in which his family is slaughtered, steals a ship, rounds up a rag-tag crew and embarks on the Viking life. He swears one day to return, rich and powerful enough to take vengeance on his enemies.
But how far off that day seems!
His father, Black Thorvald, had once been a chieftain in Iceland. But in the year 1000, when the country adopted Christianity, Thorvald denounced the new faith and shut himself up in his hall, shunning the world and shunned by it. Odd fears that the worm of cowardice that unmanned his father has infected him too. He has inherited from Thorvald a shock of black hair, a gift for poetry, and an allegiance to Odin, god of battles and magic. But Odd is heir to darker traits as well—a hint of madness and a temper which will sometimes cost him dearly.
Fate carries him and his men to a shamanistic healer in Lapland, to bloody religious strife in Norway, to the lair of a witch in Finland, and finally to the borders of Russia. Here Odd will leave his comrades behind to join the retinue of a Norwegian princeling who is fleeing to the court of Yaroslav, Grand Prince of Rus. New dangers wait for him in that faraway country.
Eager, curious, quick-witted—and sometimes wrong-headed—Odd Tangle-Hair recounts his story with candor, insight, and always an ironic sense of humor.
Odin's Child Available at
Praise for Odin's Child
“Meticulous research and poetic writing make Odin's Child a multilayered masterpiece...It brings medieval Scandinavia vividly alive. Written with passion, peopled with superbly realized characters, I was gripped from the very first page of this historical novel.” -Carol McGrath, author of The Handfasted Wife and The Swan-Daughter
“[Macbain’s] writing is vivid and compelling, and his understanding of Norse and Icelandic culture and history is woven deftly throughout the tale. The cast of characters is well-fleshed out and Odd makes for a wonderful protagonist. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, and I eagerly await its sequel. Highly recommended.” -Historical Novels Review, Editor’s Choice
Excerpt from Chapter 1: The Stallion Fight At Thingholt
On that day in May, as we rode to the stallion fight at Thingholt, my fate showed itself to me. A raven flew low across the sky into the rising sun and the moment I saw it I knew that Odin had spoken to me and that he would give me courage for the thing I had secretly made up my mind to do.
Only now, half a century later, do I see what a long text was folded into that swift vision.
The spring of my sixteenth year had come early to the South Quarter of Iceland, with hot-cold days and thunderclouds sweeping up over the mountains. The stallions, smelling the air, trembled and kicked against their stalls. At this season if you stake out a mare where the stallions can smell her, they will fight like berserkers to get at her, and a great one will die before he breaks and runs.
Black Grani was such a one. This was his fourth spring and the time had come to bring him to the South Quarter Thing and fight him. Thorvald, my father, grumbled and held back, but I gave him no peace, until, at last, he flung up an arm, which meant 'yes'.
Although my brother Gunnar and I had set out early from the farm, the day was far gone before we came in sight of Thingholt plain and heard the distant shouts of men and the whinnying of horses.
We left Grani and our mounts at the horse lines and walked across the sparse heath into the holiday crowd. And as we pushed our way through, there were some who knew us. A few old men came up and in low voices asked to be remembered to our father. But one red-faced woman, seeing us, cried, "Jesu!" and dragged her little daughter from our path.
Interview Q and A
Tell
me a little about the setting and characters of “Odin’s Child”.
“Odin’s Child” is set in the Viking world of
the 11th century, at a time when Christianity was triumphing
everywhere over heathenism. But my hero (the book’s narrator), Odd Tangle-Hair,
is a stubborn young pagan who refuses to convert. Everything that happens to
him subsequently stems from that fact, especially from his intense love-hate
relationship with his heathen father,
Black Thorvald.
Why
did you decide to make a pagan your hero?
For dramatic reasons. In the same way
that I suppose Margaret Mitchell, in Gone
with the Wind, chose to make her hero and heroine Southerners. When you tell
a story about a clash of cultures where there is a winner and a loser, and the
losers know they’re doomed yet struggle
on, that is always where you find the drama and pathos. Winners are boring,
losers engage our emotions.
What
sort of person is Odd Tangle-Hair? You have called him “a thinking man’s
Viking.” What do you mean by that?
He is a complex
mixture of good and bad traits. From his
father Black Thorvald he has inherited (besides his black, shaggy hair and
powerful build) a strain of melancholy—even of madness—and a sometimes
ungovernable temper, which gets him into trouble. I’m sure he is the only
fictional Viking you will ever meet who suffers from PTSD! On the other hand,
he has a good heart, is a loyal friend, and is brave and resourceful, as a hero
should be. He is also a gifted poet and a natural linguist. He is curious, inquisitive,
and he reasons about every new thing that comes his way.
Who
is your target audience for this novel?
Well, naturally, anyone who likes
historical fiction, especially of the Dark Age. In particular, though, I’m
hoping that modern heathens will like the book. There are quite a few of them
around. They have dozens of online communities and several interesting
websites. I reached out to them with a query asking them to tell me why they
converted to heathenism from whatever they were brought up as. I got back some
very heartfelt and thoughtful responses. You can read about it on my blog, www.brucemacbain.blogspot.com .
You
have a doctorate in Greek and Roman history and
your two previous novels were mysteries set in ancient Rome; what made
you switch to the Vikings now?
I think I owe it all to Prince Valiant.
You’re probably not old enough to remember that wonderful strip from back in
the golden age of comics. The art work by the great Hal Foster was fantastic,
teeming with Vikings, barbarians, Arthurian knights, and what-have-you. I grew up on it. And I have an
autographed drawing Prince Val by Foster, given to my father, which hangs on my
wall now, right above my computer. You can see a photo of it on my blog too.
Say
something about the research you did for “Odin’s Child” and the other books in
the Odd Tangle-Hair trilogy.
The starting point for any Viking novel
has to be the literature of Medieval Iceland: the sagas, which recount the
family feuds and battles of those early Icelanders, and the Eddas, which are
collections of myths, poems, and wise sayings. Even though these works are a
century or more removed from the time they purport to describe, they are still
the best—really the only—source for details of daily life, beliefs, and
attitudes of the Viking Age.
“Odin’s
Child” takes place in Iceland, Lapland, Norway, and Finland. Where does Odd go
next?
The second novel, The Ice Queen, takes Odd (and his one-legged friend, Einar
Tree-Foot) to Russia to serve in the retinue of young prince Harald the
Ruthless. (This will be published in November). The concluding novel, The Guardsman, will take Odd to Golden
Miklagard, that is, Constantinople, where he joins the famed Varangian Guard of
the Byzantine emperor. And then, finally, back to Iceland again, where he
started from.
There
are elements in your story that read like fantasy: for example a berserker who
is half wolf, a sorceror and a witch, and prophetic dreams. Would you call this
a fantasy novel?
No, it sneaks right up to the line but
doesn’t cross it. Odd, of course, as a man of his time, believes in the
supernatural, but he is also enough of a rationalist to always hint at a more
mundane explanation for uncanny events. So
the reader can take his choice.
You’ve
written academic history as well as fiction; which kind of writing do you
prefer?
Oh, fiction is much more fun—but harder.
You have to do all the same research for both but with fiction you’re not
allowed to be boring.
When
you write fiction, is your inner historian ever at war with your inner
novelist?
All the time. When I ‘bend’ a fact
(shall we say) in a novel in order to make the story better, I always battle
with my conscience.
So,
if you do ‘bend’ a fact here and there, what do you think is your responsibility
to the reader?
To come clean. A reader is entitled to
know what he has or hasn’t learned of actual history. Mind you, ‘actual
history’ has to be put in quotes when we’re talking about the Viking Age. The
sources are half-fiction to begin with. But I always include an author’s note
at the end of my books confessing to whatever sins I know I committed.
Can
you name one or two authors who have influenced your style?
I love nineteenth century
fiction—Dickens above all. I find him creeping stealthily into my writing if
I’m not careful. I really do struggle to keep that under control. And, too, I like modern authors who sound
nineteenth century such as Patrick O’Brian (the Aubrey-Maturin novels) and
George MacDonald Fraser (the Flashman novels). I’ve learned a lot about writing
from all of them.
What
sort of things do you read for pleasure? Is your reading mostly confined to the
periods you write about?
No, anything but. I read a lot of
history and biography, mostly modern; and some contemporary fiction, including mysteries.
What
do you like to do in your spare time?
I actually don’t have a lot of spare
time, but I do like to cook. Every couple of weeks I will produce an
extravaganza for me and my wife, which usually involves seafood and dozens of
ingredients. It takes me all day and the kitchen is a shambles, but there are
plenty of leftovers.
About the Author
From boyhood, Bruce Macbain spent his days in reading history and historical fiction. The Greeks and Romans have held a special fascination for him and this led to earning a master’s degree in Classical Studies and a doctorate in Ancient History.
Along the way, he also taught English as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Borneo. Later, he taught courses in Greek and Roman civilization at Vanderbilt University and Boston University, and published a few dense scholarly monographs, read by very few.
Recently, he has turned to writing fiction, a much more congenial pursuit. He has previously published two historical mysteries set in ancient Rome, Roman Games and its sequel, The Bull Slayer. Now, he has turned his attention to his other favorite folk, the Vikings.
Odin's Child is the first novel of a trilogy, Odd Tangle-Hair’s Saga, which follows our hero—a wanderer, poet and warrior—from his tiny Iceland farm to the Great Palace in Constantinople. It will be published by Blank Slate Press in May, 2015.
Bruce spends his spare time in the kitchen, cooking spicy food.
For more information please visit Bruce Macbain's
website. You can also follow him on
Facebook,
Twitter,
Google+, and
Goodreads.
Odin's Child Blog Tour Schedule
Monday, June 29
Review at
A Book Geek
Interview at
Shelf Full of Books
Spotlight & Giveaway at
Unshelfish
Tuesday, June 30
Interview at
Brooke Blogs
Wednesday, July 1
Review at
Book Nerd
Friday, July 3
Spotlight at
Layered Pages
Spotlight & Giveaway at
Teddy Rose Book Reviews Plus More
Monday, July 6
Interview at
A Literary Vacation
Tuesday, July 7
Spotlight & Giveaway at
Passages to the Past
Wednesday, July 8
Spotlight at
CelticLady's Reviews
Thursday, July 9
Review at
Bookramblings
Friday, July 10
Review at
Just One More Chapter
