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Feasting the Wolf
Book by Susan Price
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
39 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 2, 2010
Price has a knack for economically creating atmosphere so thick you could eat it. i suspect this and her other historical fiction for young readers would have sunk straight into my subconscious the way Sutcliff did, had i read them at the right age. even as an adult, very impressive.
February 7, 2011
My 10 year old son lent me this and it was very good. A great way to get an idea of the culture and social structure of the Vikings. I connected with the characters, while not particularly liking them. Definitely worth buying for your kids, brings history to life.
December 30, 2016
Though Ms. Price is not writing a pastiche of Poul Anderson’s Viking stories, her writing style compares favourably to The Grand Master. This should be no surprise to informed readers because this is very much a tale Poul Anderson might have told. It is simple in construction and vivid in descriptions. The simplicity here is a lesson stories of another prolific genre writer, Andrew Offutt, would have benefited from. A tale does not need to be serpentine to pull the reader along. It can be straightforward and rely on the skill of writers, like Anderson and Price, to engage the reader.
Old Norse traditions are masterfully shown rather than explained, which lifts this story high above the short story offerings of better-known writers in the Sanctuary Anthology, a collection I recently read. This is a story that would fit comfortably as an opening act spoken aloud before a 9th century Norwegian hearth to send the children to bed, while the adults continued on amusing themselves with a retelling of Beowulf.
The story revolves around the friendship of two young men who find their bonds of sworn brotherhood complicated and tested in a harsh world of clannish rivalry. While much of this conflict sets the stage for an engrossing tale imparting information to the reader about Viking culture as well as the national culture of the states that produced Vikings, the conflict felt rushed. This hastening strained the credibility of the bonds of brotherhood being explored and ultimately weakened the characterization of the sworn brothers, Ketil and Ottar. This is a story that another 50 - 100 pages could have easily improved. The added pages would not have dampened the appetite for the story because the author knows her craft and respects her reader.
It is obvious this novel was written for a much younger reader than I am. This let me down on the conflict’s construction that, perhaps, a young reader would not only have no objection to, but, find more logic than I do (they being closer to the ages of the two 16-year-old characters). I would have appreciated a slowed scaffolding and, with it, an increased weight to the conflict that emerges between the two.
By setting aside the years of my modern wisdom and letting the author take me through the tale, I very much enjoyed the novel. This attests to the craft of the author and her strength to tell a tale worth the time to read. If the back cover synopsis is enticing, I highly suspect that you, too, will enjoy the story.
Old Norse traditions are masterfully shown rather than explained, which lifts this story high above the short story offerings of better-known writers in the Sanctuary Anthology, a collection I recently read. This is a story that would fit comfortably as an opening act spoken aloud before a 9th century Norwegian hearth to send the children to bed, while the adults continued on amusing themselves with a retelling of Beowulf.
The story revolves around the friendship of two young men who find their bonds of sworn brotherhood complicated and tested in a harsh world of clannish rivalry. While much of this conflict sets the stage for an engrossing tale imparting information to the reader about Viking culture as well as the national culture of the states that produced Vikings, the conflict felt rushed. This hastening strained the credibility of the bonds of brotherhood being explored and ultimately weakened the characterization of the sworn brothers, Ketil and Ottar. This is a story that another 50 - 100 pages could have easily improved. The added pages would not have dampened the appetite for the story because the author knows her craft and respects her reader.
It is obvious this novel was written for a much younger reader than I am. This let me down on the conflict’s construction that, perhaps, a young reader would not only have no objection to, but, find more logic than I do (they being closer to the ages of the two 16-year-old characters). I would have appreciated a slowed scaffolding and, with it, an increased weight to the conflict that emerges between the two.
By setting aside the years of my modern wisdom and letting the author take me through the tale, I very much enjoyed the novel. This attests to the craft of the author and her strength to tell a tale worth the time to read. If the back cover synopsis is enticing, I highly suspect that you, too, will enjoy the story.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews