Juho Pohjalainen’s Reviews > The Broken Sword > Status Update

And since this is a tragedy, I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that, yes, basically everybody dies in the end. The main character dies of love because he made the mistake of falling for his sister, as they always do. Even the old gods are facing the oblivion.

But the most annoying character did not die. A shame.

Bottom line - it's still good.

Poul Anderson certainly wasn't as hesitant to employ allegory as Professor Tolkien. I didn't even see the first time around how thick he lay the analogies to Cold War and even nukes. All that's missing is Valgard getting a really awesome weapon of his own to complete the mutual destruction.

The penny drops.

Elves don't care about morality or sin, but clearly, they also don't care about the danger of recessive genes. Among us shorter-lived creatures that breed like rabbits, some things just shouldn't be done.

All that being said, I'm enjoying the poetry a good deal more than I did the first time around. I wish I had any skill for these things myself.

I never felt too sorry for Valgard. He was off to a bad start, sure, but he never even tried to be better, not even with his family whose deaths caused him grief and regret - which in itself rings hollow since he was otherwise an unrepentant reaver and pillager.

Everything he did was by his own free will. If he really wanted to be a hero, he could've been. Instead, he's locked us all on the death-course.

Read a ton of good books since my first time picking this one up, but it holds up pretty well. It'll have to fall off really badly - contain something terrible that I didn't mind the first time around for some reason - to not end up as one of my favourites once again.