Wolfgar: The Story of a Viking Amazon Barnes and Noble Category:  Historical Fiction Publisher: iUniverse ISBN-10:  0595403522 Type: Fiction Pages: 524 Copyright: August 8, 2006 ISBN-13: 9780595403523 Wolfgar is a fast paced adventure story of a group of Vikings that are shipwrecked on the North American coast.

A fast-paced thrilling Viking adventure story. I loved it
The world of the Vikings and the conflicting onslaught of Christianity set the stage for this epic adventure novel, the second in a series of three. There are many characters, several themes and a fast-paced exciting story that I kept picturing as an episodic mini-series on one of the cable channels. From the very first page, I was captured by the story and found myself thinking about it at odd moments as I went about my day. It did much more than teach me about the history of the Vikings; it actually made me feel that I was right there, experiencing the sea voyages, the plundering and the exploration.

The book is set in the tenth century and begins with a shipwreck off the coast of North America. The Native American people have never seen a seaworthy ship or people with light hair and skin. Eventually, the 11 Vikings, although not really accepted, are included into their community. Wolfgar, the leader of the group and a holy man, is immediately thrown into conflict with some of the Indians, especially in the area of religion, but the Vikings manage to co-exist and become part of the community for several years until events cause Wolfgar to run for his life.

But this is only one of the small subplots of the novel. There are other dramatic stories going on, all intersecting, and each one fascinating. There is Wolfgar's son who wants to find his father but is thwarted in his quest because he is sold into slavery. There is a Christian king who makes converts through the use of the sword. There is the Native American woman who loves Wolfgar as well as the wife Wolfgar left behind who is now married to another man. There is the cruel world of slavery and the business of slave trading. There is great wealth and poverty and treachery and love. All this takes place in the Viking world, so well described that I felt I was right there, all the time.

Nothing is subtle in this big and bold book. We know right away who the bad guys and the good guys are. There is constant action on every page. I just couldn't stop reading.

At the very beginning of the book I was a little hesitant about the translations of the language of the American Indians. They seemed to speak in more complex sentences than I have usually seen. However, I soon realized that my prior experience with reading translations of their languages usually made them all speak in a over-simplified kind of pidgin English which made them seem rather unsophisticated and simple. This book allows for more intricacy in their use of language with the result that they did not seem like caricatures, but were fully fleshed out people. I liked that.

This is truly a book about the clash of cultures, a theme that is as fresh today than it ever was. And, most of all it is an epic story, one that grabbed my interest in the first page and left me thirsting for more.

Review by Linda Linguvic

Transcontinental and firstclass Vikings-novel
"If it takes a thousand years, or even ten thousand, Odin will regain his place of Glory."
(Ragnar Wolfgarsson)

Erik Thorvaldsson, called "the Red" returns after threes years of banishing to Iceland, in order to enlist settlers for his colony. In the year 985 he startet to sail with a fleet of 25. But only 14 ships should arrive at Greenland. On board of the lost ships were 350 men, women and children....

From the historical facts around the missing persons and other nameless men from Iceland, which already put their feet on "America", years before Leif Erikson, James Richard Larson develops a fantastic, quite conclusive story about his protagonist "Wulfgar". After the nordic seer and Priest has stranded with his ship "Raven", he and its people find friendly admission within the tribe of the Leni Lenape. But the "Swanukken" (algokin: Seawater people) are not equally welcomed to each of the "Skraelings" (oldnordic: "Weak men")....

....after years of waiting Wolfgars wife Katrine finally marries Bjarni Herjulfsson, which (after the Greenland Saga) is considered as a discoverer of "America", but who didn't set his feet on the continent and was therefore called "the Cautious". Ragnar Wulfgarsson is convinced of the fact, that his father is still alive and goes on board the "Sleipnir", Leif Erikssons longship....

....as it's third story the novel offers some of the delivered narrations around the Norwegian king Olaf Tryggvason ("Crowleg"), who in Larsons version grows up after his escape with his mother Astrid at the court of the Russian ruler Vladimir I. (Swjatoslawitsch) and finally returns after numerous adventures in Pommern, Southengland and Ireland to land of his royal ancestors.

Gradually the author leads the different stories, which stretches from North America to Russia, together, alt last in a fulminant final in the middle of the 990-decade. Beside already known persons from "The Eye Of Odin", with the more exciting sequal the reader makes the acquaintance with further strong characters. Very impressing is the intercultural meeting between Vikings and Indians, particularly the spiritual and ritual exchange between "Wolfgar" an his shaman-colleague "Silent Owl". The discriptions of the (in later times called) Delawares with their "Walum Olum" and their enemies, the "Susquehannocks", who called them "Barkeaters" are arousing associations to the novels of James Fenimor Cooper. Also this time Larson's second epos neither misses the typical black humor of it's genre or the question about religious tolerance. A central topic are the political considerations and methods that came along with bringing Christianity to the last heaths of Northern Europe, which often only offered the choice between "baptism or sword".

With "Wulfgar" Larson delivers again a fantastic Vikingsaga and historical novel, that in it's epic style of narration and it's historical content, stands in one line with such novels of James A. Michener or Gary Jennings. The new "high priest of the Asen" from Wisconsin proves, that also his second book belongs to the first class of the Vikingsnovels. Evaluated with 5 Amazonstars, in addition it also let's expect the already announced sequal "Vikings of The East" with impatience.

Review by Ronald Funck