Pre-numbered label used for registration.

RELEASE NOTES:

This book is going into Giz-angels Shiny Book Box

RELEASE NOTES:

This book is going into Giz-angels Shiny Book Box

Is it a good or bad thing to be shortlisted for the WH Smith Mind-Boggling Books Award, I wonder. This is a book about people with Icelandic names journeying across freezing rapids and treacherous icy wastes... which could also be Iceland, I guess. I do think it's a bit of a cheat not to make up fantasy names; at least if you're going to use Icelandic ones you should use the Icelandic alphabet for them (see photo). But it's intrigued me, and so I've got to at least flip through it before Giz's Shiny Bookbox moves on.

Ok, I enjoyed this more than I thought I would, and actually stopped being snarky within a chapter or two :)

Having taught a little Anglo-Saxon literature, and lived for a short time in Iceland, I enjoyed reading something set in an Old Norse environment (although I did think it was a bit TOO icy, at least compared to the one winter I spent in Iceland). (And I still think it's a little bit of a cheat not to go whole hog and make up your own fantasy world OR to be disciplined enough to write it as historical fiction.)

It was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. Now it goes back in the bookbox for somebody else to find.
[photo: examples of the old Norse building tradition, from the Faroese village of Koltur (Copyright Ilan Kelman 2003, http://www.islandvulnerability.org/faroes.html).]

Taken out of giz-angel's Shiny Book Box!

I have been on a "fairy" tale kick as of late...two bookrings (The Faery Reel and Spindle's End), Zel (a retelling of Rapunzel) and then this one. This one feels like a fairy tale, or legend from the Norse world. I am not all that familiar with the tales of the Norse, so I don't know if this is a re-telling, or something new all together. I liked it quite a lot though. It was a quick and enjoyable read. I would really like more tales about Kari.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

sending as a surprise with a bookring. Chantie, I hope this it to your liking :-)!!

Thanks!!