My version: Paperback
Genre: Historical Fiction, Denmark, Jylland, Norse, Romans
Publisher: Adam Lofthouse
First published: 2023
ISBN:
Pages: 322
Supplied
From the cover:
“With an effort I got my other foot planted on the ground and slowly began to rise to my feet. I was battered, broken, bloody. I would not let them see me beaten.”
It’s been six years since Alaric’s great defeat. Six years of skulking in the shadows, drinking the days away.
He thinks his life is over, the glory days behind him. Until a band of horsemen appear on the horizon, eager to recruit the man they still believe to be a lord of war.
And so Alaric must drag himself from his slumber, don his mail once more. For in thwe far north of Germanialies a tribe in desperate need of aid. They seek an army of bristling spears, a wall of wooden shields with an iron will. What they’ll get is one old tired man
In the far reaches of the land, for a cause not his own, Alaric will fly the Raven banner once more. In doing so, he will discover if he is still the man he oonce was, or if he is destined to feast at the Heroes Hall at last.”
Many have written about jaded former heroes attemting to prove they can still do it, still have the skills, the nous or just the sheer balls to do what they used to. However, few have written it in a character form as effectively and convincingly as Adam Lofthouse has done here in Ravensworn.
Ravensworn is a sequel, a supplement, to the legend begun in Oathbreaker. Alaric is older, maybe not exactly wiser, and he’s certainly not happy. He seems more than a little frustrated at people not giving him his due for who he once was – the leader of the most feared troop of battle-hardened, forged in fire, devil-may-care (that’s enough of that – Ed) muthas, ever to ride the wrong way out of Hel, namely, The Ravensworn. So, when the opportunity to right a few wrongs comes knocking at his door, the old warrior dons his old armour, steps back in time and steps forward into battle one more time. Trouble has quite literally come looking for him once again.
Alaric isn’t donning the old armour to prove anything, not even really to himself. He’s doing it, as to paraphrase himself later, because it is who he is. He thinks he wants the quiet life, with his wife and watching his children grow over the top of a flagon of ale, however, even his long-suffering better half realises, he is not who he should be, wasting his days away on the family farm, regaling passers by with tales of how it used to be, ‘back in my day.’ Though, the point is, that he needs to see and be reminded of the life he has left, to fully appreciate both how much he has changed, and that now needs the life his wife and children are offering him.
The version of the book I have, doesn’t seem to give the time period way, just the ‘six years’ from the end of Oathbreaker. Adam says in the author’s note at the end, that is is purely a work of fiction – and a vivid imagination – and therefore does not need to be dependent on known historical events. However, it is set in a certain period and stating round about when, would help the unsuspecting reader get a grip on things. I hope the final version will at least help you to place the events, because the proto-Viking terminology, dress and life-style could be confusing, when you also read that Alaric has been off fighting the Romans. Assure me you know what I mean before reading further, eh?
Photo by Christian Faber
The tribe he goes to help, live in the very top of what is now Denmark, back then, it wasn’t really anywhere. Danmark gets its name from a tribe further south and east – still in modern Denmark – but still forming as our story comes to life. (the first time the lands here are called Denmark, is on the Jelling stones, known as Denmark’s birthcertificate. Raised by Harald Bluetooth (yes, that Bluetooth), the runes actually translate as “tanmarkar” though it seems to have been pronounced similar to today’s ‘Danmark‘). The Cimbri are the tribe he is asked to help and they are esconced at the very top of Denmark, the Jylland penninsular (I call it both Jylland and ‘home,’ as I live here, you would probably know it better at Jutland, but get used to Jylland if you read this book, as Adam gets it right all the way through), sandwiched between the sea and the Suiones and the Sitones (in roughly the current Gothenburg, or Göteborg (and you really wouldn’t believe how that should be pronounced) and the proto-Angles, the Anglii below them). They really have nothing but their survival as a people worth fighting for, no soil worth growing anything much in or on, a rapidly dwindling supply of inhabitants and a king who seems bent on self-destruction. What they do have a rich supply of, is amber. Which washes up on the shores all round the Baltic sea area. Even in modern times, 90% of the world’s amber comes from (and if you wanted to know why the old Prussian city and area around what used to be Königsberg, has been a Russian outpost since the end of World War II), the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia. It is still a huge source of income for the Russian ‘region.’
So they can pay Alaric, but that isn’t what motivates him. His wife gives him, as mentioned above, a free pass to go chasing his old dreams, but I reckon he does it primarily to see if that is really the life he needs right now.
So, why is Alaric so interesting and convincing a character? What has drawn me to Alaric, and Adam back to the keyboard to give us another story about him. He is a huge presence, knows what he’s doing, or at least is able to give the impression he does, which is more important. He has just the right amount of failings and foibles, with the ‘I’m too old for this shit,’ we all feel from time to time. Most of the time, in my case. Alaric is all of us. We all want to be him. Maybe with a full compliment of eyes and all, but we all want to go out with a bang, an I told you I could still do it, and then live happily ever after. Whether Alaric will, we’ll have to wait and see.
Ravensworn is a good book. A very good book. Ravensworn is a very, very good book from a very, very good new, young writer. If you don’t want to be laughed and pointed at in the street, get in on the ground floor now.
You can buy Ravensworn from Amazon
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