Vinland Saga, Tome 1

Short Review: This was recommended to me by a number of people. I found it via interlibrary loan because it is expensive. It was well worth reading, but this first volume is only the first of 9 volumes released to date (all over 400 pages). So there is a real investment if you are going to pick up the whole thing.

The story is about early vikings. The violence and raiding of the culture are front and center. This is a very violent novel. But it presents itself as a book that is in the long run against violence. You just have to get through a lot of violence to get there.

This first volume is clearly primarily set up. There is a story here and it was engaging, but it felt like it barely scratched the surface.

My slightly longer review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/vinland-saga/

I loved the last quarter of the story. It really pulled on my heartstrings and I felt so much emotion for Thorfinn's loss.

But the rest of the story—especially the first half—just did not garner much interest out of me despite being “objectively” good. I was really interested in reading about Thorfinn right from the get go in a more instrospective-esque way, but that didn't quite happen. Still, this is definitely a great story and the parts of it that missed the mark for me were just because of personal preference things.