The Reader Travels

From Avalon in the British isles, we travel across the North Sea to enter the mainland via the Rhine River. The river has a rich and magical history, whose mythologies gave birth to modern day fantasy fiction. If Middle Earth were a real place, this is where it would be.

Stephan Grundy’s Rhinegold takes us back in time and imagination, where we can take part in the wicked games of the Norse gods - Wodan and Loki and others. We learn the tale of the ring forged from gold found in the Rhine River. There are dragons and dwarves and gods making magic.

But this is no ordinary fantasy. In fact, it’s one of the most righteously violent books I have ever read. Sure there were wars and battles aplenty in Tolkein’s works, but that’s not what I’m talking about. This is man to man, man to beast, cutting to the bone.

Some of the best scenes are of the hunt, one man, one blade. It makes me think what wimpy sportsmen we have today, hunting with guns. If you can chase that animal down and grab it with both arms and wrestle it to the ground as your knife stabs into it, and your heart beats faster as you feel your prey’s heart stop, well then, you, my friend, are a sportsman.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 8th, 2007 at 5:52 pm and is filed under Continental Europe, fantasticalities. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.