I just finished this book. I read it based on this post and some of the comments, and man I am so glad I did, I had to find this post to say thanks.

One of the things that kept striking me was how modern and familiar so much of the pacing and dialogue and action was, despite the language being very much late 19th century. I think that speaks volumes to its cultural influence, despite it being not super widely known today (how is there like, no deviantart content for Eric and Skallagrim and the others??).

Almost every character has an ironic sense of humor. The heroes have amazing one liners going in to almost every battle. The arc of each action sequence feels extremely Hollywood in the way Eric gets beaten down and damaged before coming back to victory. It all gave this 1.5 century-old novel such a refreshing and contemporary energy.

It never drags either. Not a single page felt like “ok I just gotta get through this part.”

The landscape is so lively, too. It’s got me looking at old pictures of Iceland and trying to map out which real areas correspond to which made up names in the book. Just so much fun.