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From the reviews of The Long Ships:

‘A novel with the potential to please every literate human being in the entire world – something for everyone. Bengtsson recreates the world of 1000 AD with telling detail and persuasive historiography, with a keen grasp of the eternal bits that pebble the record of human vanity, and with the unflagging verve of a born storyteller – but above all, and this is the most remarkable of the book’s many virtues, with an intimate detachment, a neighbourly distance, a sincere irony, that feels at once ancient and postmodern. It is this astringent tone, undeceived, versed in human folly, at once charitable and cruel, that is the source of the novel’s unique flavor, the poker-faced humor that is most beloved by those who love this book’

MICHAEL CHABON

‘[A] wonderful adventure novel’

Observer

‘This extraordinary saga of epic adventure on land and sea … is a masterpiece of historical fiction … Not least of the rewards of reading Mr Bengtsson’s gorgeous romance is the sly humor that is sprinkled through it’

New York Times

‘A boldly illuminated picture of the Northmen … confidently recommended’

The Times

‘A remarkable panorama of a vanished way of life’

TLS

‘Offers lusty Vikings lusting and looting, bedding and battling across Europe from the Ebro to the Dneiper’

Time

‘The author and his excellent translator bring that old, warrior world alive with such vigorous enjoyment and simplicity that the deeds of those men roving about the world in their dragon ships seem as marvellous as those of our atomic age’

Daily Telegraph

‘[Bengtsson] keeps his readers eager for the next chapter. He has a sharp eye for the picturesque and the comic in daily living, and though his style is sophisticated he often writes with a kind of festive abandon’

New York Herald Tribune

‘The literary equivalent of an action- and intrigue-filled adventure movie that won’t insult your intelligence … Orm is a charismatic character, and Bengtsson is an infectiously enthusiastic and surprisingly funny writer – even readers with zero interest in the Europe of a millennium ago will want to keep turning the pages. All novels should be so lucky as to age this well’

NPR

‘A banquet of adventure by sea and land, with man-size helpings of battle and murder, robbery and rape’

New Statesman

‘Still the king of books about Vikings … the Vikings liked to row and sail and fight. That’s what they do in this action-packed epic’

Bookmarks Magazine