The Broken Sword

Written by Poul Anderson

Narrated by Bronson Pinchot

Thor has broken the sword Tyrfing so that it cannot strike at the roots of Yggdrasil, the tree that binds together earth, heaven, and hell. But now the mighty sword is needed again to save the elves in their war against the trolls, and only Skafloc, a human child kidnapped and raised by the elves, can hope to persuade Bölverk the ice-giant to make Tyrfing whole again. But Skafloc must also confront his shadow self, Valgard the changeling, who has taken his place in the world of men.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blackstone Audio
• Release date: Apr 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9781441786869

Poul Anderson

Poul Anderson (1926–2001) grew up bilingual in a Danish American family. After discovering science fiction fandom and earning a physics degree at the University of Minnesota, he found writing science fiction more satisfactory. Admired for his “hard” science fiction, mysteries, historical novels, and “fantasy with rivets,” he also excelled in humor. He was the guest of honor at the 1959 World Science Fiction Convention and at many similar events, including the 1998 Contact Japan 3 and the 1999 Strannik Conference in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Besides winning the Hugo and Nebula Awards, he has received the Gandalf, Seiun, and Strannik, or “Wanderer,” Awards. A founder of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, he became a Grand Master, and was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. In 1952 he met Karen Kruse; they married in Berkeley, California, where their daughter, Astrid, was born, and they later lived in Orinda, California. Astrid and her husband, science fiction author Greg Bear, now live with their family outside Seattle.

Reviews for The Broken Sword

[shanaqui_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I was really excited about reading The Broken Sword, because when I first toyed with the idea of buying a book by Poul Anderson -- this was actually the first I bought, it's just took me longer to read -- I realised how closely it was based on the style of the Norse sagas I've studied. It draws on the mythology, of course, and the path of curses and thwarted love and raiding echoes that of the sagas, but it also echoes their form: the narration, especially to begin with, is very much like a saga, and the verses all comply with the Old Norse metres. In many ways, The Broken Sword is a (relatively) modern example of one of the Skáldasögur -- a saga about a skald, or poet, like Kormáks saga. The tale of lost love, and the verses of first love and desire and then lament fit that pattern, albeit not like a glove.

The verses really, really impressed me. They're written in dróttkvætt metre, which is extremely difficult. A verse is made up of eight lines, divided into equal halves ('helmingr'). There are six syllables per line, and two syllables in each even line must alliterate with one in the following odd numbered line. Even lines must have a full rhyme within the line with the penultimate syllable; odd lines must have half-rhyme within the line with the penultimate syllable. Each line must end with a trochee.

Add to that the poetic words that would only be used in verse, heiti and kennings, which Anderson imitates to some degree, and... Well, I'm very impressed. It might seem less compelling to someone who hasn't read verses in Icelandic -- translations tend to make it a bit more flowery.

The story itself is perhaps less fresh to me, but I still enjoyed it: basically, it melds British/Irish and Norse mythology, with both the Sidhe and Æsir present, along with the coming of Christianity. Skafloc is stolen by the elves and replaced by a doppelganger, Valgard; the two eventually, and inevitably, come into conflict. In the course of this, Skafloc and his sister Freda, not knowing their relationship, fall in love...

It's fun -- adventure and love and doom and a tragic end, quite fitting for a skald.

[salimbol · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An engaging mishmash of Norse and Celtic legends (written at about the same time as the Lord of the Rings, and drawing on much of the same source material), which definitely captures some of the feel of the old sagas, with flashes of quite poetic prose, the brooding feeling of a world swirling towards darkness, and fairly thin characterisation. I'd say that it probably has had nearly as much influence on the fantasy that followed afterwards as Tolkien's work, though in different ways.

[anthonywillard · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Disclaimer: I did not finish this book, I quit after about 55 percent, when they finally remembered the fool sword. The book is a tour de force of mythological reformatting, but in its unceasing artificial skaldic rhetoric and its puppetlike characters it does not provide much plot interest. It was hard for me to care what happened to the characters, who were universally either nasty or stupid, probably because they seemed all made of wood. The story itself is hackneyed and more than a little beholden to Wagner as well as Norse materials. If you want to read a grim folk-tale that's worth reading, try some of the originals, like Niebelungenlied, or the Volsungs Saga.

[wyvernfriend · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was an interesting story, almost mythic rather than fantastic in it's feel I enjoyed this read. Scafloc is stolen from his parents by elves and a changeling child left in his place. When they both grow to adulthood things happen that cause them to fight each other and in order to win the sword Tyrfing has to be remade. Tyrfing was broken years ago because it could be used to strike at the roots of Yggdrasil, the world tree, but now it's the onlly thing standing between the elves and destruction. There were some bits that really were twitch-making but overall not a bad read.

[janeanneshaw · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Dark fantasy based in the Norse sagas - recommended by Richard Morgan ~ & he was right! However, Anderson's style does mix 'n' match various saga conventions, & at times can read like Kipling's 'Puck of Pook's Hill' crossed with Elizabeth A. Lynn's 'Dragon's Winter'. At least it isn't a pastiche of Tolkien ... is it? Anderson's elves are intelligent & vicious, with a patently nasty streak in their make-up which is refreshing!

[countfenring · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Alternative to Tolkein - vivid and coarse, it careers through various fantasy and myth tropes with flawed and violent characters. Told in suitably over-the-top fantasy-speak: "Ax and sword! Spear and club! Cloven shield and sundered helm and ripped byrnie! Red gush of elf blood meeting cold flow of troll's!"

[karlstar_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is very different from Anderson's other classic fantasy, Three Hearts and Three Lions. It is set in an Earth that might have been, heavily drawn from Norse mythology. It is more than a bit dark, featuring the gods at their most vengeful. It actually took me quite a while to get warmed up to this one, but after a bit I was engaged. Definitely worth reading, though not nearly as good as Three Hearts and Three Lions.

[penwing · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I wanted to like this book. The blurb was good. It looked exciting. It was dull. I know Poul Anderson is trying to mimic the mythic writing style, but I find that style hideously dry and dull. It read like a synopsis. It read like a little kid who can't express themselves fully and a surly teen who won't express themselves.It got better...

[clong_818048 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this on a friend's recommendation, although I was a bit skeptical going in (Viking tales are not really my thing). I found the introductory back story to be slow going, but by the time we get to the stories of Skafloc and Valgard the pace picks up and the narrative flows very quickly. Anderson's language is at times deliberately archaic, which took me a while to adjust to, but it clearly fits the storyline. This is a world where both the good guys and the bad guys (whp are mostly not really guys at all, but rather elves, trolls, gods and the like) are violent and amoral, and where the good guys are likely create their own doom through hubris and overconfidence. The Broken Sword is one of those books that is easy to read, but challenging to think about. It's definitely worth your time, not only for its own merits but also for some perspective on how fantasy has evolved in the last fifty years. I read the 1971 revision.

[kisners42 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I was quite impressed with this book. It should be considered a classic of sword & sorcery fiction, and I found it to be a much more engaging read than the average fantasy novel.While the book deals only somewhat with the major entities of Scandinavian mythology, it is a must-read for anyone interested in elves and other fay creatures, portraying them in a fascinating but weird and somewhat unsettling light.- Peter K.

[jsmick_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Reads very much like an Icelandic saga, poetry included, with the backdrop of faery (Alfheim) vs. the evil trolls of Trollheim. They writing style is quite interesting and was suggested to me as a read by J.C. Luxton for this reason. The story held up pretty well but dwelt a little too long for my taste on the love between the hero Skaflag and his sister-bride Freda. I liked the different take on elf culture, very different from that of Tolkein, and more traditional to the European way of thinking: they are dark and mysterious and not so wise and enlightened. I also liked the entry into the story of various gods, demi-gods, and heros from all over the pantheon of Northern European literature.

[ashleytylerjohn · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It's fine. It's not the second coming. Any comparison to The Lord of the Rings is likely precipitated by the coincidence of publication dates.

It reads more old-fashioned than it actually is (it reminds me of the mood of 1920s or earlier fiction, e.g. Lord Dunsany, or Eddison, or going back further, but more appropriately) William Morris). The characters are lightly sketched, without the kind of psychological realism we are used to in a novel--reminding me (again, appropriately) of characters in a viking saga, or any piece of literature pre-18th century (when characters had names, a bit of description attached, and then they wander through the plot with little more than that).

It would likely make a pretty exciting movie, and no one could complain that they hadn't captured the nuance of characters as there is none to be captured. Here is a sample of the style:

Skafloc grew apace, and a bonny boy he was, big and gay, with great blue eyes and hair like spun gold in the sunshine. He was noisier than the few elf children, and grew so much swifter that he was a man when they were still unchanged.

(It should really be "so much more swiftly" ... my initial read of this passage was that he would win a footrace!)

Or, in a more blood-thirsty vein:

Mightily he smote at the flank of the invaders. An elf fell to his ax, he twisted the weapon loose and struck at another, smashed the face of a third with his shield--hewing, hewing, he waded into battle.

So if you'd like a modern faux-Icelandic saga, this is for you! But don't expect unforgettable characters, or an exciting new milieu, or even unanticipated twists and turns. It's not that kind of book.

[jshillingford_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I came across this book while looking for Viking/Norse based stories. The Broken Sword started out so promising, but ultimately failed to deliver.I literally flew through the first half of the book because it was so good. Anderson blends Viking themes with Celtic fae myth in a new and startling way. Skafloc was born to a Viking Lord, but because his mother was prevented from baptizing him (this being when the Roman faith had begun to take over) immediately after birth, an Elf fae Lord stole and replaced him with a changeling. Cool. Skafloc was raised by the elves and has special abilities because of it. He’s bold, exciting and a strong protagonist. Valgard is…wrong. He shouldn’t exist and that manifests in a brutal, violent nature. Very cool. Anderson also peppers the text with lyrical poetry that emulates the Norse Eddas in a Tolkien fashion, but also has some excellent action sequences. It gives the story a unique flavor.Unfortunately, halfway through the story loses all momentum and turns into a star-crossed Oedipal romance. Trollheim has often tried to conquer the Elves, but always failed. Until now. In their arrogance, the Elves refuse to see the danger and their lands fall. Skalfloc the mighty iron warrior is reduced to hiding in a cave with a girl, whining about what happened. This goes on for far too long before he decides to find the fabled broken sword Tyr prophesied will give victory, but at great cost. He spends the rest of the book moping because his girl leaves him. Worse yet, the book ends on a cliffhanger when another child is born who is ultimately the one the prophecy refers to about the sword. *sigh*Such wasted potential. I wish the author had skipped the “romance” and stayed with the myths. Not every book has to have a romance. The relationship between Skalfoc and his changeling should have been the focus. Overall, it wasn’t awful but I have found much better Norse and Fae based books out there.

[velmeran · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A wonderful, sweeping romance and tale of fate, this story harkens back to the time of the Fae and elves. Like all stories of a similar nature, it is man who creates the change which brings the beginning of the end for the wondrous lands, and woman who brings about the end of man. With heroes who are the unwitting pawns of the gods and swords re-forged by frost giants, this is a sweeping, epic yarn.

[gsb68 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Its very interesting to read a fantasy the isn't beholden to Tolkien. Its elves and trolls and other creatures of faerie are its own.

The story has the feel of being a myth retold and the gods here are precursors to those of Neil Gaiman's American Gods.

[jaddington-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found out that this book was published at the same time as J.R.R. Tolkien'n books. It took about 10 pages for me to become thoroughly enthralled. Notice I said enthralled and not enchanted. A curious word "enthralled". There were "thralls" in the book. Its funny how words change over time and if you don't catch yourself you may not fully understand what the meaning was at the time. But I digress. In this time of Marvel comics its nice to get a proper refresher on the whole Norse God tradition and the world of elves, trolls and the like and their respected "thralls". It is a harsh story, full of humans going viking, babies kidnapped, troll women raped, its a harsh world. But as we readers know, in the midst of the harshness there are glimpses of something more; beauty, kindness and Love. Yes folks, at the end of the day this a love story. But before your mind can protest "I don't want to read some silly romance", you are sucked in. And therein lies the twist. As it tends to be with Gods, elves and vikings the story gets all fucked up.And as the reader your are properly "enthralled" and cannot stop reading until the end. And you are left...bereft...wanting more.

[themulhern · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Apparently published in the same year as Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings". Plenty of elves, trolls, dwarves, etc, but very little interest in language. I would have loved this book as a sixteen year old; the amoral and immortal elves would have seemed quite the thing.

[lcsdr60 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

not too bad but a very slow read. It was hard for me to keep interested within the story but all in all it was a decent read. The end was too predictable making it less of an interesting read with few jumps or unpredictible moments. would reccomend this read to ages 16 and up that like this type of story line.

[lisamaria_c · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a tale of faerie--of elves and changelings in the age of Vikings and dealing with creatures of Norse myth in the rhythms of the sagas. In this Foreward, Anderson writes of how elves had become a thing diminished in grandeur and stature:In our day, J. R. R. Tolkien has restored the elves to something of what they formerly were, in his enchanting Ring cycle. However, he chose to make them not just beautiful and learned; they are wise grave, honorable, kindly embodiments of good will toward all things alive. In short, his elves belong more to the country of Gloriana than to that house in heathen Götaland.Anderson harked back though to an even older tradition from the sagas of elves as powerful, yes--but also amoral and ruthless. And like those sagas this deals with powerful curses, magical implements, doomed love--no spoiler for this is stated early on with very heavy foreshadowing. It reminded me not so much of Tolkien as Wagner's Ring of the Niebelungenlied, based on similar material. This is very unlike Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, written the year before the first version of this novel revised decades later. That story is entertaining and very light-hearted, this one is positively grim without a touch of humor. Yet I prefer this one a tad more. I suppose because there's something so timeless about this sort of story and this one cuts deeper into the heart.

[ragwaine · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Rushed. Lots of monsters, magic and fighting. 2d characters.