In Odinn’s Child by Tim Severin, the old norseman Thorgils tells the long tale of his life. The story begins with Thorgils birth, and follows him to many strange places, including the famed Vinland.
It was difficult for me to enjoy this book at first. The story seemed to move very slowly, without any apparent central plot. This changed when I realized that the book does not really tell a single tale, but many of them, with only the thin connection of the storyteller. And in these episodes of the life of Thorgils, Tim Severin artfully includes a lot of historical information about the time and cultures.
If you are looking for a strong adventure or action novel, Odinn’s Child will leave you disappointed. But if you enjoy a historical novel in a very verbatim sense of the word, written in the tradition of norse sagas, you have found your book and series.
