Saturday, May 27, 2017

The Broken Sword, by Poul Anderson

Goddammit, Poul.

Before I continue, let me warn that if you're put off by talk of rape, incest, or other sexual atrocities that you're going to want to skip this one. You really won't be missing much.

Ugh. Let it also be known that I'm writing this after having accidentally slammed my finger in a door, which coincidentally mirrors the experience of reading the book. Truly, life imitates fiction. Well, I've put it off long enough, lets just get this over with so I can move on to Leigh Brackett.

The Broken Sword, written a year after Three Hearts and Three Lions, is another retelling of classical myth: in this case, Viking tales of faeries, trolls, giants, and other creatures of the Nine Worlds. And in that, it succeeds magnificently. The war between the elves (synonymous with faeries) and the trolls is a lengthy, well planned story. The way it goes about telling that story, though, is goddamn bonkers. So lets do this.

Imric is an elf-lord who desires a human son for unknown reasons. So he decides to steal one, but also can't do that unless he swaps it out in an even trade. So he goes down to his dungeons and rapes a troll he's held captive for several centuries. Imric does some magic to quicken the quickening, and the baby is born: half elf, half troll (this is important later). He does some swapping, and now he's the father of a handsome human male, who he names Skafloc.

The fake son then is raised as a human by a Viking family and is given the name Valgard. Owing to his troll nature, Valgard is a lunatic berserker, and fares well in combat alongside his father and brothers. One day, however, his brother doesn't come back from a hunt, having been ensnared by a witch who has cast a spell on Orm (the Viking dad) in order to kill his entire family. The witch has taken the form of a beautiful woman to seduce Valgard's brother, and when Valgard finds him, he too is seduced by her. In a fit of jealous rage, Valgard kills his brother. Then he goes back to his family, who eventually find out what he's done, so he is forced to kill his father and other brothers. Returning to the witch's cottage, she tells him that he is not actually human, and therefore shouldn't feel bad, and that his real dad is some distant fey asshole that he really should kill. Then she transforms back into an old lady, and he runs away in rage and presumed disgust at what he's been porking.

Valgard hatches a plan to get back at his real dad by joining forces with the trolls. So he kidnaps his two sisters (intending to sell them as wives to the trolls) and hitches a ride to Trollheim. This entire time, Skafloc has been reared in the arts of elvish fighting, and trained as a powerful lover by Leea, Imric's sister (who also sleeps with Imric, as the story is sure to remind us). In a remarkable coincidence, Skafloc and Imric are heading to Trollheim to wage war, and arrive at the same time Valgard does. A fight ensues, wherein Valgard accidentally murders one of the sisters and the other is "freed" by Skafloc, who we now learn is so handsome that he can seduce a woman despite looking exactly like her insane, fratricidal brother. The sister, Frede, is taken back to Elfheim. Meanwhile, Valgard stews in his anger and vows revenge against Skafloc and all of elfkind.

Skafloc and Frede quickly start a-wooin', much to the disappointment of Leea, who is deeply in love with the man. The trolls mount a quick counter-attack, however, leaving her little time to pout: the castle is overrun, and Skafloc and Frede make a quick getaway while the trolls are beating up Imric and having their way with the elven women. For the next 30 or so pages, Skafloc and Frede work as raiders, hitting troll encampments left and right and fleeing into the daylight whenever they are attacked. After realizing he's not doing enough damage, Skafloc decides to raise Frede's dead family to ask for advice. He is told to seek out the broken sword destined to be wielded by him (it was shown earlier, but not in any meaningful capacity) and also that he's been sleeping with his sister. He doesn't care, but Frede is livid and asks him to return her to the human world. With a heavy heart, she departs her beloved, but finds out later that she's pregnant with his kid.

Skafloc steals the sword from its hiding place in Elfheim by turning into a wolf, then an otter, then seducing Leea right out from Valgard's bed. With the sword, he heads towards the land of the sidhe, and then the land of the giants, seeking a blacksmith that can repair the sword. After the sword is repaired, he goes on several quests — killing a dragon, seducing giant women, plundering ancient ruins, etc.— that the book decides not to talk about. As in, the narrator literally says "Skafloc did these things, but they aren't part of this story so we're going to move on." Lord have mercy, I'm almost done.

So Skafloc's sword, along with the giant steed he stole, turns him into the sort of invincible hero that Poul would later satirize in "On Thud and Blunder." I implore you to read the facetious introduction to that essay, and then the following honest-to-god passage from this book:
"...Through the clangor rode Skafloc, smiting, smiting. His blows shuddered in byrnie and bone, shocks that slammed back into his own shoulders. Weapons lashed at him, to be stopped by shield or shorn across by sword. The hawk-scream of his blade sounded through wind and thunder. None could stand before him, and he led his men through the trolls and turned on the foe from the rear..."
Fascinating, no? Regardless, we're at the end. Skafloc kills all the trolls (along with Frede's new fiancé, because this book just can't let anything stay nice) and finally slays Valgard in noble combat. Oh wait, no he doesn't. What happens is Valgard kills Skafloc with the magic sword, then slips on his own blood and impales himself. The end. Fuck you.

To those who say I'm being harsh, I will admit that a lot of the above was embellished and over-simplified for humor's sake. This book is an attempt at the style of Norse mythology — gratuitous rape, murder, and incest being par for the course — that is, begrudgingly, fairly entertaining. And I've been led to believe that even Poul admitted towards the end of his career that he would not have written The Broken Sword again. From any other author, this book would be unremarkable. But from Mr. Anderson, who I've grown to respect greatly by virtue of his other offerings, I'm simply disappointed. The book is littered with plot holes (if both trolls and elves can't stand iron, daylight, or Christian prayer, why does the son of them have no such weaknesses?) and makes such baffling decisions with regards to plot and pacing that I was actually astonished to learn that it came after Three Hearts and Three Lions. I'm even more baffled that so many people seem to think this is a masterpiece of the genre, with Michael Moorcock claiming it better than Tolkien. My honest opinion? I don't feel I've gained anything by reading it, and I don't intend to read it again.

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