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The title of this massive anthology implies a
binding -sf theme, but actually the book is an essay in
providing lots of different genres between one set of covers.
Happily, it’s entirely successful. There really is something for
everybody in it. Joe R. Lansdale has a straight
history-cum-mystery about the Buffalo Soldiers, among other
things. Naomi Novik eschews dragons in favor of bioengineering on
a distant planet—too distant for the characters’ comfort. Steven
Saylor goes back before Gordianus the Finder’s era to the fall of
Carthage, regarded from the Carthaginian perspective. Lawrence
Block forsakes Matthew Scudder to present a very odd young lady
of easy virtue. Likewise, Carrie Vaughan’s character herein isn’t
really a werewolf but a member of the WWII WASP. Both S. M.
Stirling and David Weber hew closer to standard -sf than
many others; both are complete masters of it, of course, who have
ever so slightly pushed its limits. And both editors contribute,
Dozois a classy last-survivor piece, and Martin a sidebar to his
Ice and Fire saga. --Roland Green
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Review
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“An eclectic mix…. Highly recommended.” ―Library Journal, starred
review
“Pure entertainment.” ―Publishers Weekly
“Entirely successful… There really is something for everybody in
it.” ―Booklist
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About the Author
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George R.R. Martin is the author of the accled,
internationally bestselling fantasy series A Song of Ice and
Fire, adapted into the hit HBO series Game of Thrones. He is also
the editor and contributor to the Wild Cards series, including
the novels Suicide Kings and Fort Freak, among other bestsellers.
He has won multiple science fiction and fantasy awards, including
four Hugos, two Nebulas, six Locus Awards, the Bram Stoker, the
World Fantasy Award, the Daedelus, the Balrog, and the Daikon
(the Japanese Hugo). Martin has been writing ever since he was a
child, when he sold monster stories to neighborhood children for
pennies, and then in high school he wrote fiction for comic
fanzines. His first professional sale was to Galaxy magazine,
when he was 21. He has been a full-time writer since 1979. Martin
has bachelor's and master's degrees in journalism from
Northwestern University. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Gardner Dozois (1947-2018), one of the most accled editors in
science-fiction, has won the Hugo Award for Best Editor 15 times.
He was the editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine for 20
years. He is the editor of The Year’s Best Science Fiction
anthologies and co-editor of the Warrior anthologies, Songs of
the Dying Earth, and many others. As a writer, Dozois twice won
the Nebula Award for best short story. He was inducted into the
Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2011 and has received the Skylark
Award for Lifetime Achievement. He lived in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.
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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
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The King of Norway
I
Conn Corbansson had fought for Sweyn Tju when Sweyn was just
an outlaw rebelling against his her, King Harald Bluetooth,
and the prince had promised him a war with En gland when he
became King of Denmark. Now that Sweyn actually wore the crown,
he had let the En glish king buy his peace with a ship full of
silver. Conn took this very ill.
“England is the greatest prize. You swore this to me.”
Sweyn pulled furiously at his long forked mustaches. His eyes
glittered. “I have not forgotten. And the time will come.
Meanwhile, there is Hakon the Jarl, up in Norway. I cannot turn
my back on him.”
“So you called in the Jomsvikings instead of .ghting him
yourself,” Conn said. “I see being King has made you womanish as
well as pursefond.”
He turned on his heel before Sweyn could speak, and walked off
down the boardwalk toward the King’s great hall. His cousin Raef,
who went everywhere with him, followed at his side. Sweyn
bellowed after them, but neither of them paid heed.
Conn said, “How can I believe anything he says ever again?”
Raef said, “Who would you rather .ght for?”
“I don’t know,” Conn said. “But I will .nd out.”
That night in his great hall at Helsingor, Sweyn had a feasting,
and there came many of his own hirdmen, including Conn and Raef,
but also the chiefs of the Jomsvikings, Sigvaldi Haraldsson and
Bui the Stout. Raef sat down at the low table, since with Conn he
was now on the King’s sour side.
Conn sat beside him, his black curly hair and beard a wild mane
around his head. His gaze went continually to the Jomsvikings at
the table across the way. Raef knew his curiosity; they had heard
much of the great company of the Jomsvikings, of their fortress
in the east, and their skill at war, which they gave to whoever
would pay them enough. They weren’t actually supposed to have
chiefs, but to hold all in common as free men, and Raef wondered
if Sigvaldi here and the barrel- shaped Bui were messengers more
than chiefs. They wore no fancy clothes, such as Sweyn’s red
coats of silk and fur, and their beards and hair hung shaggy and
long. Sigvaldi was a big man, square shouldered, with curling
yellow hair that .owed into his beard.
Beside him, Conn said, “I like their looks. They are hard men,
and proud.”
Raef said nothing, being slower to judgment. Across the way,
Sigvaldi had seen Conn watching, indeed, and lifted a cup to him,
and Conn drank with him. It was the strong , thick as bear
piss, and the slaves were carrying around ewers of it to re.ll
any cup that went even half- empty. Raef reached out and turned
his empty cup upside down.
When they were .nished with the meat and settling in to drink,
Sweyn stood up and lifted his cup, and called on Thor and Odin
and gave honor to them. The men all shouted and drank, but Sweyn
was not .nished.
“In their honor also, it’s our Danish custom to offer vows, which
are most sacred now—” He held out his cup to be .lled again. “And
here in the names of those most high, I swear one day to make
myself King of En gland!”
The men all through the hall gave up a roar of excitement; across
the .eld of waving arms and cheering faces, Raef saw Sweyn turn
and glare at Conn. “Who else offers such a vow as this?”
The uproar faded a moment, and Sigvaldi lurched to his feet.
“When the war for En gland comes, let it be, but we are here for
the sake of Hakon the Jarl, in Norway, who is an oathbreaker and
a turncoat.”
Voices rose, calling Hakon the Jarl every sort of evil thing,
traitor and thief and liar. And the slaves went around and .lled
the cups. Steeped in drink, red- faced Sigvaldi held his cup high
so that all would look. When the hall was hushed, he shouted,
“Therefore I vow here before the high gods to lead the
Jomsvikings against Hakon, wherever he hides! And I will not give
up until he is beaten.”
There was a great yell from all there, and they drank. The hall
was crowded with men now, those sitting at the tables, many of
them Jomsvikings, and many others standing behind them who were
Sweyn’s house carls and crews.
“A mighty vow,” Sweyn called. “An honor to the gods Hakon has
betrayed. The rest of you—will you follow your chief in this?”
His eyes an oblique glance at Conn, down at the lower table.
“Which of you will join the Jomsvikings?”
At this, Dane and Jomsviking alike began shouting out oaths and
vows against Hakon, while the slaves with the jugs plied their
work.
Then Conn rose.
Raef held his breath, alarmed at this, and around the hall, the
other men hushed.
Conn held out his cup.
“I swear I will sail with you, Sigvaldi, and call out Hakon face-
to- face, and not come back until I am the King of Norway.” He
raised his cup toward Sweyn and tilted it to his mouth.
There was a brief hush at this, as everybody saw it was an
insult, or a challenge, but then they erupted again in another
great roaring and stamping all through the hall, and more
outpourings of vows. Raef, who had touched nothing since the .rst
cup, marked that up there at the high seat, Sweyn’s glinting eyes
were .xed on Conn and his mouth wound tight with rage. Raef
thought they had all probably gotten more than they wished for in
this oath- taking at Helsingor.
The next morning Conn woke, sprawled on his bench in the hall,
and went out into the yard to piss. His head pounded and his
mouth tasted evil. He could not remember much of the night
before. When he turned away from the fence, Sigvaldi the
Jomsviking chief was walking up to him, beaming all across his
face.
“Well,” he boomed out, “maybe we promised some mighty doings,
last night, with those vows, hah? But I’m glad you’re with us,
boy. We’ll see if you’ll make a Jomsviking.” He put out his hand
to Conn, who shook it, having nothing else to do. Sigvaldi went
on, “Meet at the Limsfjord at the full moon, and we’ll go raiding
in Norway, and draw Hakon to us. Then we’ll .nd out how well you
.ght.”
He tramped away across the yard, where more of the Jomsvikings
were coming out into the sun. Raef stood by the door into the
hall.
Conn went over by him.
“What did I swear to?”
His cousin’s long homely face was expressionless. “You said you
would sail with them and challenge Hakon the Jarl face- to- face,
and not return to Denmark until you were King of Norway.”
Conn gave a yelp, amazed, and said, “What a fool I am in !
That’s something great to do, though, isn’t it.”
Raef said, “I’d say that.”
“Well, then,” Conn said, “let’s get started.”
II
So they sailed north to raid in Norway, around the Vik, where the
riches were. Sometimes the whole .eet raided a village together,
and sometimes they went out in parties and attacked farmsteads
along the fjord, driving the people out and then ransacking their
holdings. What ever anybody found of gold went into a great
chest, which Bui the Stout guarded like a dragon. All else they
ate or drank, or packed off to the Jomsberg. Several ships went
heavy- laden to the Jomsberg, but there was no sign of Hakon the
Jarl.
They turned north, following the passageways between the islands
and the coast, raiding as they went. Every day the sun stayed
longer in the sky, and the nights barely darkened enough to let a
man an hour. Around them, above thin green seaside meadows,
the land rose in curtains of rock, snow- cloaked. They stood far
out to sea to weather the cloud- shrouded wind- blasted cape at
Stad, and then rowed on, still north but now easterly, attacking
what ever they found in the fjords. They were within a few good
days’ rowing now of the long waterway that led to the Trondelag,
and still Hakon offered them no sition.
III
Conn’s muscles hurt; all day he had been rowing against the .erce
north wind, and he stood on the beach and stretched the ache out
of his arms. The sun was a great orange blob .oating just
above the western horizon. The sky burned with its .ery glow, the
few low streaks of cloud gilt- edged. The dark sea rolled up
against the pebble shore, broke, and withdrew in a long seething
growl. Out past the ships, sixty of them, drawn up onto the beach
like resting monsters, he caught a glimpse of a shark.
The coppery light of the long sundown made the camp.res that
covered the beach almost invisible. Over every pit a haunch
turned, strips of meat and .sh hung dripping on tripods and
spits, their s exploding in the coals below, and a man stood
by in the hot glow with a cup, putting out burns with a douse of
. Conn saw Sigvaldi Haraldsson up on the beach and went to
him.
The chief of the Jomsvikings sat on a big log, his feet out in
front of him, watching some lesser men turn his spit. Bui the
Stout sat next to him, the Jomsvikings’ trea sure chest at his
feet. As Conn came up, they raised their faces toward him. They
were passing a cup between them, and Sigvaldi with a bellowed
greeting held it out to him.
Conn drank. The tasted muddy. “Hakon has to come after us
soon.”
Sigvaldi gave a harsh crackle of a laugh, clapping his hands on
his knees. “I told you, lad, he won’t willingly .ght us. We will
have to go all the way up to the Trondelag to drag him out of his
hole.”
Bui laughed. “By then we will have beggared him anyway.” He
kicked the chest at his feet.
“Yes,” Sigvaldi said, and reached out and slapped Conn’s arm
companionably. “We’ve taken great boot, and we’ll feast again to
night as we do every night. This is the life of a Jomsviking,
boy.”
Conn blu...
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