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Høstfest report, 2025

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The whole Viking crew at Høstfest 2025. I’m 5th from the right in the back row, reading right to left.

The 2025 Norsk Høstfest in Minot is history now, and I feel as if I am too, almost. I’ve often said that I experience Minot as a stop-motion film, altering just a little each frame, as the years go by. What I hadn’t noticed before is that it’s a stop-motion film of my own life, too. I feel a little older, a little slower, with each festival. And this year I felt it especially.

I think (or hope) that my perception was a little skewed this year. I was coming right off a month-and-a-half bout with a stubborn sinus infection. It sapped my strength and kept me sedentary, bad preparation for days of Viking play.

But that doesn’t account for my failure of memory. My shame is extreme – I’ve been going to Høstfest for the better part of 20 years. I’m one of the old hands. Yet I FORGOT that Tuesday is travel day. This year, for some reason, I looked at my calendar, where Wednesday through Saturday were marked off for the festival, and just thought, “I have to leave on Wednesday.” The upshot was that I missed a full day.

I get the feeling I properly belong in a nursing home. Or congress.

The festival went fine. We were once again in the outdoor venue, and it did not rain on us. It was unseasonably warm, though, and the prairie wind (especially on Friday) got pretty vicious. Oddly, the wind seemed to have a psychological effect on customers – the more frantically I was re-tightening stake ropes and repairing tears in my awning, the more buyers flocked in for my books. It was exasperating, but profitable. I tried to be pleasant.

One of my tent poles actually broke. Fortunately, I have a spare.

Sales were very good, for which I’m grateful.

On Friday morning, as I drove in, my car’s engine temperature spiked, right up to the red line. So I got somebody to recommend a local auto shop and took it there, a friend following behind to give me a ride back (I’ve had this adventure before at Høstfest, you may recall). Later that day, I got the bad news – my head gasket is going out. If you know about Subarus, you know that’s a very bad thing. It’s a costly job to fix it, about what my old car is worth.

So I’ll almost certainly have to get a new car. The mechanic thought I could “probably” get her home. I drove below the speed limit all the way, babying the vehicle, and had no problems, though I got in late (and tired).

But last night I slept well, and I feel better right now, physically, than I have in months.

This picture is of me, with a massive drinking horn one of my friends has for sale. (I believe it’s water buffalo horn from India, standing in for the horn of the extinct aurochs, which Vikings would have used.) My friend Dale Nelson, whom I visited on the way home, is writing an article about mead and asked for such a picture – though he did not anticipate my big thinking. Photo credit: Erik Patton.

Bookselling, Uncategorized

Off to Minot

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Tomorrow I’m off, as is my custom, to Norsk Høstfest in Minot, North Dakota. I’m told we Vikings will once again be right across the street from the main entrance. The weather is supposed to be unseasonably warm. The festival runs Thursday through Saturday.

If you’re in the area, I’ll be there (God willing), and have the complete Erling series to sign and sell, along with Viking Legacy.

Note to burglars — my home will not be empty. My heavily armed renter will be in residence. And he never sleeps.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Damned,’ by John D. MacDonald

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But the girl’s fine eyes were on his, in helplessness and in appeal. And his father had said, many times, “When you have to do something right, boy, don’t stop to count how much money you got in your pants.”

Sometimes the great John D. MacDonald just liked to play plotting games, dumping an assortment of characters down in some location together, shaking them up, seeing what happened. That’s how his early (1952) novel, The Damned, works. This book reveals interesting strata of art – on the surface, it’s a fairly standard, sexy men’s novel of the time – some tough guys, some pretty women, some discreet sex, and a fair amount of violence. But even at this early point in his career, MacDonald is mining his material for high grade ore.

On the Rio Concho in northern Mexico, a ferry gets blocked. So a string of cars headed back to the U.S., most of them driven by Americans, is left waiting in the hot sun, their occupants impatient and uncomfortable to various degrees.

There’s the businessman coming back from the first infidelity of his married life, his heart full of guilt and his floozy by his side.

There’s the pair of newlyweds, accompanied by his mother (!). The bride is beginning to realize that the guy she’s married isn’t a grownup man, and probably never will be.

A tough petty criminal, wanted for murder, uncomfortably aware that the police are on his tail.

The small-time nightclub comedian, with two country girls he’s trained as strippers. He’s beginning to suspect, uneasily, that the girls are smarter than he is.

And an expatriate American rancher, comfortable in his skin and in the sun, the only one among them who understands – or cares to understand – the Mexican people all around.

We’ll see some fighting, and some death. People will be confronted with hard truth, about themselves and others.

Oddly, the story is left kind of open-ended. The author leaves it to the reader to ponder where these people will end up down the road, once the ferry is running again. And the narrative is framed by the simple life of a local man, as different from that of the Americans as a space alien’s would be – but a valuable life, good in its own way.

There was a remarkable moment in The Damned that moved me a great deal. A rare moment in a MacDonald book, as he rarely deals with issues of faith (except for one novel which I’ve avoided). A couple of the characters – ones you’d never expect – break out into singing the old hymn, “I Love to Tell the Story.” The reactions of the listeners are instructive.

The Damned is 1950s pulp literature that rises above its genre. Recommended, with cautions for adult themes.

Non-fiction, Reviews

A Light in the Northern Sea, by Tim Brady

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The publisher’s presentation of A Light in the Northern Sea, by Tim Brady, treats it as an account of the remarkable rescue of the majority of Denmark’s Jewish population in World War II. That’s slightly misleading. This book is in fact a brief history of the whole Danish resistance.

As occupied nations went, it must be admitted that Denmark enjoyed a relatively easy war. The first western European country to fall to German assault, it was prevented by both unpreparedness and geography from making an effective defense. The Nazis steamrolled Denmark.

In consequence, the conquerors took the opportunity to pretend that their occupation was a friendly one, a kindly older sibling protecting his Aryan brother from the evil British.

So the German occupation operated with a somewhat lighter hand there than in other countries. Denmark was allowed to mostly police itself… for the present. Its Jews were left alone… for the present.

This situation provided opportunities for anti-Nazi Danes to organize a resistance network and carry out some limited sabotage. This underground network would prove crucial in 1943, when the Germans, increasingly desperate and “doubling down on stupid” as the war went against them, began to suppress Danish freedoms and demand cooperation in solving “the Jewish problem.”

Without going into too many details, it’s worth noting that 95% of Denmark’s 8,000 Jews were safely spirited away to neutral Sweden (which deserves credit as well for its willingness to receive them).

Things “got real” at that point. The occupation became genuine, brutal oppression. The resistance and the reprisals quickly got serious, bloody, and tragic.

If the Danes are sometimes chided for their quick surrender, and for their “easy” wartime experience, they also deserve credit for saving a larger proportion of their Jewish population than any other occupied country. No one can take that honor away from them.

I recommend A Light in the Northern Sea. The writing had a few glitches, but all in all it’s readable and highly interesting.

I was also pleased that the town of Horsens in Jutland, from where my own Danish ancestors hailed, occupies a prominent place in the story of the resistance.

Fiction, Reviews

J.R.R. Tolkien Translated Beowulf? Of Course, He Did

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New YouTuber Gavin the Medievalist breaks down what he found in Tolkien’s translation and commentary of the Old English epic Beowulf and whether you should be reading it in 2025.

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Thinking of Denmark

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Denmark is on my mind tonight. I’m reading a book about Denmark during World War II, but haven’t finished it yet. Above, a gauzy travel video.

I don’t write much about Denmark in this space, even though I’m a quarter Danish.  I suppose it’s partly because it’s my minority ethnicity, but I think it’s largely because being Danish isn’t as funny as being Norwegian. The Norwegians have a public profile in this country, for better or worse. The stolid, taciturn farmer in overalls, painfully shy, honest, not all that bright. Ole Olsen, the butt of a thousand jokes. Garrison Keillor’s Norwegian Bachelor Farmer.

I’m not sure what Americans in general think about Danes, if they do at all. There aren’t that many around – they didn’t come over here in the numbers they came from Norway and Sweden. There are a few famous Danish Americans – Victor Borge, the comic pianist. Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore. Buddy Ebsen and Leslie Nielsen were Danish. But all in all, the Danes assimilated pretty well. They blended in. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a joke about Danes, except among fellow Scandinavians making fun of their pronunciation.

My Danish grandfather loved the out of doors and hunting. He liked polka music (someone once told my brothers and me that he played drums in a band, but I never heard of that). He was most notable for his sense of humor, which was exceedingly dry – people were always complaining that they couldn’t tell whether he was joking or serious.

I have striven to emulate him in this.

Which is no doubt why so many people don’t find me funny.

More on Denmark when I’m ready to review the book, probably on Monday.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Foreclosure,’ by S. D. Thames

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She wiped her eyes, smudging more grime around her eyes. “I remember when you started here out of law school. You seemed different than the others.”

“I take that as a compliment.”

“But you’ve changed, David.”

“I’ve grown up.”

She shook her head. “You’re really just like them now. And they’ll own you soon. Once you make partner, they’ll own you.”

Browsing through my old reviews, I found one of my posts on the novels of S. D. Thames, all of which I had enjoyed quite a lot. I realized I hadn’t read any of his books in a while, so I did a search on Amazon. Turned out he hasn’t put out any more of his Milo Porter novels, but there was a stand-alone I hadn’t read, from way back in 2015 – Foreclosure. I read the book and it impressed me. Think John Grisham, but darker and grittier.

David Friedman is a tough, scrappy Jersey boy, fighting to make partner as a real estate lawyer with a big South Florida firm. As the book begins, he’s furious at being denied a promised partnership. It’s the bad economy, his bosses say.

But one of them offers him a deal – acquire real estate developer Frank O’Reilly as a client. O’Reilly is facing big litigation over a condominium foreclosure, and if David can bring him in and win the case by the end of the year (2007), he’ll get his partnership.

Of course, Frank O’Reilly is the slimiest developer in all of Florida (which is saying a lot), crude and corrupt and cruel-minded. But David knows he can deal with that. If he has to make some ethical compromises, tell a few lies, even ruin a few lives, that’s all part of the game.

But he has no idea what this case will cost him, nor how close it’ll bring him to losing not only his career, but his very life. Not to mention his soul.

Foreclosure is a Christian novel, but of the better sort – better than my novels in the sense that the Christian message is implied, not baldly spelled out. It is, sadly, the kind of book that often fails to please the Christian audience, due to frank language and dark topics. The kind of book Andrew Klavan is writing today, with greater success.

I assume that Foreclosure didn’t sell well, because author S. D. Thames seems to have switched to the light Milo Porter series, and doesn’t seem to have done any publishing at all since before 2020.

I hope he’s all right.

In any case, Foreclosure is an excellent legal thriller for the mature reader. There are occasional rough spots in the writing, but overall I liked it a lot, and recommend it.

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The saga of Harald Hardrada

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Monument to Harald Sigurdsson at Harald Hardrådes plass in Gamlebyen, Oslo, Norway. Relief by Lars Utne 1905. Photo credit: Wolfmann. Creative Commons Attribution – Share Alike 4.0.

I’m in between book reviews. Of what shall I blog? The other day, somebody on Facebook asked what I had to say about King Harald Hardrada of Norway. Well, there’s plenty. Probably enough for a long post. I’ve blogged before about Harald’s death at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066, but I don’t think I’ve ever devoted a post to the man himself.

He has much in common with Napoleon, whose biography I reviewed the other day. An important figure, and a fascinating personality. But in almost no way appealing.

I didn’t feel that way when I was a kid. I read about him in David Howarth’s 1066, and it fired my imagination. What a saga! This guy ranged all over Europe and the Mideast, fought scores of battles, amassed a fortune, and went home to be king of his homeland. A real-life Conan the Barbarian.

If you’ve read my novel The Baldur Game (you have read it, haven’t you?), he shows up in 1030 at the Battle of Stiklestad, where Saint Olaf died. Harald’s patronymic was Sigurdsson; he was half-brother to Olaf (same mother). He was about 15 at that time; I picture him as a reckless teenager, still growing into his height (he’s supposed to have been unusually tall). He was wounded in the battle, but got away with the help of Ragnvald, later jarl of Orkney. I assume he must have hero-worshipped his older brother. Very likely he admired Olaf’s autocratic policies.

Then off to exile in Kiev, where he served at the court of Prince Jaroslav the Wise (who also appears in my novel). There Harald grew to maturity – and no doubt picked up Russ ideas about government.

In 1042 he headed south for Constantinople, the goal of every enterprising young Viking in the east. The Byzantine emperors valued the tall Northmen as warriors, and Harald rose to become captain of the famous Varangian Guard, fighting in various campaigns in various places, including Sicily and (possibly) Jerusalem. We actually have outside corroboration for this service– a Greek book from the 1070s, the Strategikon of Kekaumenos, describes a portion of his Byzantine career.

Harald seems to have been involved in the revolt against Emperor Michael V, and at some point (according to the saga) he was imprisoned and escaped. Somehow he managed to get out of the city with the enormous fortune he’d amassed, and he made his way back to Kiev, where he won the hand of the princess Elisabeth, and set off for home, where his nephew, Olaf’s illegitimate son Magnus the Good, now reigned.

(Continued on p. 2)

Pages: 1 2
Fiction, Reviews

‘So Cold the River,’ by Michael Koryta

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Artifacts of their ambition. Only through study of those things could you truly understand people long departed…. The reality of someone’s heart lay in the objects of their desires. Whether those things were achieved did not matter nearly so much as what they had been.

Eric Shaw, hero of Michael Koryta’s So Cold the River, is a failure in life. That’s his view of himself, and he confirms it constantly by self-sabotaging. He was a rising cinematographer in Hollywood, until he lost his temper and made himself radioactive in the industry. Now he’s home in Chicago, subsisting through making memorial films for funerals. He recently succeeded in driving his wife away too.

A wealthy woman, impressed with one of his films, offers him a well-paying project. She’d like him to go down to Indiana to research the early life of her father-in-law’s father, a very rich man who was always secretive about his origins. It’s supposed to be a gift.

Eric goes down to the area of French Lick, Indiana, where he finds two towns, each with surprisingly lavish old hotels, relics of the 1920s, when the area was a popular location for spas. It was famous for its mineral water, which connects to the only artifact Eric’s client was able to offer him as a clue to the old man’s story – a bottle of cloudy water, bottled back in the glory days.

Eric makes one major mistake. As an experiment, he drinks some of the old water to treat a headache. First it makes him deadly sick. Then he starts seeing vivid visions of the past. Before long, Eric realizes the water is addictive – and he only has a limited supply.

Meanwhile, an elderly widow in the area is watching the sky. She’s been a weather tracker for many years, and she can tell a very unusual storm system is approaching.

I feel I’m doing a bad job describing how very well So Cold the River works. It reminded me (if I may be forgiven for the comparison) to my own novel, Wolf Time – though I fear Michael Koryta has done a better job here of constructing an epic urban fantasy/ghost story. (You can even find Christian themes if you like, though I’m not sure they’re intended. I was particularly impressed by the way the story treats one particular, unexpected hero.)

It’s a very cinematic story, and indeed it has been made into a movie – though (surprise, surprise) they gender-swapped most of the main characters.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed So Cold the River very much. I recommend it highly.

Non-fiction, Reviews

‘Napoleon: A Life,’ by Paul Johnson

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But whereas Bonaparte wore his hat square on, Wellington put the ends fore and aft. Why? Wellington liked to raise his hat, out of courtesy and to return salutes. Bonaparte rarely raised his hat to anyone.

So I had picked up a mystery novel, one of those e-books you can get through free offers. The description called it “a gripping thriller.” (They all say they’re “gripping” these days. The word “gripping” has become a meaningless annex to the article “a.”) The book proved to be as gripping as an empty cotton glove. The hero meandered through his days, having breakfast, lunch, and dinner with his girlfriend (we were helpfully informed exactly what they ate on each occasion), discussing business with his partner, and occasionally seeing reports on TV about the murder which – one assumes – would eventually become interesting. I gave up on that book.

Then I turned to the late Paul Johnson’s Napoleon: A Life (part of the Penguin Lives series), and found there all the drama and excitement I’d missed in the “gripping thriller.”

The Penguin Lives books are short by design, and Paul Johnson’s particular talents as a historian suit the format perfectly. He was a master of the broad brush (and, frankly, the drumhead verdict). Napoleon’s life is one of the most epic in history, and the reader of this book is swept up – and horrified – to observe its progress.

Bonaparte (he rarely used his first name, and Johnson accordingly calls him Bonaparte most of the time) was the scion of impoverished minor nobility on the island of Corsica, ruled in those days by the French. He benefited from being the right man in the right place at the right time, a soldier exquisitely equipped to rise in the chaos that was about to descend on France. Bonaparte had a natural genius for maps and mathematics, enabling him to plan campaigns and strategies with remarkable prescience. His approach to tactics, on the other hand, was simple, based on dividing the enemy, softening them up with artillery, and taking the offense. These qualities worked well for him… until they didn’t anymore.

I personally have never liked Napoleon. Among other matters, I blame him for the British blockade of Norway, which caused untold suffering. Author Johnson and I are entirely compatible on this point – Johnson has little good to say about the man. He caused the loss of “four or five million lives,” left his country more or less as distressed as he found it (though smaller in population), and provided the model for every tyrant of the 20th Century, from Hitler to Mao.

He has his admirers, and many books exist to serve the needs of such readers. But for the person who (like me) has some interest in the period (and prejudice against its subject), but not enough motivation to plow through hundreds of pages of details, Napoleon: A Life offers a vivid and entertaining introduction to a life which, whatever you think of it, was undeniably important.