10 best Viking fantasy books, ranked
Trying to reach Valhalla but haven’t yet died in battle? In the divine words of the bard Madonna, these Viking books will “take you there”. After all, who doesn’t want to get transported back to the Dark Ages? Despite the dour name, it was an exciting time! Lands to discover! Villages to plunder! Glory to be had! While your average townsfolk might have found the circumstances depressing, Vikings dove headfirst into the brutality with blood soaked aplomb. War sounds fun when you get to get high on berserker mushrooms and party with the gods when you inevitably die! Live the Viking life Vik-ariously with these 10 best Viking fantasy books, ranked.
10. The Witch’s Heart
The fastest way to a witch’s heart is through the chests her enemies. In Genevieve Gornichec’s The Witch’s Heart, the enemies in question are the gods themselves. After the Norse pantheon attempted to end the life of Angrboda with a time-tested burning at the stake, the witch was left burned but not totally broken. After fleeing from those Aesir assholes, the giantess Angrbody joineries into a faraway forest where she meets the black sheep of Odin’s family – the trickster Loki. After a bout of mutual distrust, the pair’s shared love of magic and shared hatred of the gods soften their battle-hard hearts, and the pair start a family. Years later, Angrboda’s gift of foresight warns that the gods aren’t done toying with her yet, and she’ll have to fight back one last time in order to ensure the survival of those she loves.
9. The Broken Sword
Tolkien made you THINK that you knew elves. Author Poul Anderson’s The Broken Sword will teach you that everything you know is WRONG. In this novel, elves aren’t well groomed paragons of light and wisdom, they’re complicated tricksters painted in 50 shades of morally grey. The Broken Sword is the story of Skafloc, formerly the son of the Viking Orm the Strong, who was stolen away from his crib by an elf named Imric and which that Orm did dirty long ago. In Skafloc’s crib, Imric plants a changeling – a fae creature that looks like a human child but is decidedly not. As the crib-switched protagonists grow into the people they’re meant to be, they soon discover that. they both have parts to play in a war threatening to tear apart the magical world – and the human world with it.
8. Shattered Sea
Joel Abercrombie’s The First Law series is the stuff of grimdark high fantasy legend, but his Shattered Sea trilogy proves that the author is no slouch when it comes to Viking tall tales. Shattered Sea begins with Half A King, which is the story of Yarvi – a recently betrayed prince who was left half dead by his conniving family. In attempting to silence Yarvi for good, his relatives created a monster, a young royal now covetous of the Viking throne that he originally never wanted. Before he can ascend to power, he first has to survive the toils of the Shattered Sea, a hostile ocean that has claimed many a sailor’s soul. Born with a weak body, Yarvi will have to hone his mind into a weapon, and stick it in the back of his blood relations in order to claim what’s rightfully his.
7. The Hanged God
The Hanged God by Thilde Kold Holdt begins with the appropriately Viking-titled Northern Wrath, which is the bloody tale of the Norse gods and the mortals beneath them. Centering around three inhabitants of the frozen north, the story swings between the point of view of three villagers – one of whom is dead and two of whom are flirting with mortality. The dead guy has foreseen the end of the world in the form of Ragnarok, while the other two are too busy focusing on their own revenge plots to notice that the end is nigh. Battles are waged, demons are summoned, and the world is careening towards cold ruin – sounds like your average Viking Tuesday. Or Thorsday, I should say.
6. Beowulf
The OG Viking legend, Beowulf walked so the other entries on this list could fly. Written by an unknown author, Beowulf was sung in meadhalls and hearths throughout Northern Europe by bards who had memorized the tale whole cloth. It’s the story of the Viking hero Beowulf, whose deeds including slaying a man eating monster named Grendel, the monster’s mother, and then finally a fire breathing dragon. Beowulf is a fascinating piece of human history, and one of the oldest contributions to the fantasy canon in existence. After all, there’s a reason why it hasn’t been forgotten in its centuries of tellings – it’s a damn good tale.
5. The Last Light of the Sun
Guy Gavriel Kay’s The Last Light of the Sun is classic Viking fantasy at its finest. The story is set in an alternate history version of Northern Europe, inspired by ancient Viking, Celtic, and Anglo-Saxon culture. The roost is ruled by three separate cultures, the Erlings (Vikings), the Cyngael, and the Anglcyn. The plot jumps between a POV character from each people, the disgraced son of an Erling outcast, a Cyngael warrior prince in the midst of spiritual crisis, and a Anglcyn king attempting to keep his realm from falling apart. For those looking for a sweeping story showing the rise and fall of the northern kingdoms and the people who inhabited them, The Last Light of the Sun is the alternate history lesson you need.
4. Grendel
John Gardner’s Grendel is an acquired taste. It’s a deeply philosophical and darkly funny tale of Grendel, yes THE Grendel, the man-eating monster from the original myth of Beowulf. Grendel lives a lonely life, torturing and eating humans because there’s simply nothing better to do. The book is a mediation on monsters, and the isolating circumstances by which they are created. It’s a character study of a momma’s boy man-eater, who resorts to murder to fill the sucking void in his soul. Things end grimly for Grendel after a chance encounter with Beowulf himself, a Viking hero who teaches the beast a lesson at the school of hard knocks – by ripping his arm clean off.
3. The Dragonbone Chair
The Dragonbone Chair is more subtly Viking-coded than the other entires on this list, but ranks highly because it has STRONG Viking vibes. The story is set in the world of Osten Ard, centered around a young kitchen boy named Simon – whose life is forever changed after the death of King John Presbyter. The King’s rival sons begin clashing for the throne, meanwhile the realm itself is threatened by an undead king worming his way out of the shadows. In order to defeat the undead king, Simon will have to journey to the frozen edges of the realm in order to find three sacred swords capable of putting a stop to the deathly magic that the king controls. With the help of some Norse-coded fae beings known as the Sithi, he might just be able to do it.
2. The Bloodsworn Saga
It doesn’t get much more Viking than John Gwynne’s The Bloodsworn Saga. Taking place in the Norse-inspired world of Vigrid, the realm is reeling after a divine civil war brought the gods (and the world beneath) to the brink of ruin. The bones of Vigrid are being picked clean by ever warring jarls (think Viking warlords) and magical beasts, where average folk are doing their best to cling to their meager existence. The first novel, The Shadow of the Gods, swings between three characters whose lives have been upended by the realms instability. The warrior Orka is on a quest to find her kidnapped son, the former slave Varg is seeking glory and revenge by joining a mercenary band, and a disgruntled noblewoman throws her life of luxury aside to join a roving group of monster hunters. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
1. Vinland Saga
Remember when I said it doesn’t get more Viking than The Bloodsworn Saga? I LIED. Written and illustrated by Makoto Yukimura, Vinland Saga is as Viking as it gets. The manga revolves around a young Icelander named Thorfinn, whose childhood innocence is shattered after witnessing his father’s brutal murder by a gang of Viking mercenaries. Twisted by his trauma, Thorfinn joins up with the mercenary band that killed his father for a chance to duel its leader Askeladd to the death for revenge. Before Thorfinn is ready to fight Askeladd, he’ll have to temper his skills as a grunt on the fields of battle, as Askeladd’s band is set on picking the lands of the Anglo-Saxons clean. It’s a bitter revenge tale the completely subverts expectations, a bildungsroman about a young man whose sole desire is revenge – and the way he attempts to fill the void after revenge fails to heal his wounded soul. Best of all? The series has been adapted into one of the best anime currently airing, with Season 3 on its way.
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