Sword Song was Sutcliff's last published book, published posthumously (she was about halfway through editing it). It is a little rougher, but it's also fairly strongly influenced by Norse sagas and rather different in tone, IMO, from her other books.
The protagonist, Bjarni, is a young Norseman outcast from his settlement for a crime...so of course he has to go a-Viking. Along the way he acquires a dog and learns to respect women (there is a segment which struck me as...really problematic re: women, but I may be the only one) and has crushes on his ship-carls and all the usual for Sutcliff heroes.
I'm actually not the biggest fan of the book itself, but I desperately want fic for it. Bjarni's eventual love interest intrigues me (especially because of how they met, which I don't want to spoil), and Bjarni's lack of affect does as well. Fic about Bjarni learning to have ~feeeeeelings~? And yes, there's slash potential, too.
Geez, it is hard to try to convince people that books are awesome and ficcable without spoilers.
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timeasmymeasure
Sword Song
Date: 2012-06-07 04:55 pm (UTC)The protagonist, Bjarni, is a young Norseman outcast from his settlement for a crime...so of course he has to go a-Viking. Along the way he acquires a dog and learns to respect women (there is a segment which struck me as...really problematic re: women, but I may be the only one) and has crushes on his ship-carls and all the usual for Sutcliff heroes.
I'm actually not the biggest fan of the book itself, but I desperately want fic for it. Bjarni's eventual love interest intrigues me (especially because of how they met, which I don't want to spoil), and Bjarni's lack of affect does as well. Fic about Bjarni learning to have ~feeeeeelings~? And yes, there's slash potential, too.
Geez, it is hard to try to convince people that books are awesome and ficcable without spoilers.