MORE PRAISE FOR POUL ANDERSON

“A well-balanced biography of a hero from the late Germanic epoch…. Episodic. in character, gory in detail, fatalistic in atmosphere, and spiked with sinister, chthonic Norse magic.”

—Interzone on War of the Gods

“Evokes the brutality of the Viking Age…. Both attnospheric and graphic…. Refreshing.”

—Vector on War of the Gods

“Succeeds admirably!”

—The New York limes on The Boat of a Million Years

“For readers who miss the kind of fast-paced, idea-rich science fiction that HejiIlein, Asimov, and Clarke produced at the height of their powers, this is just the ticket.”

—The San Francisco Chronicle on Harvest of Stars

“Anderson, far more than many newer science fiction writers, takes the trouble to envision a genuinely strange, complex future for mankind.”

—The Washington Post

“An exciting culmination to an ambitious saga about the future of human evolution.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Fleet of Stars

“A great read…. A vivid, fast-paced novel on a grand scale.”

—Larry Bond on Harvest of Stars

I

The gods themselves fought the first war that ever was. Odin and his Aesir held Asgard, loftiest of the nine worlds in the Tree. Theirs was lordship over the sky, wind and weather, sun and moon, the stars and the Winter-way across heaven and the flames that dance cold in the north. The hunters among them roved the wildwoods with bow and spear, while others bred fleet horses and broad-browed kine. Their wives blessed their homes and brought forth strong children. Odin himself sought ever for knowledge, wandering widely, searching deeply.

West of Asgard lay Vanaheim, where dwelt the Vanir. They were gods of earth and sea, harvest and fishery, plow and ship, of love and birth but also of much that was dark and lawless. They knew not wedlock, but bedded whomever they liked. Their women were often witches. Yet these were a folk gifted and high-hearted, maybe more kindly than the stern Aesir.

Below the worlds of the gods lay the worlds of men, elves, dwarves, and jotuns. These last, sometimes called thursir, were the oldest of the races, being sprung from Ymir. Many were giants like him, if not so huge. Others were trolls or monsters. Still others were more humanlike, even comely. Not all stayed in Jotunheim, north beyond the sea that rings mankind’s Midgard. Nor were they all uncouth or unfriendly. Some had been the mothers of gods. Some were wise, with a lore that went back to the beginning of time. Always, though, jotuns remembered how Odin and his brothers slew Ymir their forebear.