From Publishers Weekly
In this rich and exciting alternate history, Harrison ( Stainless Steel Visions ) evokes the spirit and atmosphere of the so-called Dark Ages with wit, sensitivity and impeccable research. England in the ninth century suffers from frequent Viking attacks, and when King Ella of Northumbria captures the infamous Ragnar, he vents his people's fury in a particularly humiliating execution. But Ragnar has four devoted (and equally cruel) sons, who vow to pillage all of England in revenge. As they establish a beachhead, burning villages and taking prisoners as slaves, Shef--bastard son of a Viking raider--enters the Viking camp in order to rescue his stolen adopted sister Godive. In doing so, he becomes the linchpin in the many-sided struggle between factions in the Viking camp; between one small English kingdom and another; and between followers of a new Viking sect that reveres learning and invention and the Church, which fears the loss of English tithes. Harrison eschews simple dichotomies in portraying a world where a pagan religion challenges Christianity to found a more humane and tolerant society. Readers need not be experts in medieval history to appreciate the story of Shef's rise from slave to king of a kingdom that never was but should have been. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Kirkus Reviews
Intriguing alternate-world yarn set in England during the turbulent ninth century, from the veteran author of the Stainless Steel Rat series, etc. King Ella, having deposed Osbert, now rules Northumbria--but his rule is swiftly challenged by invading Vikings, while the Christian Church absorbs all wealth and destroys any who dares oppose it. King Edmund of East Anglia is soon defeated and killed by Vikings led by the avenging sons of Ragnar (he was a mighty Viking jarl tortured to death by Ella), who have sworn to conquer all England. Fleeing from the battle is Shef, a young, despised smith, bearing a blade he has forged himself, and upon which Viking swords break. Seeing no future with the broken East Anglians, Shef joins the Viking encampment, where he discovers practitioners of the Way--a civilized version of the old Norse religion eager for new ideas and offering freedom of worship. Shef sides with the mighty warrior Brand, whose allies of the Way intend to dispute the leadership of the Vikings with the Ragnarssons. An inventive genius, Shef rediscovers ancient Roman war-machines and develops some new ones of his own. To supplement the Viking battle-fury, he invents new tactics based on stealth, misdirection, and cunning, and uses untrained but keen and biddable Saxons to man his machines. Finally, the Church appeals to Rome for help, and stirs up the kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex to battle Shef. Shef maneuvers the Mercians, however, into fighting the Ragnarssons, while Alfred of Wessex sides with Shef. But then Rome sends a great force of Franks across the Channel to expunge Shef's hybrid armies and whip Alfred into line. Fascinating sinewy, brutal, and fine--and never mind the sometimes wobbly plot and rather thin characters: few historicals are as powerfully evocative of time and place as Harrison's tremendous saga. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"A swift-paced, historical SF story with an air of absolute authenticity. This is the way it might have, and perhaps should have been."--Science Fiction Chronicle



Book Description
865 A.D. Warring kings rule over the British Isles, but the Church rules over the kings, threatening all who oppose them with damnation. Only the dreaded Vikings of Scandinavia do not fear the priests.

Shef, the bastard son of a Norse raider and a captive English lady, is torn by divided loyalties and driven by strange visions that seem to come from Odin himself. A smith and warrior, he alone dares to imagine new weapons and tactics with which to carve out a kingdom--and launch an all-out war between....The Hammer and the Cross.



About the Author
Harry Harrison is the author of Deathworld, Make Room! Make Room! (filmed as Soylent Green), the popular Stainless Steel Rat books, and many other famous works of SF.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Harry Harrison, bestselling author of the acclaimed West of Eden trilogy, returns to alternate history with a major new work: a thrilling and thought-provoking adventure set on an Earth both similar to and radically different from our own. 865 A.D. Warring kings rule over the British Isles, but the Church rules over the kings. Powerful bishops and black-robed priests fill their cathedrals with gold, while threatening all who oppose them with damnation. But there are those who do not fear the priests, and they are the dreaded Vikings of Scandinavia. Among these Northern invaders, those who follow the Way of the Gods of Asgard carry the Hammer of Thor as their emblem, and they are sworn to increase mankind's knowledge and strength by conquest and by craft. And as Viking warlords cast hungry eyes upon a weak and divided Britain, the Way collides with the Church, launching an all-out war between The Hammer and the Cross. At the center of this bloody conflict is Shef, bastard son of a Norse raider and a captive English lady. A smith and a warrior, he is driven by strange visions that seem to come from Odin himself. Torn by divided loyalties, Shef alone dares to imagine new weapons and tactics with which to carve out a kingdom - and threaten the holy power of Rome itself!

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In this rich and exciting alternate history, Harrison ( Stainless Steel Visions ) evokes the spirit and atmosphere of the so-called Dark Ages with wit, sensitivity and impeccable research. England in the ninth century suffers from frequent Viking attacks, and when King Ella of Northumbria captures the infamous Ragnar, he vents his people's fury in a particularly humiliating execution. But Ragnar has four devoted (and equally cruel) sons, who vow to pillage all of England in revenge. As they establish a beachhead, burning villages and taking prisoners as slaves, Shef--bastard son of a Viking raider--enters the Viking camp in order to rescue his stolen adopted sister Godive. In doing so, he becomes the linchpin in the many-sided struggle between factions in the Viking camp; between one small English kingdom and another; and between followers of a new Viking sect that reveres learning and invention and the Church, which fears the loss of English tithes. Harrison eschews simple dichotomies in portraying a world where a pagan religion challenges Christianity to found a more humane and tolerant society. Readers need not be experts in medieval history to appreciate the story of Shef's rise from slave to king of a kingdom that never was but should have been. (Sept.)

BookList - Roland Green

Harrison's latest is an alternate history on the scale of Harry Turtledove's Civil War what-if, "The Guns of the South". Its premise is that in ninth-century England, contended for by its Christian occupants and pagan Norse invaders, a bastard named Shef, with both peoples' blood in his veins, rejects the appeals of both faiths and develops a new one of his own. He also develops weapons and tactics that establish England's freedom from both Christians and pagans. As with Turtledove's opus, once the premise is swallowed, you're deep in a work conceived and executed, very competently, on a grand scale. Harrison doesn't entirely avoid jarring anachronisms in some of the motivations for action, and a real antipathy to Christianity occasionally affects his portrayal of the emergence of a religious "via media". The virtues of the whole, however, outweigh the faults of individual parts of his conception.

Kirkus Reviews

Intriguing alternate-world yarn set in England during the turbulent ninth century, from the veteran author of the Stainless Steel Rat series, etc. King Ella, having deposed Osbert, now rules Northumbria—but his rule is swiftly challenged by invading Vikings, while the Christian Church absorbs all wealth and destroys any who dares oppose it. King Edmund of East Anglia is soon defeated and killed by Vikings led by the avenging sons of Ragnar (he was a mighty Viking jarl tortured to death by Ella), who have sworn to conquer all England. Fleeing from the battle is Shef, a young, despised smith, bearing a blade he has forged himself, and upon which Viking swords break. Seeing no future with the broken East Anglians, Shef joins the Viking encampment, where he discovers practitioners of the Way—a civilized version of the old Norse religion eager for new ideas and offering freedom of worship. Shef sides with the mighty warrior Brand, whose allies of the Way intend to dispute the leadership of the Vikings with the Ragnarssons. An inventive genius, Shef rediscovers ancient Roman war-machines and develops some new ones of his own. To supplement the Viking battle-fury, he invents new tactics based on stealth, misdirection, and cunning, and uses untrained but keen and biddable Saxons to man his machines. Finally, the Church appeals to Rome for help, and stirs up the kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex to battle Shef. Shef maneuvers the Mercians, however, into fighting the Ragnarssons, while Alfred of Wessex sides with Shef. But then Rome sends a great force of Franks across the Channel to expunge Shef's hybrid armies and whip Alfred into line. Fascinating sinewy, brutal, and fine—and nevermind the sometimes wobbly plot and rather thin characters: few historicals are as powerfully evocative of time and place as Harrison's tremendous saga.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Savage, authentic, and compelling. — Piers Anthony