Picked this up as part of a trilogy deal on Audible. The story is pretty straight forward Norse kind of stuff, though it isn't set on Earth, and no references are made to any real countries or known religions. There's a little magic, but it's pretty subtle and there aren't really any monsters or other humanoid races, other than some wild animals that aren't real animals from Earth.

The main story is narrated by a man in a tavern telling the story, with breaks between chapters where the narrator's current story plays out (though not much has happened there). I like the format of it, you get some story details from people in the crowd asking about the story.

There are some bad people in the story and some good people and the author does a good job of making you like the good people and hate the bad people. The story ends at a good spot, but you're left feeling you definitely need to read the 2nd book to find out what happens. At only about 10 hours that's not too daunting though.

Simon Vance is the Audible narrator and he's one of my favorites (I sometimes try to imitate his style when reading to my wife), so that makes it an even more enjoyable experience. ( )

This is a fantastic execution of the familiar story of a protagonist growing from chubby useless kid to powerful warrior. ( )

A fairly well-written book, although I feel the conceit of the book (storyteller telling a story from the past) is a but ripped of from Pat Rothfuss. ( )