Turtledove goes back to one of his favorite types of novels, the Empire and barbarians novels, similar to his old Fox series. In this one, the Rhaumsdalian empire sits where the Great Glacier used to sit, now the Bizogot barbarians dwell at the foot of the glacier. News arrives that the Glacier is open, there's a path through it! Some Rhaumsdalians and Bizogots set out together to find out what's on the other side and a long, slow journey of exploration of land and self starts. I like Turtledove's writing, but the journey is too long and the characters are too clever. Does everyone always have to be both intelligent and wise? Not bad if you like his simulated Earth historical style fantasies, but I'm not sure I'll read the next in the series. ( )

Read about 15%. Gave up because the subplot about the main character, his exwife, and her new husband was too annoying.

Too bad, because the main plot sounded interesting. But I seriously started to wonder if the author had recently been through a nasty divorce shortly before writing this. Ugh. ( )

One I hadn't heard of before, or had skipped over. But another great Turtledove book. Alternate history, but you could imagine it fitting into our timeline. Interesting characters, great descriptions of the environment, surprising storylines. ( )

3.5-3.75🌟// This read very much like a first book in a series. Nothing much happened and the looming sense of foreboding went on and on. This is not a fun and exciting read (for me, that is), but rather, a relaxing one that kind of reminded me of typical Japanese adventure lightnovels where the main character from the modern world is transported to a fantasy one. It has a slice-of-life feel to it with the constant description of the food they had to eat as they continued on in their long journey; the habitation and way of life of the different nomadic clans they passed by on their way; and the appreciation of the beauty and might of the country tney traversed to reach their goal.

Humour, mostly in the form of sexual innuendos and vulgar jokes as well as attacks on "manliness" (rolled my eyes so hard on these ones), was interpersed in almost every page that it got really annoying after reading 3/4 of the way through.

The ongoing assertion of cultural superiority of one race over another was interesting, though, especially, with how concrete the author presented the differences between the two in almost every cultural aspect. I liked how this particularly made me think of third-world and first-world relationships and interactions.

Most of the characters were made very much alive with how their quirks, backstories--sometimes scandalous ones-- and personalities were presented, some from the get-go, the others unravelled through bits and pieces of interactions and conversations throughout the book.

Relied a bit heavily on subtext to deliver meanings, especially in conversations. There's also bit too much description of landscapes (which I liked), the weather, the Bizogots' (nomads and tribes) way of life and "odd" habits, and how dung fuel is used to cook the food. Conversations, jokes, complaints, and internal monologues on the latter happened a lot more than I cared to count, honestly. The same point was made over and over about it, though-- when you're dying of hunger you'll eat whatever it is in front of you even if it was cooked in feces. I got that the first time, and on the second, as well as the third time it was mentioned. It didn't need to have to be repeated more than twice, honestly.

There were a couple more scenes, albeit shorter ones, that can be considered as fillers that dragged the whole thing more , even though the plot was already at a pretty relaxed pace.

The worldbuilding saved it for me, as well as 2 or 3 of the characters, and the ending where the conflict for the whole series was finally revealed.

I'm going to continue on with Book 2 at least.

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p.s. It's annoying how there's only 2 female characters whose personalities are so different from each other that, if you dumbed it down, can be depicted simply as one "good female" and "one bad female". I liked Liv a lot. In some ways, I liked Gudrid, too, but damn, she's annoying. ( )

Well written book. Interesting story line. Characters vary from reasonable to somewhat absurd. The main character is somewhat reasonable. The mix of magic and sword fighting is common to many other similar types of stories. The author is able to think through the understandable differences between cultures of the north and south. ( )