A rollicking Viking saga

My father kept recommending Frans G. Bengtsson’s novel The Long Ships to me, but I kept putting it off. As soon as I started reading it, I was enthralled. This 1941 Swedish classic follows Red Orm, a Danish boy abducted by Vikings, through galley slavery, Moorish Spain, battles in England, and treasure hunts along Russian rivers. It’s funny, exciting, and endlessly inventive. If you liked Game of Thrones, Edgar Rice Burroughs, or Jack Vance, you’ll probably love it too. Novelist Michael Chabon, who wrote the introduction, says he’s only ever met three other people who knew the book — and all of them, like him, “loved it immoderately.” — MF