FROM AMAZON: In the year 793, siblings Jack and Lucy are captured by fearsome Vikings with a thirst for battle and pillaging. Taken to the court of Ivar the Boneless, Jack and Lucy are sent on a perilous journey - full of dragons and giant spiders - deep into the magical kingdom of the trolls!

Jack was eleven when the berserkers loomed out of the fog and nabbed him. "It seems that things are stirring across the water," the Bard had warned. "Ships are being built, swords are being forged."
"Is that bad?" Jack had asked, for his Saxon village had never before seen berserkers.
"Of course. People don't make ships and swords unless they intend to use them."
The year is A.D. 793. In the next months, Jack and his little sister, Lucy, are enslaved by Olaf One-Brow and his fierce young shipmate, Thorgil. With a crow named Bold Heart for mysterious company, they are swept up into an adventure-quest that follows in the spirit of The Lord of the Rings.
Other threats include a willful mother Dragon, a giant spider, and a troll-boar with a surprising personality -- to say nothing of Ivar the Boneless and his wife, Queen Frith, a shape-shifting half-troll, and several eight foot tall, orange-haired, full-time trolls. But in stories by award-winner Nancy Farmer, appearances do deceive. She has never told a richer, funnier tale, nor offered more timeless encouragement to young seekers than "Just say no to pillaging." ( )

I am coming to the conclusion that Nancy Farmer can do no wrong. This book was a little more gruesome than I normally enjoy but was executed beautifully. I think Farmer tends to poorly match get characters with their supposed ages, this was supposed to be about a12 year old, but I felt he was older than that by his maturity and experiences. I love a bit character who is a lover not a fighter. ( )

Although the series drops off this first book is easily in the top 10 of late 20th early 21st century juvenile/young adult fantasy fiction. In an unbelievably rich period for the genre this is truly a gem. ( )

This was a reread, in preparation for the second, [book: The Land of the Silver Apples]. I remembered that I liked it, but I couldn't remember anything about the plot. Indeed, I felt as though I was reading it for the first time.

There are so many wonderful things about this book. I absolutely love the Nordic mythology that is woven into it and that one reference that is there the whole time, but you don't see until it jumps out and hits you in the face. The characters are wonderful, the adventure is exciting, the whole book is rich with literary references. This is why I love [author: Nancy Farmer].

Jack, an apprentice bard, finds himself on a hero's quest when he and his little sister, Lucy, are captured by raiding Vikings and enslaved. His journey takes him through the Viking's country and Jotunheim (the land of Trolls) to the lifeblood of the earth itself.

My only issue is in the character of Lucy. She is repeatedly referred to as a baby, and most of the time, I would say she is believably between two and four years old. However, there is one instance, when she and Jack have first been captured, that she explains her emotional and psychological state in sophisticated terms that would have been more appropriate coming from Heide, the wise woman, than a very young child. The scene is glaring in a story that is so marvelously subtle, and consequently makes me scrutinize each scene with Lucy in order to figure out just how old she is supposed to be.

I hope that in [book: The Land of the Silver Apples], we see more of Heide, the Troll Queen, and, of course, Thorgil. ( )

Jack and his sister Lucy, a couple of Saxon children in 793 C.E., are kidnapped by a party of raiding Norsemen. Jack, learning the magic of being a bard (and there is magic in this book) struggles between hating Olaf and his band of berserkers and appreciating their finer qualities. I found it extremely difficult to swallow that Jack would have appreciated anything about any of them, ever.) They are taken to the North, where Lucy, the slave of Thorgill, (a young "shield maiden" about Jack's age) gives Lucy to Frith, an evil half Troll half human queen. To save Lucy, Jack, along with Olaf, Thorgill and a handful of chosen men must go to the land of the Trolls and.... Oh it's just too much.
Suffice to say, it's a somewhat Hobbit like tale, in that there is a quest, and a variety of relatively unrelated adventures happen along the way. Thorgill is turned from a hateful, spiteful wretch to a somewhat more palatable girl, but unfortunately this happens because of ~magic~ not because she learns anything about life.
Not a bad book, but not a great one either. ( )