A series that I wanted but had a difficult time getting was the Berserker series by Chris Carlsen. There are three books, all from Sphere Books, published in 1977, 1977, & 1979 respectively. I finally got the last one and just finished reading it. The series is:

1. Shadow of the Wolf (August 1977)
2. The Bull Chief (October 1977)
3. The Horned Warrior (1979)

ISFDB lists Melvyn Grant as the cover artist on #1 and 3, and I’m pretty sure book 2 is by him as well. These books are pot boiling, action pulp style Sword & Sorcery novels, and it was quite a surprise when I found out Chris Carlsen was really Robert Holdstock (1948 – 2009).

I’d read Holdstock’s breakthrough novel, Mythago Wood (1984), which led to a series called the Ryhope Wood series. I enjoyed Mythago, although not enough to make me read the sequels. The prose was certainly very nice, a big plus for me, but it was fairly skimpy on action and adventure. So, to find out Holdstock had written the blood and gore Berserker series raised an eyebrow. (Turns out he also wrote other pulpish S&S works under yet another name, but that’s a future post.)

The series begins with a young Viking warrior named Harald Swiftaxe returning home from his first campaign. He finds a village of his people destroyed and a wounded “Berserker” left behind. Berserkers were a real thing in Viking history, devotees of the god Odin, although here they are presented as literally possessed by the spirit of the bear, which makes them nearly impervious to fire and steel. With some help, Harald kills the Berserk and then blasphemes Odin. Bad move.

When Harald reaches his father’s steading, he finds other Berserkers there, and after he brags about killing the Berserk he calls down on himself the Berserker curse. In his first rage, he murders friends and rapes the young woman he’d planned to marry. I’m not a naïve reader of this type of fiction but the brutality startled me. Harald loses all qualities as a sympathetic character. Later, Harald regains some human sensibilities, although he can still be taken over by the Berserk and kill anyone nearby. But now, in calmer moments, he seeks to break the curse, and this quest continues through the next two books. I won’t tell you whether he succeeds or not.

Holdstock’s strengths in these books don’t lie in plotting. The story moves Harald from one bloody battle to another, with interludes where he regrets actions brought about by the curse. I’d guess Holdstock wrote them pretty fast. There are places where they could have been improved. The strengths are that the tales never let grass grow. The action is always moving, and it’s bloody and extremely gory. The prose is very well done with quite a few moments of poetry. S&S aficionados are likely to approve.

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Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. His last article for us was a look at The Conan novels of John Maddox Roberts. See all of his recent posts for Black Gate here.