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Hammer and the Cross #3
King and Emperor
Driven by prophetic dreams, the Viking warrior Shef as become the One King, the undisputed ruler of the North. Now he must face the reborn power of the Holy Roman Empire.
Rome threatens Shef's fearsome Viking navy with a new invention of unparalleled Greek fire. Unable to defend his fleet against this awesome weapon, Shef travels East in search of new wisdom. His quest leads him to the lavish court of the Muslim Caliph and, ultimately, to the secret hiding place of the Holy Grail.
Rome threatens Shef's fearsome Viking navy with a new invention of unparalleled Greek fire. Unable to defend his fleet against this awesome weapon, Shef travels East in search of new wisdom. His quest leads him to the lavish court of the Muslim Caliph and, ultimately, to the secret hiding place of the Holy Grail.
480 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
23 people are currently reading
405 people want to read
About the author
Harry Harrison
1,261 books1,040 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Harry Harrison (born Henry Maxwell Dempsey) was an American science fiction author best known for his character the The Stainless Steel Rat and the novel Make Room! Make Room! (1966), the basis for the film Soylent Green (1973). He was also (with Brian W. Aldiss) co-president of the Birmingham Science Fiction Group.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
Harry Harrison (born Henry Maxwell Dempsey) was an American science fiction author best known for his character the The Stainless Steel Rat and the novel Make Room! Make Room! (1966), the basis for the film Soylent Green (1973). He was also (with Brian W. Aldiss) co-president of the Birmingham Science Fiction Group.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
August 22, 2021
Unfortunately, GR does not have the cover for my edition of this-- first print hardcover-- but it is very nice. All the books in this series have great artwork and illustrations in them; not quite a graphic novel, but...
KaE picks up about 6 years after the last, when Shef became King of the North, holding England, (now) Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark. Meanwhile, Brand, the newly christened Emperor of the (restored) Holy Roman Empire is still looking for ancient relics, most notably, the 'holy grail'. Now, Harrison plays a little fast and loose here, basically using various translations to indicate that the grail is actually a pole ladder, the one utilized to take Jesus off the cross. Shef, after seeing to the economic recovery of the North, has a visitor from the Calif of Cordova, imploring him to come visit and Shef, figuring that an enemy of my enemy might be a friend, consents and heads off with a small fleet of his new warships to pay a visit...
What is really interesting and unique about his series concerns 'the Way'-- the new strain of Norse religion that has emerged and Shef has championed. Basically, the Way possesses beliefs very similar to the enlightenment, e.g., the scientific method and zest to acquire knowledge both new and old. This has already lead to 'machine war' with the reintroduction of catapults and other war engines, but also many 'peacetime' inventions. In fact (mild spoiler) Shef even manages to invent the printing press to disseminate 'subversive' tracts about the Catholic Church and Islam. While not quite at the level of the industrial revolution, you can see it is coming up, and this book is set in the 9th century C.E.
There is also an aspect of the Protestant Reformation here, with 'the Way' challenging religious dogma of all stripes. Shef in his Northern Kingdom allows any and all beliefs; it is almost libertarian in that you can do what you want as long as it does not harm others. Obviously, the Pope and the various Islamic powers are not to happy about this. Harrison almost delights discussing how in Baghdad the Tower of Wisdom was allowed to flourish for generations, producing new discoveries and such. It has only been about 30 years since it was shut down due to a reactionary Muslim leader who argued all you need to know is in the Koran. Shef envisions something similar and in fact has his won Tower of Wisdom in England and people from all over the North are learning new things and ways...
Besides the religious and philosophical discussions (I loved these), Harrison also manages to give us some taut action sequences here, involving not only 'machines' but also Greek Fire! As I mentioned in the reviews of the first two in the series, this is 'serious' Harrison, not the snarky satire you will find in the Stainless Steel Rat or Bill the Galactic Hero series. Well written and Harrison manages to deftly switch through various POVs with aplomb. Very surprised this series does not have a larger audience. 4.5 stars!!
KaE picks up about 6 years after the last, when Shef became King of the North, holding England, (now) Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark. Meanwhile, Brand, the newly christened Emperor of the (restored) Holy Roman Empire is still looking for ancient relics, most notably, the 'holy grail'. Now, Harrison plays a little fast and loose here, basically using various translations to indicate that the grail is actually a pole ladder, the one utilized to take Jesus off the cross. Shef, after seeing to the economic recovery of the North, has a visitor from the Calif of Cordova, imploring him to come visit and Shef, figuring that an enemy of my enemy might be a friend, consents and heads off with a small fleet of his new warships to pay a visit...
What is really interesting and unique about his series concerns 'the Way'-- the new strain of Norse religion that has emerged and Shef has championed. Basically, the Way possesses beliefs very similar to the enlightenment, e.g., the scientific method and zest to acquire knowledge both new and old. This has already lead to 'machine war' with the reintroduction of catapults and other war engines, but also many 'peacetime' inventions. In fact (mild spoiler) Shef even manages to invent the printing press to disseminate 'subversive' tracts about the Catholic Church and Islam. While not quite at the level of the industrial revolution, you can see it is coming up, and this book is set in the 9th century C.E.
There is also an aspect of the Protestant Reformation here, with 'the Way' challenging religious dogma of all stripes. Shef in his Northern Kingdom allows any and all beliefs; it is almost libertarian in that you can do what you want as long as it does not harm others. Obviously, the Pope and the various Islamic powers are not to happy about this. Harrison almost delights discussing how in Baghdad the Tower of Wisdom was allowed to flourish for generations, producing new discoveries and such. It has only been about 30 years since it was shut down due to a reactionary Muslim leader who argued all you need to know is in the Koran. Shef envisions something similar and in fact has his won Tower of Wisdom in England and people from all over the North are learning new things and ways...
Besides the religious and philosophical discussions (I loved these), Harrison also manages to give us some taut action sequences here, involving not only 'machines' but also Greek Fire! As I mentioned in the reviews of the first two in the series, this is 'serious' Harrison, not the snarky satire you will find in the Stainless Steel Rat or Bill the Galactic Hero series. Well written and Harrison manages to deftly switch through various POVs with aplomb. Very surprised this series does not have a larger audience. 4.5 stars!!
August 5, 2016
Harry Harrison’s Hammer and Cross trilogy is a rollicking adventure story, but underlying its tale is a profound consideration of intellectual and social stagnancy of medieval Europe in the 9th century and consideration of its cause, the pervasive influence of Christianity and the Catholic Church. What if the re-birth of thought and invention could be kick-started 400 years earlier than the renaissance of the late 14th century? What might be the circumstances that would enable a man to set in motion the demise of Catholic absolutism and the birth of free thought and free men?
The trilogy begins in the late 9th century, in 865 AD, and it barely spans five years, but it’s enough to cover 1300 pages and sweep clean the historical slate, preparing the Western world to precociously toddle into the renaissance and enlightenment and beyond. The protagonist, Shef, is the bastard son of a raiding Viking and English noblewoman, and he is but a 17-year-old thane, a piece of property in an English village on the northeast coast of England, not far from York. The appearance of Vikings sets off a chain reaction, and circumstances enable Shef—through good luck, cunning, and perhaps the divine providence of a lesser Asgardian god—to rise from thane to joint ruler of England, driving off both Viking and French invaders. In this first installment and in the succeeding novels, Shef pursues new knowledge to overcome the power-hungry forces that will not abide his growing influence.
It is the pursuit of new knowledge—not bookish philosophy or theology, but a practical scientific empiricism—that allies Shef with powerful sponsors, members of Asgard’s Way, enabling him to bridge English and Viking loyalties. Shef’s inventiveness initially provides his forces catapults, lance launchers, an all-purpose pike, and crossbows reinforced with steel, then there is development of windmills to grind grain and drive engines to smelt iron, then the creation of iron-clad ships and experiments with rudimentary flight, and even the application of algebra to compute catapult trajectories at a crucial moment. Even as he creates more sophisticated weapons to fight off Viking, French, Greek, and Arab forces, there is awareness that his chief foe, Bruno the Catholic, is fast matching the development of comparable weaponry.
At the conclusion of the final novel, Shef brings Catholic forces to their knees, annihilating Catholic sovereignty, and enabling nations and people to choose their own paths. Shef is confident that the world will no longer succumb to the enforced ignorance of the previous 500 years, aware that the great school he founded with Asgard’s Way, in England, at the present site of Cambridge, is working to discover more techniques to improve agriculture, medicine, and the manufacture iron and steel, as well as create new machines. It is with this confidence in a world changed for the better that he vanishes from sight, escaping into anonymity and seclusion with his Viking wife.
While it is all solid entertainment, there are two quibbles. First, Shef’s avoidance of apotheosis touches on a major thread in the novel. Even as Christianity and Asgard’s pantheon are being shown as having convergences, and even as Shef seems to be bringing about the resurrection of dead god Baldur, driven and guided by his own patron god, there is in the second half of the final novel a sudden questioning of the reality of the gods, even the ones who have been observed in Shef’s visions (and external to his visions, as when Odin intervenes to help Shef kill Ragnar’s son at the end of the second novel). That man makes his gods in his own image is no new concept, but its intrusion at this juncture in the series makes it difficult to understand just how Shef could have been tapping into a collective religious psyche to fashion his own, more liberating god. The second quibble has to do with the future millennium—and it is no fault of Harrison that he’s not answered the question, as it was merely his task to show how the medieval period could be truncated—but one does wonder what might lie ahead in this alternate history, especially as the new world (the Americas have yet to be “discovered” and “conquered”).
The trilogy begins in the late 9th century, in 865 AD, and it barely spans five years, but it’s enough to cover 1300 pages and sweep clean the historical slate, preparing the Western world to precociously toddle into the renaissance and enlightenment and beyond. The protagonist, Shef, is the bastard son of a raiding Viking and English noblewoman, and he is but a 17-year-old thane, a piece of property in an English village on the northeast coast of England, not far from York. The appearance of Vikings sets off a chain reaction, and circumstances enable Shef—through good luck, cunning, and perhaps the divine providence of a lesser Asgardian god—to rise from thane to joint ruler of England, driving off both Viking and French invaders. In this first installment and in the succeeding novels, Shef pursues new knowledge to overcome the power-hungry forces that will not abide his growing influence.
It is the pursuit of new knowledge—not bookish philosophy or theology, but a practical scientific empiricism—that allies Shef with powerful sponsors, members of Asgard’s Way, enabling him to bridge English and Viking loyalties. Shef’s inventiveness initially provides his forces catapults, lance launchers, an all-purpose pike, and crossbows reinforced with steel, then there is development of windmills to grind grain and drive engines to smelt iron, then the creation of iron-clad ships and experiments with rudimentary flight, and even the application of algebra to compute catapult trajectories at a crucial moment. Even as he creates more sophisticated weapons to fight off Viking, French, Greek, and Arab forces, there is awareness that his chief foe, Bruno the Catholic, is fast matching the development of comparable weaponry.
At the conclusion of the final novel, Shef brings Catholic forces to their knees, annihilating Catholic sovereignty, and enabling nations and people to choose their own paths. Shef is confident that the world will no longer succumb to the enforced ignorance of the previous 500 years, aware that the great school he founded with Asgard’s Way, in England, at the present site of Cambridge, is working to discover more techniques to improve agriculture, medicine, and the manufacture iron and steel, as well as create new machines. It is with this confidence in a world changed for the better that he vanishes from sight, escaping into anonymity and seclusion with his Viking wife.
While it is all solid entertainment, there are two quibbles. First, Shef’s avoidance of apotheosis touches on a major thread in the novel. Even as Christianity and Asgard’s pantheon are being shown as having convergences, and even as Shef seems to be bringing about the resurrection of dead god Baldur, driven and guided by his own patron god, there is in the second half of the final novel a sudden questioning of the reality of the gods, even the ones who have been observed in Shef’s visions (and external to his visions, as when Odin intervenes to help Shef kill Ragnar’s son at the end of the second novel). That man makes his gods in his own image is no new concept, but its intrusion at this juncture in the series makes it difficult to understand just how Shef could have been tapping into a collective religious psyche to fashion his own, more liberating god. The second quibble has to do with the future millennium—and it is no fault of Harrison that he’s not answered the question, as it was merely his task to show how the medieval period could be truncated—but one does wonder what might lie ahead in this alternate history, especially as the new world (the Americas have yet to be “discovered” and “conquered”).
March 8, 2019
Скучно :(
December 6, 2020
Continuing the alternate history adventure, this final volume compresses technology development through the conflicts of its principle characters. Again, this was fun as an adventure, but the underlying impression is that only wars and bloody conflict provide sufficient motivation for new technology. All of that is necessarily destructive, although some spin-offs for general welfare are noted. A good read for general entertainment, but neither as compelling as the second novel nor as novel as the first one. Even excellent authors appear to lose the essential appeal of their first concepts when they are drawn out too far.
April 7, 2025
Good series overall, poor ending.
A pity that this book does not measure up to the rest of the series. Harrison gets obsessed with the "oppressiveness" of Christianity, and the story seems to end up more as a sermon, than a novel. The "Way", while an interesting read in alternate history, becomes increasingly unrealistic as the story progresses - and Shef's portrayal as a Christ figure increasingly obvious.
The ending is the true letdown. The wrap-up is short - and frankly, quite unrealistic. Harrison gets carried away by his vision of a different, utopian dark-ages world.
Read it, if you read and liked the previous two novels - but don't expect it to measure up to the others.
A pity that this book does not measure up to the rest of the series. Harrison gets obsessed with the "oppressiveness" of Christianity, and the story seems to end up more as a sermon, than a novel. The "Way", while an interesting read in alternate history, becomes increasingly unrealistic as the story progresses - and Shef's portrayal as a Christ figure increasingly obvious.
The ending is the true letdown. The wrap-up is short - and frankly, quite unrealistic. Harrison gets carried away by his vision of a different, utopian dark-ages world.
Read it, if you read and liked the previous two novels - but don't expect it to measure up to the others.
June 12, 2020
An odd book: a paean to religious tolerance and against an extreme version of Catholicism (with a totalitarian vision of a Skuld-world where books are never changed and new information is not allowed). Such a world, inherently unstable, would fall apart as human agency is open-ended and brings out emergent properties from its interactions.
But the simple morality tale, informed by its anti-clerical stance, is an unusual piece of alternate history: religious tolerance and rationalism appearing before the tenth century.
But the simple morality tale, informed by its anti-clerical stance, is an unusual piece of alternate history: religious tolerance and rationalism appearing before the tenth century.
February 7, 2018
UKUPNA OCENA (overall rating) ★★★✫ 3.5/5
Radnja (story) ★★★✫ 3.5
Okruženje (setting) ★★★✫ 3.5
Pripovedanje (writing style) ★★★✫ 3.5
UTISAK (summary) - malo slabiji deo u odnosu na prethodna dva, ali lep završetak trilogije. Glavna ideja pisca je vezana za religije i bogove, posebno za "skrivenu" istoriju o Hristu.
Radnja (story) ★★★✫ 3.5
Okruženje (setting) ★★★✫ 3.5
Pripovedanje (writing style) ★★★✫ 3.5
UTISAK (summary) - malo slabiji deo u odnosu na prethodna dva, ali lep završetak trilogije. Glavna ideja pisca je vezana za religije i bogove, posebno za "skrivenu" istoriju o Hristu.
February 18, 2023
I'll be honest I didn't read the first two, but after finishing I don't think it's really necessary, I felt that I could pretty much understand everything that I needed to.
Very cool concept, long and kind of boring execution. Perhaps the character development happened in the first two books, but I felt that they were pretty static in this book.
Very cool concept, long and kind of boring execution. Perhaps the character development happened in the first two books, but I felt that they were pretty static in this book.
September 8, 2017
This is a very good book, but still not as good as book 1 of this trilogy. I'm glad I saw it through and I love the world, but #1 is the only book that really felt perfect.
December 3, 2017
Loved. Made me nostalgic for the hours I spent in the McWillie Elementary school library reading Greek, Roman, & Norse mythology and history.
January 20, 2018
Great ending to the Trilogy.I love them about as much as his other 3 parter West of Eden.He writes great characters & plots.I will reread them again one day Loki permitting.
November 17, 2021
Not as good as the first book but it provides a satisfying conclusion to the series.
October 26, 2010
"Iron Franks, he thought. And Greek fire. It will take more than the courage of the ghazis to defeat those together. Far away, in his sleep, the King of the North felt a pang of warning, a chill that seemed to strike up from the ground beneath his stout-timbered bed and
down mattress..."
With each new volume in this most interesting of series, new people places, and religions have come into play. Even with my woefully depraved level of historical awareness I can appreciate the detail, the religious nuances and the implications the changes sweeping the world offer.
"What harm did it do, what she and he did between them when the nights were cold? The bishop was wrong, thought the priest with the first flare of independence his life had ever known..."
This final volume sees the biggest shake-ups yet, and the true grandeur of the series swings into effect as a result. Each big revelation - the use of mathematics, of printing, of calculating and figuring and measurement and writing - all of these things is ushered in on a wave of action so gripping in its intensity that I found it very difficult indeed to stop thinking about it, even when I was doing other things..
I felt a little let down by Shef, toward the end of the book. The fight did seem to go out of him; but more than that, his poise and bravura seemed somehow diminished. To compensate, I suppose the rest of the people - the common folk who'd laboured hard without visitations from the Gods, carried on his teachings. Shef was a great catalyst for them, and if that's how he chose to play it, who am I to criticise?
This was certainly a series to get your teeth into, with plenty to ponder and much to think over.
down mattress..."
With each new volume in this most interesting of series, new people places, and religions have come into play. Even with my woefully depraved level of historical awareness I can appreciate the detail, the religious nuances and the implications the changes sweeping the world offer.
"What harm did it do, what she and he did between them when the nights were cold? The bishop was wrong, thought the priest with the first flare of independence his life had ever known..."
This final volume sees the biggest shake-ups yet, and the true grandeur of the series swings into effect as a result. Each big revelation - the use of mathematics, of printing, of calculating and figuring and measurement and writing - all of these things is ushered in on a wave of action so gripping in its intensity that I found it very difficult indeed to stop thinking about it, even when I was doing other things..
I felt a little let down by Shef, toward the end of the book. The fight did seem to go out of him; but more than that, his poise and bravura seemed somehow diminished. To compensate, I suppose the rest of the people - the common folk who'd laboured hard without visitations from the Gods, carried on his teachings. Shef was a great catalyst for them, and if that's how he chose to play it, who am I to criticise?
This was certainly a series to get your teeth into, with plenty to ponder and much to think over.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 5, 2017
An end to the series, in some ways good and in others it seemed to be things happening after each other, not necessarily because they should or could be likely to do so, but because they had to to progress the plot where the author had planned the next bit to take place. Still, mostly good. Unimportantly but a bit curious, the penultimate chapter seems final, while the final chapter seems to be an introduction better placed as the very first chapter of the book.
August 8, 2013
A great ending to a unique series. I found myself continually pulled into the story of Shef and his companions as they made their way through a world making extreme changes. While I was slightly disappointed by the almost anticlimatic ending (something I have pointed out in the other two books) I still found it perfect for the story it ended. I recommend these books to so many readers interested in many different genres as the author does a great job of capturing the reader's attention. I am glad I discovered these books on my shelf!
November 23, 2009
The third book of Harry Harrison's "Hammer and Cross" series of alternate history fantasy set around English and Viking heroes in the late 9th century C.E. In this novel history diverges even further from our own as Shef and his friends visit the Mediterranean and run into the Cathar heretics, Jews, and Muslims as they prepare to face the Holy Roman emperor who has the Spear of Destiny and now seeks the Holy Grail!
April 26, 2012
Book was, compared to the previous two, quite convoluted and boring. The author is trying too much, without any pretense of subtlety, to make it a book about more than just vikings in an alternate history. I found the nonsensical and character-breaking focus on religion tiring.
Read
October 2, 2008Third book in the series.
December 13, 2012
A satisfying ending to a great series. So rare...
March 26, 2013
The whole Trilogy is awesome. Sadly there was just one edition in Germany
March 2, 2015
Probably my 10th re read at least of the series. By far my favourite fantasy series.
November 7, 2014
Sem fyrr þá verður sagan svo ótrúverðug á köflum að það dregur úr lestraránægjunni. En alveg skemmtilegt svosem.
November 15, 2014
This series is a gem. I highly recommend it to Harry Harrison fans, and to those who like alternative histories.
January 22, 2016
This is alternate reality at its best. Harry Harrison tells a whale of a tale. Vikings, the Holy Roman Empire, Christianity all set in a different reality. This are a great read.
April 13, 2017
Alternative history, impressive
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews