What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
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The Best of Randall Garrett
SOLVED: Adult Fiction
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SOLVED: Sci Fi short story. handgun enthusiast time-slipped to ancient Scandinavia [s]
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Ahh, you're totally correct Ann. That'd slipped my mind until now.Thanks Andy.
Did you use the power of your great recall, or some other scheme?
This one I googled using words like "science fiction" "name-of-gun" and "gun", until I found something that looked promising (I think this is the link I found http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questi... - I should have included it in my first reply)
Oh yeah, I forgot to ask Ann (and now you: could put "name-of-the-gun" instead of the the name of the gun :D ) to spoiler her comments - since perhaps, not everyone wants the ending given away...
Framing device is about an alien doing time research. One of his decimals very many places down is off... which results in our MC being appropriated down the timeline...
MC is visiting friends in Norway? Sweden? somewhere in Scandinavia. So, it's a nice day outside, but it's winter, so as he knows/his hosts have always told him, he gets fully dressed (nice parka, etc) and goes out to go shooting. He's aiming at a tree/has been shooting, and all of a sudden, things are different. (snow flurry, perhaps?).
He knows he's not far from the house, so he waits for bit, doesn't go wandering off.
He's confused, since his target tree doesn't show any bullet holes?
He goes back to where the house is, but there's no house, just hundred year old trees. He knows from the geography, and realizes that he's not in kansas anymore.
Wild Nordic (Arayan) men find him, and brandish spears at him. He decides that it's better to make friends than to start fights, and goes with them.
They greet him in old, old Norse(?). He goes to their hall, meets their chief. They make polite noises, but seem on edge. They offer him nuts to eat. He deduces that the small hammers they wear on their belts are eating implements, and that their enemies just pound rocks to open nuts. He reverses his pistol and thanks his idiosyncrasies that he doesn't use rubber on the bottom of his clips for faster loading, so that he can pound open nuts with his gun.
They welcome him.
They worship Odin, the sky-father, and raise their faces up to look at him - almost throwing him, because he was going to look down in respect - instead of viewing him face to face.
They're fighting foreign invaders, who're Asiatic.
He gets to like the chief's daughter. But is really happy not to be sharing the furs, since his parka is really warm, compared to what they've got. Also, fleas and lice.
While out hunting with the natives, he comes back and the Asians have taken the daughter while she was out gathering. He finds her skull on a pole, and sees red (goes beserker).
He comes too, and gets real cold fury, and tells the chief that they can't all go out after vengeance. And he lays a trap, because that's what the Asians were expecting them to do.
Then he leads the men out, and circles back.
The Asians were just waiting for the able-bodied to leave, so they could raid with impunity.
Instead of using the spear (like while hunting), he brings out his pistol, and kills oodles of bad guys...
(view spoiler)[As the alien is coming home, he notices the little leaf in the storm that he mis-placed, and returns the poor sapience to its home era... and our MC hears his friends say, "He smote them with lightning and thunder from his hammer, and then it flew back to his hand!" right before he gets taken home/disappears. He then engraves his pistol with the runes for Mjölnir. Yeah, the original. (hide spoiler)]