Harald

This is a historical novel with a military emphasis, set in a fictional land populated by fictional peoples with a mediæval level of technology. As the setting is entirely fictional, it could be called a fantasy, although it's one of the least fantastic fantasies you're likely to encounter, with no trace of magic or the supernatural.

In this fictional world, gunpowder doesn't seem to have been invented, but counterweight trebuchets are in use, so military technology corresponds to Europe in about 1250 AD: the time of King Henry III of England and King Louis IV of France.

The main military powers consist of the Empire to the north, the Kingdom of Kaerlia to the south, and also the Vales and the Order, who are independent of Kaerlia but generally willing to help it resist periodic attacks from the Empire. The Vales are a loose association of mountain folk with a war leader (Harald) but no king; the Order are a female military order of mounted archers.

It's quite a good story, that I find worth rereading every now and then, and it goes into some detail (apparently well researched) about mediæval life in general and military life in particular.

The first part (29% of the book) deals with Harald's difficult solo visit to the new King of Kaerlia, who is less wise than his late father.

The rest of the book consists mostly of a long series of military campaigns and battles, in which the elderly but clever Harald defeats all opponents sooner or later, one way or another.

If you don't want to read about military campaigns, this book is not for you. I don't mind novels with military content, but most novels that include battles and campaigns also find space to talk about other things. For my own taste, this novel doesn't find enough space to talk about other things. It finds a little space to talk about family life, but not very much.

My other criticism of the book is that the characters (Harald in particular) tend to speak in a cryptic abbreviated English that's a bit irritating to read and can be hard to follow. As it's presumably a translation of whatever language they're really speaking, I think it would be better to translate it into normal English that we could read more easily.

It could be argued that Harald's clipped speech is a part of his personality, but I think his personality could be conveyed by a less exaggerated brevity.

Neither of these criticisms stop me from rereading the book occasionally, but they seem worth mentioning.

Characterization is adequate, I can remember who most of the main characters are, but most of them are not vividly distinct from one another. Helping your readers to distinguish one character from another is an art that must be hard to master; I'm not a writer of fiction, so I've never attempted it.