Six great Scandinavian fantasy books
Scandinavians love reading.
In Norway alone, where we’re roughly 5.2 million people, we buy 23 million
books every year. Granted, that includes non-fiction, school curriculum, et
cetera, but still, we read a lot, and this means we write a lot
of books, too. Books of all genres that hold an extremely high quality, but
that you may not have heard about if you didn’t grow up in Scandinavia.
Fortunately, some of them
get translated into English, and that includes books in the genre I’m writing
about today: fantasy/YA.
So if you want to get a
glimpse of what Scandinavian fantasy writers have to offer, and you haven’t
read these fantasy books, presented here in no particular order, I strongly
recommend checking them out!
Tone Almhjell: The
Twistrose Key
Tone Almhjell is something
as interesting as a Norwegian author that was first published in English and
then translated back into Norwegian after she became a best-seller.
Lin’s family has rented a
house, and Lin’s certain that there’s something wrong there: The clocks tick
too slowly, frost always covers the flower bed, and eventually, Lin gets a
secret key marked “Twistrose” and finds a gate to another world - the world of
Sylver, home of every dead animal who ever loved a child. Here, she must find
the missing Winter Prince to save Sylver from destruction.
The Twistrose Key was published in 2013, and the long-awaited companion novel, Thornghost,
was finally released this summer.
Sara B. Elfgren and Mats
Strandberg: The Engelsfors Trilogy
The Engelsfors Trilogy - The
Circle, Fire and The Key - was an international sensation
that was quickly sold to 26 countries. Some describe it as a cross between Twilight
and Fucking Åmål. Others say this is “My So-Called Life meets Buffy the
Vampire Slayer in Twin Peaks”.
Engelsfors is a beautiful
name for a godforsaken town, surrounded by deep forests. On the night of a
mysterious suicide, six high school students - Minnoo, Vanessa, Linnéa,
Anna-Karin, Rebecka, and Ida, six girls with nothing in common - are drawn to
an abandoned fairground where they must understand their mysterious powers and
work past their differences to survive the battle between good and evil.
Jostein Gaarder: The
Solitaire Mystery
The Solitaire Mystery was first released in 1990 and was the breakthrough book of
Jostein Gaarder, well-known for his philosophy novel Sophie’s World.
Hans Thomas and his father
are driving from Arendal to Athens, hoping to find Hans Thomas’s mother. In
Switzerland, a mysterious baker gives Hans Thomas a bun containing a miniature
book, a book that tells the story of an island where fifty-three people, who’d
given themselves names after playing cards, were living. Soon, however, the
book and real world start overlapping...
Gaarder has written many
amazing books, and I’d also recommend that you have a look at Sophie’s World
and The Christmas Mystery, but The Solitaire Mystery is my
Gaarder favorite. Oh, and don’t be surprised if the book gives you a sudden
urge to start collecting jokers!
Johan Harstad: 172 Hours
on the Moon
Do yourself a favor and
read this book. Please. You won’t regret it.
It’s been forty years since
man first walked on the moon, and in order to fund a new trip, NASA organizes a
worldwide lottery where three teenagers get a chance to travel to the moon and
visit the secret DARLAH 2 base. Mia from Stavanger, Midori from Tokyo and
Antoine from Paris are selected for the trip. Meanwhile, on a retirement home
in Miami, we meet an old man so senile he can barely remember his own name. He
does remember one thing, however: If mankind goes back to the moon, the outcome
will be horrible and could mean the end of us all.
172 Hours on the Moon has won a ton of awards, including being appointed the best
Norwegian YA book of all time, and has been published in at least eighteen
countries. It’s Harstad’s only YA novel, but he has also written acclaimed
novels and short stories for adults, many of which are translated to English.
Lene Kaaberbøl: The
Shamer Chronicles
Starting with The
Shamer’s Daughter, Lene Kaaberbøl’s Shamer Chronicles is one of the most
popular series Scandinavian fantasy has to offer.
Dina’s mother is the Shamer;
she has the ability to elicit shamed confessions by looking into someone’s
eyes. Dina has inherited her power, but with great powers comes fear and
hostility, and it is as much a curse as it is a gift. But when her mother is
called to Dunark Castle, Dina must come to terms with her power to be able to
come to her mother’s aid.
Kaaberbøl is also the
author of the Wildwitch series, and she’s also written the Nina Borg
crime thrillers.
Astrid Lindgren: The
Brothers Lionheart
This is the only book on
the list that does not seem to be available in the Kindle store, but I had to
put it on the list anyway.
This children’s book, from
the author of Pippi Longstocking, tells the tale of brothers Karl and Jonathan.
Karl is dying from sickness, so Jonathan tells him stories about the wonderful
land of Nangiyala, where he’ll go when he dies, and they agree to meet up
there. As cruel fate would have it, Jonathan dies first, and Karl doesn’t see
him again before he dies and ends up in Nangiyala, which is as beautiful as he’d
imagined it. But Nangiyala is under attack from a vicious tyrant, and Karl must
help his brother prepare for battle…
(A few restrictions I put on myself when making this list: I only
list works that are translated to English, which sadly excluded Siri
Pettersen’s Raven rings, but make a mental note of that name, because it
can only be a matter of time before she’s published in English, too, and you
are going to love her. I made sure that all of these books are available on
Amazon, and with one exception they’re available for Kindle. I couldn’t resist
putting one book from 1973 on the list, but since the purpose of the list is to
make you aware of amazing books you probably don’t know, I tried to steer clear
of the classics, including Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt and Selma Lagerlöf’s
The Wonderful Adventures of Nils. They’re still definitely worth
reading, though. And finally, I tried to show some common courtesy by not
putting my own book on the list!)
