Vikingology Podcast · The Art and Science of the Viking Age

A Norse is a Norse, of course. Or is it?

·1 hr 31 min·5 clips

A former FBI analyst who writes Norse fantasy says politicians need to stop casually invoking Valhalla.

Greg Amato comes on the show as an author with a background that catches the hosts off guard. He is a former FBI cyber intelligence analyst who left that work not that long ago to become a full-time fantasy author. The hosts lean into that shift because it gives the conversation a different angle on Viking Age storytelling. Amato's Spear of the Gods Saga gives them a clear reason to talk about how fantasy can borrow from the Viking Age without pretending to be a history textbook. They also frame his work as more firmly on the fantasy side of the lane than the historical-fiction guests they usually have. A good stretch of the talk is about the rules Amato builds into his books. He likes those rules because they let him work in principles instead of just spectacle. One example is treatment of women. He does not describe co-equality in a modern political sense, but he does treat better treatment as a notable value to plant in a pre-Viking or Viking-age setting. He mentions donating 30 copies of Burden to Bear to the Oregon State Prison so readers there could run into those ideas. That move matters to him because he sees narrative as a way to get inside people's heads and nudge assumptions. The conversation then slides into a chapter about purity. In the book, that chapter is really about metallurgy. A dwarven weaponsmith tells the character that pure steel is not actually the goal. Strong steel comes from the right impurities in the right amounts. The hosts and Amato treat that as a neat collision of fantasy mystery and real-world craft. They also leave room for the sagas' impossible swords that cut through rock. The point is not to flatten the magic out of the stories. The point is to show that even the magic can sit beside a real understanding of how metal works. By the end, the episode feels less like a promo stop and more like a conversation about narrative, belief, and how a good Viking-age story can change what listeners think they know.

As heard by us

Fantasy, metallurgy, and Viking Age ideas meet in a conversation that stays lively as it moves.

A former FBI cyber intelligence analyst turned full-time fantasy author joins Vikingology, and the hosts use Greg Amato's trilogy to move cleanly between saga-inspired fiction, story rules, and Viking Age ideas.

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Why you'd press play

A Viking Age fantasy chat with steel, sagas, and a former FBI analyst.

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