Over at Brandywine Books, Phil has done a short interview with Lars on West Oversea.

I’ve been pondering West Oversea and its predecessor over the last week, and I think I’ve figured out why I didn’t find it as compelling as Erling’s Word, Lars’ original novel and the first half of The Year of the Warrior. Erling’s Word is about Erling’s attempts to bring Christianity to his people despite the strong opposition of some of them; and also about Father Aillil’s spiritual battle against both the same opposition and his own past. Erling’s and Aillil’s stories run in tandem.

In the second half of The Year of the Warrior, and in West Oversea, we again have two stories in each tale, Erling’s and Aillil’s. Erling does his thing in the natural world, and Aillil does his in the supernatural world, and although they happen at the same time and mostly in the same place they seem oddly disconnected. Not entirely, of course, but somewhat, at least in comparison with Erling’s Word.

But I blither.