The Tempering of Men

This feels like a middle book in a trilogy (which it is), but without annoying me as such things usually do. The book is transitional, but the characters' lives are also in transition, so it ends up feeling entirely appropriate to the circumstances. And, though the conflicts in this book are less epic, that doesn't make them less important: the characters are focused (at least temporarily) not on the immediate demands of war but on questions of their self-identity, their place in society, and the norse culture's relationship with the outside world.