I read this as part of Book Riot's Read Harder challenge for 2018 - for task 20, a book with a cover you hate. And make no mistake, this is an absolutely appalling cover. I don't know what the publisher was thinking, inflicting that hideousness on what is really a very good book. For Hrolf Kraki's Saga is much better than it appears: a retelling of one of the old sagas about the titular Danish King, albeit a retelling that is as much about his family and retainers as it is the title character. There's even a small crossover with the Beowulf poem, which isn't inserted randomly by Anderson as the crossover existed in the original texts - which I didn't know until I looked it up but which gives an interesting context to both.

As with a lot of the sagas, it's a grim story with moments of grace that ends badly for pretty much all concerned, but Anderson has written it well, focusing as much on character as on action. Having read it, I now want to find a copy of my own... but a copy of a different edition, because I can't get over the sheer bloody awfulness of that cover.