Dan Guenther

The Norse Codex, with its prologue and story within a story, has elements

of metafiction, including use of parody and irony, techniques borrowed from

Thomas Pynchon and Kurt Vonnegut. Also, the attempts at fake news in order

to create and sell religious relics, as well as the Vikings spreading plague into

the New World to create a pandemic, mirror certain realities of our times.

Moreover, the character of Prince Jobst is not the arrogant alpha-male often

featured in more conventional historical romances. He is a follower of Erasmus

and seeks to bring the rule of law back to Bologna. His lover, Lady Elena, is

not the type of heroine who lives to satisfy Prince Jobst's obsessions, to include

the pursuit of patriarchal power. Rather, Lady Elena is the former student of Titian

and a gifted artist. She is a free spirit whose actions and insights unite the two

narrative threads of The Norse Codex.