Publisher's Synopsis
At a dingy Texas truck stop, graduate student Carlo Crucciatore encounters a mysterious, one-eyed stranger clad entirely in grey, who tells him they will meet again at Yggdrasil -- the cosmic World Tree of Norse mythology. Subsequently, Carlo discovers a priceless Yoshihiro katana in a pawn shop and spends his last cash acquiring the sword: little does he know that he will die soon, and his last conscious thought will be to reach for the katana. Awakening in AEsgarth, brought back to life by the kiss of a beautiful Valkyrie, Carlo discovers that he has been wafted to the Realm of the Heroes by virtue of having died with the sword in his hand; now he must journey to AEsirheim to learn why he -- a Sicilian-American graduate student -- has been transported to the heaven of the Norse gods.
Accompanied by his Valkyrie, Astrid, Carlo begins his trek astride a giant battle boar named Parzival, but encounters a myriad of bumps and detours on his journey, encounters with both friends and foes: a troll operating a trollbooth, the whelps of the Fenris Wolf, an Irish-Israeli leprechaun named Moishe Aloysius Goldfarb, and the semi-divine sword smith Yoshihiro, himself. But Carlo's strange encounters are far from over: at Yggdrasil, he meets the Grey Stranger once again, who proves to be none other than Odin All-Father, king of the Norse gods. And at the World Tree, the Norns -- determiners of men's fates -- send Carlo and his companions on a quest where they will encounter a river demon, a malevolent sorceress, and a talkative firedrake. Where will the apprentice hero's wyrd take him next -- and will he learn the answer to the paradox "Is there death after death?"
