The Very Virile Viking, Part I

I’ve found it. The Holy Grail of Cliterature. The Magnum Opus that transcends all preconceived notions of reason and propriety (plot and dialogue too, actually) to win the crown of the best fucking chick porn you’ll ever read. This shit was so good I had to put it down in medias res, lest my clit explode out of sheer delight into a globular collision of sparkles and stardust.

Even the first line is almost too good to be true: “In days of old when men were… whatever…” I shit you not. Sandra Hill, a New York Times bestselling author, was actually too lazy to fill in a single adjective to delineate grandiosity, and instead just kind of skulks into the next scene.

The year is 999 A.D., and our hero is a Viking lord named Magnus Ericsson, who is what you get if you cross a magnum condom with Eric Northman. To help readers delve into the protagonist’s psyche, Hill employs a carefully placed pun in her opening description: “He loved the smell of fresh-turned dirt after springtime plowing. He loved the feel of a soft woman under him in the bed furs… when engaged in another type of plowing.” Ooh, clever! Wordplay, as we’ll later find out, is Hill’s favorite type of foreplay—but I’m getting ahead of myself. This is all just too exciting.

Magnus is a Viking lord whose formidable virility has resulted in his fathering of ten progeny with “four wives, six concubines, numerous passing fancies, and at least one barley-faced maid.” Terrified of spamming more lasses with his seed, he decides to take a vow of celibacy and sets sail to discover new horizons with his brood of munchkin Vikings. But unbeknownst to his wretched self, a time-warping fog descends over the warship, and transports them into… modern day California, smack in the middle of Hollywood.

I’m going to let you digest that for a sec.

It gets better. Immediately, a hotshot director casts him as the lead actor for an upcoming Viking biopic. A young (duh) hot (duh) Beverly Hills broker named Angela with full, sensuous, and “immensely kiss-some” red lips simultaneously falls in lust with him. The pièce de resistance? No one guesses that Magnus and his brood are fucking HISTORICAL VIKINGS. Instead, everyone assumes that he’s a method actor from the Lee Strasberg school. Magnum, on the other hand, is convinced that he’s made a pioneering discovery of a brave new world.

Everything, it turns out, can be explained by the convenient loophole of “foreign exoticism.” Whenever language difficulties crop up (Magnum keeps calling himself an “act-whore” and asking when his “odd-itch-on” will be), Angela tells herself it must be because of his British origins. In response to Magnum’s sword (the steel kind) and constant rough-housing, she ponders to herself: Do I need a daily reminder of the violence that is a part of society today? Did 9/11 teach me anything? Apparently not, you stupid bitch, because you’re about to copulate with the prototypical barbarian terrorist in humanity’s history.

Unsurprisingly, their seduction scenes are just as titillating as one would expect between a Norseman and a bimbo:

Ex1) Angela: Guess where we’re going this afternoon?
Magnum: To bed? Ha, ha, ha. Just jesting.

Ex2) Angela: That is such a sexist thing to say.
Magnum: "I am a sexy man," he replied, assuming sexist meant the same as sexy.

But their moronic magnetism can’t be consummated because Magnum’s petrified of spreading his seed. So they engage in some strategic rubbing, her “woman’s cleft sliding back and forth along the ridge of his erection” while he shouts, “ride me harder, sweet angel. Bring me to heaven” before coming all over his skirt.

Where I finally left off was when Angela, due to her mounting sexual frustration, decides to dub herself with the nickname Hormones ‘R’ Us. In response, Magnum grunts to her, saying, “Methinks this is all about lust. Methinks you are as randy as a mare afore being mounted by her stallion.” I need a breather.

Rating: 5 Dildos. Stay tuned for Part II of The Very Virile Viking, which will answer your burning questions like: Will anyone finally enlighten Magnum about the existence of condoms? When will everyone realize that some quantum entanglement has just occurred? When will Angela soothe her burning crotchfire? And: does this book have an actual plot?

Previously - Gray Pleasures