There is a fairly significant time shift between this and the first book in the series Viking's Dawn something that I often enjoy as it renews curiosity about familiar characters. Overall however I am a bit torn about this book, I really got into the story about half-way through but don't think it was as good as Viking's Dawn. The first third of the book felt like it was just there to set up the latter part and I didn't feel that as many characters were fleshed out. It also suffered from a lack of novelty. A strength of Viking's Dawn was its explorations into the Viking character, The Road to Miklagard tried to recapture that sense of historical discovery by taking Harald to many cultures across the world but none of them had enough depth to captivate in the way the Vikings did. I think this was partly because, in the first half of the book, not enough focus was given to the times between adventures meaning that the relationships of the men didn't get built up as much. An exception to this was some riddle telling which recaptured some of camraderie of the first book. I wonder if this less companionable feel is partly because of Harald's role changing to shipmaster rather than being a member of the crew separated him from them. This changed in the latter part when the pace of the plot slowed, and the sense of being a crew diminished, which gave time and space the remaining chracters needed to build their individuality.

Much of the second half was set in Miklagard, the Viking name for Byzantium, and I thought that the depiction of race was pretty good, it wasn't too homogonised with lots of very different characters including both good and bad.

It also introduced the first significant female characters of the series. One the domineering and power hungry mother of Emperor Constantine and the other a young woman, she is depicted as an independent spirit although this independence is in the very constrained spheres constructed by roles proscribed to women by the men of the time. The general lack of main or significant female characters would mean I would want a complementary text inluding Viking women if I were to use any of this series as a class novel.

The art was again lovely and I particularly enjoyed the picture below of the mob flowing through the streets. As I said earlier the book improved once it gave more time for relationships to develop and characters to emerge. I almost wish it had started part-way through and used flashbacks to show how they got there but am unsure if this would maintain the sense of journeying which is important to this series. If you enjoy Viking's Dawn you would probably also enjoy this even though it doesn't live up to the promise of the orignial.