A Shortage of Giants

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 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 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 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?"