Dan Carlin loves barbarians as much as I do, and this four-hour audio-book is a blast. He is at his best in Hour Three when he comes to Clovis. The story of the henpecked pagan King Clovis and his catholic wife Clotilda is precious. More importantly this examination of the ‘outlaw bikers of the dark ages’ shows the military superiority that is bestowed on any nation of men, who maintain a free-speaking class of women with property rights, including the right to decide the fate of their vagina.

Dan starts out giving an outline of the Late Roman Empire, discussing the ‘Womb of Nations’ that was Scandinavia. Dan juggles a dozen scholars who swing back in forth over the question of whether Rome at this stage was worth saving. Thor’s Angels is one of Dan’s best stabs at irreverent history, with his politically incorrect analogies to modern gangs, soft-drink marketing, Planet of The Apes metaphors, and edgy teen culture.

Dan does an excellent job of discussing the cultural adaptation of religious institutions to the bone yard of Pagan Rome. My favorite quote from his selection was from Alaric, the Visigoth sacker of Rome. When the Roman negotiators point out that he and his warriors are outnumbered Clovis answers, “The thicker the hay the faster it is mowed.”

From discussions of ‘super-tribes’, ‘rancid butter as hair gel’, and the price of Gothic children being the meat of one butchered dog, Dan brings you colorfully into a period that most historians would rather not discuss. But Dan, being ‘a fan of history’ rather than a historian, has a violent God of a good time.

Check out Thor’s Angels.