My sensibilities haven’t really jibed with Karl Ove Knausgård’s writing (I didn’t get past the first volume of his much-lauded “Min kamp” series), and while I need to admit that I didn’t realise that The Third Realm was the third book in a new series when I decided to give it a try, I also have to state that I liked this a lot (and that there doesn’t seem to have been anything lost in starting the series here; this seems to be an alternate view of the same fantastical events from the first book, The Morning Star, with many of the same characters, and enough backstory that I never felt lost.) This reads as Sci Fi: a new star has appeared large and bright in the sky (but is it actually a star?) and it seems to be having some strange effects on Earth below (or are they all coincidences?) And like all the best of Sci Fi, Knausgård uses his concept to explore the human condition — consciousness, madness, the basis of reality — while exposing moments of relatable truth in mundane interactions, writing engagingly of the fells, fjords, and mountain pools of the Norwegian setting, and propulsively describing strange and uncanny events. My mind was piqued and entertained throughout, and I can definitely see myself going back to catch up on the other books in this series.