depicts Basil II's formation of the Varangian Guard from the point of view of a half-Saxon orphan who journeyed to Constantinople via the Dnieper trade route. Henry Treece's Viking Trilogy recounts the adventures of Harald Sigurdson, including service in the Varangian Guard. Michael Ennis's Byzantium , a fictionalized version of the life of Harald Hardrada, features time in the Varangian Guard. Also Poul Anderson's The Last Viking, another version of Harald Hardrada's life, features his time in the Varangian Guard and his tragic love for a Greek woman of Constantinople. Swedish writer Frans G. Bengtsson's Viking saga The Long Ships (or Red Orm) includes a section in which the main character's brother serves in the Varangians and gets involved in Byzantine court intrigues, with highly unpleasant results. In The Bulpington of Blup (1933) by H.G. Wells, the father of the protagonist maintains for years the fiction that he is at work on "a History of the Varangians that was to outshine Doughty". The John Ringo Paladin of Shadows series features a fictional, long-forgotten enclave of the Varangian Guard in the mountains of Georgia. Turisas' second studio album The Varangian Way is a concept album that tells the story of a group of Scandinavians traveling the river routes of medieval Russia, through Ladoga, Novgorod and Kiev to the Byzantine Empire. Their third album, Stand Up and Fight, describes the history of the Varangian Guard's service to the Byzantine Empire. Bearded axe-wielding Easterlings known as "Variags" appear in Tolkien's fantasy novel The Return of the King. In the PC game series Mount & Blade, the name and location of the Vaegirs echos the Varangians. Their faction have a unique unit called a "Vaegir Guard". In the video games Medieval: Total War and Medieval II: Total War the Varangian Guard is an axe-wielding elite infantry unit of the Byzantine Empire. Track 5 of Amon Amarth's seventh studio album Twilight of the Thunder God has the title "Varyags of Miklagaard". Track 2 of Grand Magus's eight studio album Sword Songs is titled "Varangian". Varangian soldiers are a common enemy in the video game Assassin's Creed: Revelations. A class of units in the multiplayer mode of the video game Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord belonging to the Rus inspired Sturgian faction, is called 'Varyag'. Russian writer Dmitry Bykov's novel Living Souls (ЖД) involved a civil war between Varangians and Khazars over the control of Russia