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During the early hours of the 7th of April 1990, a catastrophic blaze erupted aboard the MS Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry traveling between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Insufficient crew training along with malfunctioning safety doors aided the spread of the flames, while deadly hydrogen cyanide gas emitted from combusting laminates caused the deaths of 159 people. At first, the disaster was blamed to a traveler—a lorry driver with a history of fire-setting. Since this individual also perished in the incident and was not able to refute himself, the complete truth about the disaster stayed concealed for a long time. Only in 2020 that a comprehensive documentary revealed the fire was probably set deliberately as part of an fraud scheme.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Sequence: A Glimpse

Within the first volume of Nordenhof's epic series, the preceding volume, an unidentified narrator is traveling on a public transport through the Danish capital when she notices an elderly man on the street. As the vehicle drives away, she experiences an “uncanny feeling” that she is carrying a part of him with her. Compelled to repeat the route in pursuit of him, the character finds herself in a landscape that is both unfamiliar and deeply familiar. She presents us to Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is strained by the pressures of their troubled histories. In the concluding section of that book, it is suggested that the root of Kurt's discontent may stem from a disastrous financial decision made on his account by a man known as T.

The Devil Book: An Unconventional Approach

This second installment opens with an lengthy poetic passage in which the narrator explains her challenge to compose T's narrative. “In this second volume,” she states, “we were meant / to trace him / from youth up until / the evening / when he sat waiting for / the report that / the fire / on the ferry / had successfully been / ignited.” Burdened by the task she has set herself and derailed by the pandemic, she tackles the tale obliquely, as a form of parable. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my book / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about businessmen and / the dark force.”

A tale gradually emerges of a female character who experiences lockdown in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and over the course of those days relates to him what happened to her a decade earlier, when she accepted an proposal from a figure who claimed to be the evil entity to grant all her desires, so long as she didn't doubt his intentions. As the threads of the two stories become more intertwined, we begin to believe that they are one and the same—or at the very least that the nature of T is legion, for there are demonic forces all around.

There is another fire here: a passionate, magnetic dedication to writing as a form of activism

Pacts and Consequences: A Literary Exploration

Classic stories teach us that it is the devil who makes bargains, not a divine being, and that we enter into them at our peril. But what if the narrator herself is the malevolent force? A third storyline eventually emerges—the story of a girl whose early years was marred by abuse and who was placed in a mental health facility, under duress to conform with societal norms or suffer more of the same. “[This entity] understands that in the game you've set for it, there are a pair of outcomes: surrender or stay a monster.” A alternative path is ultimately revealed through a series of verses to the night that are simultaneously a rallying cry against the forces of wealth and power.

Connections and Readings: From Fiction to Reality

Many British audience members of the author's Scandinavian Star novels will think right away of the London tower tragedy, which, though accidental in origin, shares similarities in that the resulting tragedy and fatalities can be attributed at in part to the devil's bargain of putting financial gain over people. In these initial books of what is projected to be a multi-volume sequence, the fire aboard the ferry and the chain of fraudulent transactions that ended in multiple deaths are a sinister underlying presence, showing themselves only in brief flashes of detail or implication yet projecting a growing shadow over all that occurs. Certain individuals may doubt how far it is possible to read The Devil Book as a independent piece, when its aim and significance are so deeply tied into a broader whole whose ultimate shape, at present, is uncertain.

Experimental Writing: Ethics and Aesthetics Fused

There will be others—and I count myself as among them—who will fall in love with Nordenhof's endeavor purely as text, as properly innovative literature whose ethical and creative intent are so deeply entwined as to make them inseparable. “Write poems / for we need / that as well.” Another kind of blaze exists: an intense, attractive devotion to the craft as a statement. I will persist to pursue this series, no matter where it goes.