The Shadow of the Gods

THE SHADOW OF THE GODS BY JOHN GWYNNE2.5-3/5 stars Major SpoilersShould have been three devent books instead of one that's kinda shit(A more thorough though quite repetitive review can be found on my new blog. If you've read all of this, please read only what I had to say from “The Plotting; A Continuation”.)______________To start this off with some facts: this is a tri-POV book with a large cast of characters (each POV one having their own gaggle of supports), an interesting world and heavy Norse aesthetic. If you liked The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski for its mood and the way it felt like alternative history thanks to the realism, I think you will enjoy The Shadow of the Gods in much the same way. The author is a viking reenactor and it shows, both with the enthusiasm with which he writes the mood and setting and in the incredible amount of research and knowledge about the culture and history packed into this book. If you are into that in any way shape or form, I do recommend that you read this book, because every page has the very essence of love and appreciation for the viking era, all its goods and all its faults, and it feels real. Go and read it.If that is not enough to keep you going, and unlike me you are good at DNF'ing things and want to know if it is worth it, here is the rest of my review:This book is, if anything, extremely frustrating. There are many good concepts and little nuggets of what could have been, but simply is not. I think that this is mostly due to a lack of pagetime and space to figure everything out, but there are some egregious faults that even that excuse cannot justify. Most of the story is build-up, slow and not really steady, but it isn't until half-way through the book (after at least 200 pages) that the inciting incident for one character's story happens (and it doesn't happen well), just to put into perspective how long one may have to read for anything to start getting interesting and falling into place.There are three POVs here. My biggest complaint is that it is unnecessary. Their stories don't overlap enough to make the three POVs work in one book better than they would have worked in their own standalone novels. There is no event, theme, or character cross-overs until, I think, the last 50 pages, and those are minor to the point that they could have happened across multiple novels with more impact than when they happened here. The POVs getting packed together and the execution of other elements left me wondering if this is Gwynne's debut that he has been nursing for ages and had to cut down and compact into as few words as possible if he wanted to have any chance at publishing it. I will go through each POV in the order of novels I think this series could and should have been written as:ORKAOrka has been a major source of my frustration in the very beginning because of the ineptly planned and executed story that leads up to the inciting incident of her plot; the death of her husband and abduction of her son. Her archetype is made clear on pg.3 (of my copy of the book, a small paperback with an attached interview), and it is made clear in a bad way. There's a metaphor in the narration that goes “...winter still clung to these wooded hills like a hunched old warrior refusing to let go of his past.” This chapter is supposed to be from Orka's perspective, but this does not feel like something Orka the character would say or think. When I read this first, it felt like the author smacking me with the face going ‘do you get it? do you get it yet? do you know who it is about? guess who it is about! it's orka! do you get it?'. It is an artsy metaphor that stands out from the rest of the writing and how Orka talks about and perceives this world, and it is writing that makes it extremely obvious that this is a book with an author who controls everything and through whom the world and its characters are filtered. Of course the reader knows they are reading, but the experience should be smooth and immersive, allowing the author to fade away into nothing as the audience is captured by the prose and events of the story. This type of prose just brought me out immediately, and I honestly kind of wanted to stop there.In the same chapter (the first one of the book, Orka's first too) we also get a massive infodump masqueraded as a child asking his father to be told a story. That infodump is unnecessary and ineffective, especially since it is also out of the blue. The information could have been given to us in a shorter, more concise way, and the connection between Orka's husband, Thorkel, and her son, Breca, could have been shown and amplified in better ways that actually felt organic. I could tell the author just wanted to tell the reader about This Cool Worldbuilding, and used Breca being inquisitive for it. It could have perhaps worked if it had been later in the story, when we've grown to care about the characters more, but this was too early. Especially with how it is bracketed with other conversation and events. Int he first scene, we have Breca hunting with his family, guided by Orka and Thorkel, but he misses his throw with the spear and is rather dejected. He is later comforted by Thorkel. But between the missed spearthrow and the comforting is the infodump, which feels like an interjection just to inform the reader of this Cool But Not Really Important Right Now Thing About The World. And the worst thing is, I see what Gwynne was trying to do here. He's trying to lessen the sting of the infodump by using it to characterize Breca and Thorkel and Orka. He wants Breca to be obsessed with heroes and the stories of this world, with the sagas of the gods and famous warriors, so he has him ask to be told about the same story about Snaka the Snake God whilst looking at the mountain range built upon his bones. This does not work because of the timing (being both too early in the story, and interjecting into what should have been a continuous conversation about Breca's spearthrow) and because I think we have, by this point, gathered the different roles Orka play as parents, and thus the characterization of Thorkel is redundant here. Breca's saga-obsession could have been shown in a different way: with Thorkel using the lore of the world to comfort him about the missed hunt. It could still be frustrating to some, yes, but at least it would a) be relevant and b) provide emotional comfort to Breca, which would be more compelling than Breca just going “dad, tell me about the bones again”. Especially when half the time is just spent with Thorkel telling Breca it would take too long to tell the whole thing. It actually felt almost like Gwynne was telling the reader “see? im being nice. youre not getting the whole thing!”It just felt like an enthusiastic and inexperienced author's attempt at worldbuilding that ended up as subtle as a piano crashing onto the pavement. It was not a bad concept (use infodumps for characterization) but the execution was lacking.This is the biggest issue with Orka's early story. There are many good concepts, but the way they're being executed, the way they're spread out, actually hinders everything that could have been. My biggest frustration with her story, the one that made me certain this was Gwynne's first ever novel, was the inciting incident. Orka and her husband Thorkel think about moving away as tensions rise. Good for them. Except then Orka says she wants to speak to Froa, some entity that went unseen and unmentioned and unnamed up to this point, and so she goes to Froa, finds Froa dead, and immediately hears the screams of her son and smells the burning of her home. I needed to take a break from the book at that point because I was just struck dumb by how big of an asspull that was. My one and only thought was “wow, could Gwynne really not come up with an organic and in-character reason for Orka to leave her house for an hour?”. Because Froa is enver mentioned or hinted at in the chapters leading up to it, her general existence feels like somthing Gwynne came up with last-second before getting to writing this chapter. He needed Orka to get out of the house, so he got her out; but at the cost of a satisfying reason and at the cost of my faith in his planning and plot. The fact that Froa makes no appearance, ha sno set up, is just dead when we find her, and has the BIGGEST payoff (Orka's wish to speak with her leading to the death of her husband and abduction of her child, setting her off on her revenge quest) is just fucking WILD. in a bad way. the worst way. It feels inept and like a cop-out.After this, Orka's story is fine. It's not perfect, but we get to see her be badass and cool and murder people, and I'm into that. Good for her. She also has some companions on this journey of hers, and I find that they actually make her a more compelling character than if they weren't included. However, her companions are named Mord and Lif, which translates to Murder and Life, and I resent that. A lot of the names actually suck ass in this story, but I'll speak on that later.Orka's story ends up just... meandering way too much in the beginning to be good as it is. There is a lot of page-time wasted with her, and the order of events, the lack of planning invovled with introduction of some characters (cough Froa cough). I could tell from chapter 1 what Orka's inciting incident was going to be, I knew we are just waiting for the vengeance quest to kick off. But we don't get to that for a WHILE. Gwynne uses much of Orka's early chapters to set up Orka and her family and her future companions, which would have been fine if it was just... done differently. Because I knew Thorkel would die and Breca would get abducted I found it hard to really care for them much. Sure, I enjoyed them and how they played off of Orka, but because I knew what would happen, I could not truly invest myself much. I think it would have been better if Orka's plot beats got rearranged to set up all of the players in her story at an earlier point, getting us to care about the characters without Gwynne shwoing his entire hand in chapter 1, giving the readers no reason not to allow themselves to be fully captivated by the characters. Especially since at some point it starts to feel like Gwynne is doing some things just for the sake of begging you to give a shit abt these guys.It's a very flawed story, but it has a lot of potential, and it becomes much tighter and well-paced after the inciting incident. As a story on its own, it's a 3/5; it's unsatisfying and with a lackluster start, but it does get good eventually.VARGMy beloved. Best fucking thing about this book. He would have been a wonderful 2nd novel for this series, since it ties into Orka's in the very last chapter in such a way that we actually meet her again! Good. Varg has so much good going for him. He's instantly compelling; a runaway thrall (slave) seeking a mage so he can learn who killed his sister and avenge her. I honestly didn't even think about how this could count as fridging, but if that can turn you off a story, read with caution. Varg's story is extremely tight, straight-paced, and he has a lot of agency as a character, with him neve rlosing track of his goal (learning what happened to his siter and avenging her). Because of his shitty backstory and the fact he was hunted down to stay a slave, the stakes also feel high regarding his wellbeing and his success; he's someone you want the best for, someone you root for, becuase you are given so much to work with so early. he's also surrounded by extremely compelling characters. I love Svik, I love Einar, I love Røkia, and Golnir, and everyone in the Bloodsworn, and I want Varg to grow with them into his own. He does a little here, and it's wonderful to see. I have very few notes here actually because Varg's story is just so good. While Orka's story is slow to start, Varg kicks things off quickly with everything at stake, his vengeance quest already in place. But his story is not about the vengeance quest. Unlike Orka, who is meant to find her son, Varg's vengeance is a backdrop that pushes him onwards, but the main appeal I think is just seeing this hurt man be cared for, grow as his own person, free for the first time, and enjoy the other wonderful characters in his story.This is 5/5, Gwynne can actually write, I am impressed, Varg is the only thing that fucking kept me going and everytime we got to one of his chapters I whooped in joy. Yes please.ELVARElvar should not have been the POV character. The issue with her is that she just doesn't really have anything going for her. With Orka, you know what's going to happen, and you want to see how she reacts to it, the vengeance she will wreak upon those who wronged her. With Varg, you want him to grow and heal. With Elvar... there's really nothing.Elvar is a warrior on a team of mercenary slavers. Her first chapter is her band, the Bttle-Grim, hunting down and enslaving a man, abducting his family to keep all three of them under their thumb, and you don't see Einar really reflect on this, you don't see her think or feel or express any contention with this. The only thing Elvar wants, the only thing she cares for, is becoming famous and havinga r eputation, being known for her own merits. Which is fine. For a side character. She is not compelling as a protagonist, especially not when compared to Varg and Orka. Even those who like the book seem to dislike or at least find issue with Elvar, and for good reason. Elvar is a nothing character. She's bland and plain and there's nothing meaningful about her. And because everyone she's surrounded by are also fame-hungry warriors and slavers, there's nothing to root for here. I don't want Elvar to do well, because she is just... some guy. As a side-character she could have been intriguing considering her background, but whilst reading her chapters I just couldn't help but feel like I was wasting my time.Speaking of Elvar's background and wastes of time, Elvar's one and only personal conflict in this story nearly made me throw the book out. We find out at some point that Elvar's father is a jarl, a noble, who wa splanning on marrying her off to a prince for political connections. She ran away because she didn't want to be a brood bitch to that prince. You'd think that this would make her anti-slavery, or make her conlficted about selling people to be a slave that she refused to be. Nope. She gives not a fuck, has not a single throught in her brain about this. What more, she has never once thought about her family until she meets her father, and based on what she says, it is clear that her father had been shit. He's manipulative, a liar, did not care for her, saw her only as a pawn to be used. Gwynne hits you over the head with this fact.Then, Elvar's father offers Elvar something she had once wanted in the past; a warband, warriors to lead, and the status of drengr, an elite warrior to be known by all. So suddenly there's an entire plotline, with a chapter dedicated to it, where Elvar has to pick between her chosen kin who has helped her achieve everything she ever wanted, with whom she has bled and fought and sheltered with for the past 4 years, or a family that she knows is prone to manipulation and lying to get... the same thing she now has, except gifted to her instead of earned, and earning something on her own merits has been a big motivation for her this whole time.Wow. what a hard choice it must be. I am saying this with the utmost sarcasm. This “"”dilemma””” is so fucking hollow and underdeveloped and a waste of everyone's time. it's a waste of my time, a waste of Gwynne's time, a waste of the pages and words that could have been better used for something and someone else. I hate this. It's so bad. It's not compelling, it's not deep, and it makes Elvar just seem like a stupid fucking idiot for needed to BE TOLD by somebody else that HEY. THIS GUY? YOUR FATHER? HE'S KIND OF A LYING CUNT. YOU KNOW THIS. DON'T TRUST HIM.I wish this was removed. I wish Elvar was removed. Her installment is weak and lackluster and unnecessary. Her story ahs two supporting characters that I think would have worked better as protagonists, would have been more compelling. You have Grend, her silent protector and bodyguard oathsworn to her, who I think could offer a lot of wisdom and interesting perspective whilst running after Elvar. She could still be the star of the show, and I think that she'd genuinely be more interesting as a side-character instead of a main one. The other character I think could have replaced her is Biórr. Biórr is the only member of the Battle Grim that seems to care about the thralls on their theme, that learns their names and is kind to them. He is also not actually a Battle-Grim; he infiltrated their ranks to aid a different warrior group defeat them. He has so much going for him, I wish we'd have followed him instead. Especially because he was the only one I was rooting for! Sure, I didn't give a fuck about him until he, rather angrily, informed Elvar of the name of one of the thralls she was dehumanizing and objectifying to hell and back, but after that? Chef's kiss, Biórr was the highlight of the story, and I cheered when he killed the leader of the Battle-Grim. I wish Elvar the worst because maybe then she'll actually grow into someone interesting to follow. I do not plan on reading The Hunger of the Gods but the fact Biórr DOES supposedly have a POV there is tempting me.Another thing about Elvar that doesn't work is that she's just... irrelevant. Her story ties into the Big Event of the book (the freeing of a god from her imprisonment) mostly by accident. Elvar wants to be famous, so she goes looking for fame, and accidentally gets caught up in a different group's ritual to free the god. Elvar is Just Kind of There. Her motivation is shallow, her involvement is weak, and she has nothing interesting to say or do thematically. Elvar gets 1/5 stars from me. That one star is Biórr.CONCLUSIONI have more to say, but I hit the character limit, so I'll end this here, swiftly: The Shadow of the Gods is not a bad book and it has many appealing elements, but to me it remains a dissatisfying, disappointing read.