Finished listening to Shadow of the Gods. It’s an easy read overall, with some well set plot twists: death of the elder of the fishermen brothers, betrayal of the Battlegrim.
One topic the author has troubles with, though, is the scale of the monsters.
Is the dragon as big as two meadhalls or small enough to bite a human’s head off? You can’t have both.
I usually have troubles with character names, and here it’s even more pronounced than usual. Breka is the timid son of Orca, and Dreka is the guy that killed Orca’s husband and kidnapped Breka?
Bjorn is Elvar’s lover and betrayer, and Bjarn is the kid that Elvar set to rescue, and there’s also Bjarn’s father with a similar name 😫
Tag: John Gwynne
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Shadow of the Gods, John Gwynne
A very well-written dark fantasy. The author didn’t try to reinvent the wheel, basing his world very closely on Scandinavia and Kievan Rus, with names like Yaromir, and “hundathral” being a “dog slave”.
In a typical nowadays manner, the story switches between multiple characters.
One rather funny decision is that half of warriors in this world are female. Which led to an uncanny situation where a lot of women are portrayed as brutal, agressive and rather unpleasant.
When I think of Orca, I imagine Gina Carano:
There are a lot of interesting details not found in other books. Leather covers on spear heads. The fact that characters drink and fill their water bottles, or that they cauterize their wounds.