Book Review: The Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne

TL;DR

This was a good but not great book, that ultimately was disappointing for me. I saw a lot of hype for this entry and was expecting a bit more.

Review

Unfortunately, this book was overrated for my tastes. It is a fun ride, particularly if you like Vikings and Norse mythology, but the characters never left the page for me. This is the first book in a trilogy and it felt like it. This will be as spoiler free as possible, but there are some allusions to how plot/characters are handled.

Worldbuilding

This is where the books shines. The world takes place hundreds of years after the gods fought to the death, and all of the fantasy elements in the novel descend from the gods themselves. Gwynne does an excellent job establishing how the world operates and how powers rise and fall. The warband serves as the central unit for for both jarls and war chiefs and we see a lot of it. The worldbuilding also develops naturally, and I never felt overwhelmed or info dumped, despite a lot of fantasy elements.

Characters

This book follows three characters, Orka, Elvar, and Varg. All three are warriors. All three spend most of the book in a warband of some form. All three fell flat for me. For the amount of time spent on each character, I did not think about them except while reading the book.

The character arcs, if they even existed, were shallow and strangely paced. Only one of the characters, Orka, has a lot of agency for most of the story. The others feel like they are along for the ride with one or two moments where they make a choice. Elvar in particular has very strange pacing in her arc, where it seems that plot elements will pop up and be resolved within a chapter, and there wasn’t much building going on for her as a character overall. Varg felt like the only developed arc, where he is trying to decide between two competing interests, and it was generally handled well.

I don’t want to give the impression that the characters are bad, because they aren’t. But they also aren’t particularly good. A few of the side characters are memorable and entertaining, but they didn’t outshine the point of view characters. In particular, I liked the way Orka had some tenderness in a plot archetype that often neglects to add any nuance.

Plot

This book takes a long time to get going. I don’t normally need a book to jump right into the action, but the characters weren’t grabbing me so this felt like a slog at times. Once it really get into things, the main plot was serviceable. Unfortunately, it did more to set up the next book than provide a satisfying ending to this book. I find myself intrigued by the ending and what it could mean for the future of the world, but my overall feelings are holding me back from picking up the sequel.

The action is a double edged sword. The combat scenes are extremely well written and highlight Gwynne’s skills and research. My biggest issue is they ended up feeling one note. Almost every problem was solved by punching an axe through it, often without stakes involved for the PoV character. It also used a pet peeve of mine far too many times, where combat ends with characters being knocked out due to head trauma. This happened all the time. At one point, a character is knocked unconscious, wakes up and tries to free themselves, then is knocked unconscious again before waking up imprisoned. The middle scene was just unnecessary in a book that already felt long.

Conclusion

I’ve been pretty critical in this review, which may be unfair, as I did enjoy the book. There was so much potential in this novel that it feels like a shadow of what it could have been. If you like Vikings, a Norse inspired setting, and a lot of well written battles, this book is for you. If you want memorable characters, this story did not do it for me.

Discussion

For people who have read the sequel, does it get better, or is it more of the same?