Reviews - The Shadow of the Gods

7.12k reviews for:

The Shadow of the Gods

John Gwynne

4.16 AVERAGE

seneli's review against another edition

5.0

Fucking stunning. Best fantasy I read in 2024 EASILY

natenason's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

rexboris's review against another edition

4.5

dark tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

mrlupin's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous challenging dark tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I wanted to love this book, because I'm a fan of Vikings, fantasy, and Norse mythology. Unfortunately, I did get distracted by all of the Viking terminology and Norse vernacular. This book was GOOD, but characters were hard to follow at times, as they all were angry Vikings looking for revenge and/or glory. But the ending was very satisfying and left me wanting to read the sequel.

Content Warnings

cerberus_nova's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark medium-paced

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

greebtea's review against another edition

3.5

slow-paced

I really struggled getting into this. Gwynne crafts an impressive world and relatively interesting characters, despite this, I failed to resonate with this. I typically enjoy the theme of parent-child relationships, and was incredibly interested in what I had heard of Orka's storyline. However, my issue with her, and truthfully all of Gwynne's characters is that I felt incredibly distant from them. The pacing, which I found to be slow, did not help this problem, which is disappointing considering I thought her, and Varg (Elvar felt rather stagnent and uninteresting) to be compelling. The pacing (and writing in general) although technically good, I found extremely dry. Almost nothing happened in the first 150 pages of a 500 paged epic. I did not expect the action to start immediately, but I did at least expect to be inclined to a character's story, which I was not. I did find myself more invested toward the end, particularly toward Varg. Unfortunately, I found Orka's "female rage" arc rather dull and one-note, which was disappointing considering how many people I've heard rave about it. Overall, though, I thought it was fine. It was middling for my taste, but I can see why people enjoy it. I likely will continue the series, since I did find the action at the end fun and compelling, but I won't be any rush to do so.