Reviews with content warning for War - The Shadow of the Gods

Reviews tagging 'War'

The Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne

53 reviews

violinknitter's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

So much viscera and fighting. So much. Also, despite the fighting, the main plot moves very slowly. I didn’t mind, since I was enjoying being immersed in the world (whenever I wasn’t having to skim gory fights), but it didn’t really do much until the last part of the book. And it’s not a standalone.

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zoelinea's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

The world is rich detailed and based around a cool concept, but it is clear the author intended this book to be the first of three. The pacing is incredibly slow. I would have liked to get further into the plot before the end of book 1

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bunte_socke's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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valjeanval's review against another edition

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adventurous dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

My book club billed this one as "reading Skyrim," and I think that's pretty spot on for better and worse. The characters and setting are all pretty excellent with great world building. I especially enjoy viking warrior mom even if I kept misreading her name as Okra instead of Orka. Honestly, I appreciate everything Gwynne does to subvert the patriarchal norms of historical fiction and saying, this is still fiction. This is fantasy. Let's just make a society where the genders are more or less even because we can.

The plot, however, is meandering and constantly interrupted by random encounter fight scenes. Fun to play as a game, less fun to read. And those fight scenes are gory to a level that I just don't enjoy. It also suffers from being only half a book, and I'm not sure I enjoyed it enough to pursue the sequel right away. We shall see, but overall, a unique piece of norse-inspired fantasy though not entirely my cuppa.

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