Reviews with content warning for Animal death - The Shadow of the Gods

Blood. Everything comes down to blood.

This novel was amazing and captivated me from the first sentence. Orka and Varg were the stars. Vengeance driving them forward. Blood on their hands and death in their heart. Elvar was the weakest point in the story, and I actually prefer some of the side characters in her sections then to her. All POV's are important binding together like a woven tapestry, leading to a brutal ending for a first novel.

Death sits on the shoulders of all characters in this novel, her wings casting wide shadows. It is heartbreaking, violent, and one of my favourite novels of 2022.

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sennaje's review against another edition

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adventurous dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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booksandteatime's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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carolynnagain's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

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

4.0

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mikah_wazowski's review against another edition

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Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? Yes

4.25

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readravereview's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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seanml's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny tense slow-paced

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

3.75

John Gwynne is a wonderful modern fantasy writer, and continues to be. This series continues with his signature style of multiple character points of view that slowly weave together as the story goes on. Plus, it’s Norse-inspired which you don’t see a lot of in fantasy for whatever reason. Oh yeah it’s hyper-violent, but luckily without the usual caveat that “it’s historically accurate so there needs to be rampant misogyny!” 7.5/10.

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neni's review against another edition

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adventurous slow-paced

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

2.75

So I had a hard time rating this book because I have a lot conflicting feelings about it. I started it because it fulfilled a prompt from a reading challenge I’m doing. It took me a long time to finish, and not because it was very long, it was just boring. I thought several times about giving up and just DNF’ing it, but by that point I was already half way through and I didn’t want to “waste” my time or my challenge prompt, so I eventually finished it. However I can’t completely say I hated it because there were some positive points. Since I am mostly unable (or too lazy really) to write a coherent review I’m just going to go with the classic bullet points. So.

Some Positives:

1 - The concept had potential. Epic fantasy novels with several main characters are anything but a novelty but I don't think I've ever read a fantasy novel ( or any other genre really) set in a viking inspired world and society, so it definitely wins points for originality on that front. At first, it was interesting to try and figure out all of the worldbuilding and vocabulary they used ( especially when it comes to weapon names and mythological creatures). Keyword here being: at first. But more on that later. I thought the concept of the “Tainted” warriors (descendants of the old gods, with magical powers) was pretty cool.

2 - A refreshingly positive byproduct of the culture being viking inspired (I think, I’m not exactly an expert) was the abundance of female characters. 2 of the 3 main characters were women and most , if not all, of the female characters in the book were badass warriors. You had female villains, female leaders and female warriors, as a completely normal, not really commented on thing, which I appreciated. There didn’t seem to be strict gender roles at all in this universe, and a character’s gender was never used to comment on their worth or abilities. Something we could and should see more of in the fantasy genre. On the other hand, there were plenty of slaves and slave labour. SO. YIKES?

3 - I didn’t hate the characters. I quite liked Orka, even though she was as a pretty obvious example of the “badass warrior with a revenge plan” cliché, just of a different gender than the usual. Varg was pretty endearing too sometimes, especially when he fucked up the weapon use lol

4 - There was a part by the end where there were giant talking crows and if that isn’t cool and adorable I don’t know what is.

The significant negatives:

1 - The pacing of this book was an absolute mess. In truth, it could have been 300 pages shorter because the general feeling I got was that after the first 100 pages of intro to the universe, and before the last 50 pages (which, annoyingly, is where all the good/interesting shit happened), it was just an endless pointless drivel of weapon descriptions and characters going from point A’s to point B’s, with no real purpose other than to have them at the right spot for certain interactions to happen. It didn’t feel organic at all and most scenes felt forced. It was actually pretty weird because it wasn’t that the subjects themselves weren’t engaging, the way the author went about telling them was just boring as hell. There were also a lot seemingly important plot points that were started and not finished or talked about again, which leads me to think one of two things: the author genuinely forgot about them and was just fine with leaving a bunch of loose threads in the story or, even more revoltingly, he was just setting up for the next installment in the series (which is really fucking not cool, I mean, a couple of unfinished plots is fine, but if the whole book is just a setup for the next book then it isn’t really a book on its own is it?). The author also did one of the things I hate the most with these stories which was that he ended the book with a cliffhanger/plotwist that really makes you want to continue reading but: no1 - you can’t! because it’s not written yet! and no2 - you feel really betrayed as a reader because it’s just like he’s been stringing you along for 400 pages just to give you a glimpse into the good shit. Not cool bro, not cool.

2 - The characters had potential but weren’t properply developed. They felt quite empty and “trope” like and, in Orka’s case in particular, she made a lot of decisions that just didn’t make sense for a character that was supposed to be a brilliant strategist and fighter. So lack of coherence with the characters was a problem as well.

3 - The worldbuilding was rife with wasted potential. The premise in terms of mythology and magic system was kinda complex to start with, and the way the author chose to communicate it just made it unnecessarily hard to understand. It was mostly a lot of exposition and repeating information in dialogue which doesn’t make for an effective way to establish a setting. I ended up feeling confused for most of it. Another little annoyance of mine, although this is mainly my issue, is that the names of the fighting groups were pretty similar so I kept confusing them lol (Battlegrim, Bloodsworn... Tomatoe, Tomato) .

4 - The writing style in itself was quite weak in my opinion, and that most likely influenced my whole experience with the book, which I recognize. The author was descriptive to the point of being hilariously like a shopping list of items. Don’t get me wrong, I’m usually very into description. But it has to be done well. I get that some fantasy novels are more on the violent/gritty side and less the poetic/atmospheric one, but I think the author didn't achieve either of these styles effectively. It wasn't dark and witty enough to be in the Joe Abercrombie arena, and the prose wasn't nearly as engaging and complex as Brandon Sanderson's stuff. And don’t get me started on the endless weapon and/or clothing descriptions. MY GOD. The first few times the author described, IN DETAIL, all the individual characteristics of each weapon and clothing item and the EXACT sequence in which they were put on by a character, I was like: Ok, this is part of the worldbuilding, sure. But then he did it EVERY SINGLE TIME until the end of the book. Like LITERALLY EVERY TIME a new character is introduced we get a full description of attire, weapons on display and physical attributes (normally hairstyle and/or beard) as well as everytime there’s a battle scene we get detailed descriptions of weapon features, locations of characters relative to each other, as well as lists of post murder loot for the main character. It's honestly kind of hilarious. Am I reading a book or am I playing Skyrim, its unclear. That definitely took me out of the story and made it significantly harder for me to remain engaged and interested. I thought it reflected a more immature, perhaps less experienced side of the author. It reminded me of wattpad fanfictions written by 12 year olds in the 2010's, because that's exactly what they were like description wise lol There were also, weirdly, a lot of metaphors about how things looked like porrigde. Don’t know what that’s about

Overall, I think if I had to describe this book I would go with “Cool vikings, wasted potential, don’t bother”. ALSO DON’T get fooled by the dragon on the cover, there’s basically 0,005% of dragon content in this. FALSE ADVERTISEMENT lol I really wanted to like this, but it was just a massive disappointment.

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