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drbjjcarpenter 's review for:
The Gospel of Loki
by Joanne M. Harris
A delightful retelling of classic Norse myths arranged into a coherent narrative told from the perspective of Loki. The play of classic ideas and the imposition of a coherent metaphysic (underdevelopped though this might be) is the real selling point of this.
The actual characterisation is not bad either, though the prose is relatively uninspired and plain when compared to a lot of mainstream fantasy writing available at the moment.
The main limitation of this, in my view, was Harris' unwillingness to maintain a serious tone. There were too many uses of overtly modern colloquialism which, to me, only served to undermine the stakes and tone of the narrative. I wish more writers were willing to be sincere without the need for constant, snarky deflections.
Furthermore, Harris does little to make the Asgardians nuanced beings beyond the usual inversion of perspective. What if the Gods were simply a colonial force is a narrative trope that is overdone in contemporary fantasy fiction that either leaves the actual divinity of the Gods unexplored or which utterly fails to conceptualise the colonized perspective. This text falls into the latter. Loki is an outsider and an underdog, sure, but subaltern he is not.
The actual characterisation is not bad either, though the prose is relatively uninspired and plain when compared to a lot of mainstream fantasy writing available at the moment.
The main limitation of this, in my view, was Harris' unwillingness to maintain a serious tone. There were too many uses of overtly modern colloquialism which, to me, only served to undermine the stakes and tone of the narrative. I wish more writers were willing to be sincere without the need for constant, snarky deflections.
Furthermore, Harris does little to make the Asgardians nuanced beings beyond the usual inversion of perspective. What if the Gods were simply a colonial force is a narrative trope that is overdone in contemporary fantasy fiction that either leaves the actual divinity of the Gods unexplored or which utterly fails to conceptualise the colonized perspective. This text falls into the latter. Loki is an outsider and an underdog, sure, but subaltern he is not.