Lau ♡'s Reviews > The Shadow of the Gods

When I finished Malice, I decided I needed to read everything John Gwynne had ever written. But there was one book that I was looking forward to the most and that was the ‘peak’ on his career, the beloved Shadow of the Gods. I never expected to feel as conflicted as I feel now.


I wouldn’t say The Shadow of the Gods was a bad book but I finished it feeling underwhelmed instead of excited to continue the series. I don’t know how much is due to the book and how much is on me for choosing the wrong time-reading Malazan is making all the fantasy books I’ve been trying feel flat, unoriginal and too simple in comparison.


Inspired by Norse mythology and Vikings, The Shadow of the Gods sends us to a brutal world where conflicts are solved with blood and pain. Descendents of the dead Gods are now slaved, rulers are constantly challenged and warriors die every day in constant fights of power. It’s not enough: someone is kidnapping children, someone powerful enough to kill everyone who dares to stand in their way. A new era of madness might be coming.

“To be young and naive () Blood is always the answer.

The story started on a high note, with the perfect amount of action and characters that makes you want to say goodbye to sleep. I adore John Gwynne’s prose, I love how short his chapters are and the continuous change of POVs, even if I wished we had more here. This is a personal preference because I know some people were confused with the over six POVs in The Faithful and the Fallen, but I mourned when he shortened them to four in Of Blood and Bone and now we are left with only three.


Maybe I’ve read too many of John Gwynne’s books in too little time-eight books in one year and a half-, because I predicted most of the ‘plot twists’. Even some of the characters reminded me of characters I’ve read before: we have the good-hearted hero Corban Drem Varg who only wants to revenge his sister, the badass warrior with angry issues Orka and the girl who is trying to show her worth in the wrong side of the battle.


My favorite character was Orka; I always love the badass female character who is the most powerful warrior of the group, the one everyone is afraid of and whose problem seems to be that she’s way too good at killing. How her personality fitted perfectly with her husband Thorkel was the highlight of the book for me but, by the end of the book, I needed something more than her awesome warrior skills to keep me going.


John Gwynne is really good at writing battles, they always play like a movie in my head, so I understand the hype surrounding this book. But for someone who already felt Of Blood and Bone was a bit too action-packed, reading The Shadow of the Gods felt like going back to the same constant battles with a different scenery.


To sum up, I don’t argue that The Shadow of the Gods is Gwynne’s best work to date, but it’s definitely not the one meant for me. I would rather have less fight scenes, otherwise the feeling of thrill becomes a 'here we go again' followed by a sight. I love seeing how the characters interact and how they constantly change and I was expecting this series to be something completely new, not the continuation of what we saw in The Banished Land. Maybe Gwynne’s style and my personal taste are progressing in different directions and there is nothing to be done about it.


Thank you Ren for buddy reading this one with me, even if we are back to picking up the wrong books for us ☃️☃️