Book Review: 'The Shadow of the Gods'

The first book of The Bloodsworn Trilogy, John Gwynne’s The Shadow of the Gods, is an engagingly entertaining epic of warriors and monsters.

The book follows three different characters. Orka, a mother seeking revenge. Varg, a former slave trying to fulfill an oath. Erka, a shield-maiden trying to find her battle-fame. The adventures of these three protagonists takes them through a world that was once occupied by powerful and terrifying gods before a conflict between them wiped them out. The descendants of these gods still roam the world, men and women carrying bits of the gods’ blood in their veins. They are known as the Tainted; ostracized, feared, and sold like cattle. In the pages of this book, god, warrior, and Tainted fight together and against one another and change the world forever.

This is one of the best fantasy books that I have read in a long time. The novel has a distinct Norse-inspired flavor to it, filled with boats cutting through fjords, the glint of golden treasure, and the ruggedness of the classic Viking warrior. There is a lot of action, sometimes too violent and graphic for my tastes, but all the action scenes pumped me up and kept me turning the pages. There is some cussing and a little bit of sexual material, but nothing that I thought warranted putting the book down.

I loved John Gwynne’s writing style, using beautiful, vivid descriptions of fjords and mountains and Scandinavian-like landscapes. The way he conveyed things with imagery made me fall in love with his prose. His characters, main and supporting, were all very well-rounded and interesting so that I didn’t feel like I was just reading static symbols on a page. The world and characters that Gwynne created is just absolutely stunning.

However, with the praise of a novel, there is also criticism. There were times when Gwynne’s descriptions of characters were just too much. Every other page he was describing a warrior with “hair crow-black, a braid tied back from his face. His beard was braided with silver rings. A seax and axe hung from his belt. A foaming badger was on his shield, eyes shining like Randy Newman.” Okay, so I’m exaggerating a bit here, but that’s pretty much how it went for the entire book. While I appreciated the in-detail description of the characters, he described every single new character to this level of accurateness, which is not necessary for the farmer selling carrots that shows up in the second paragraph of page 78 and is never seen again. If I had to complain about anything in the book, that would be the main thing, as well as using too much flowery prose in his writing.

But again, this is one of the best fantasy novels that I’ve read in a long time. Nay, one of the best novels overall. I will be starting the second book soon, and I do hope the third book comes out relatively soon so that I can dive into it. If you want a cool fantasy book, definitely gives this one a read.

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