Norse Mythology

December 12, 2016
Having already appropriated Odin and Loki for his novel American Gods, Gaiman turns his restless imagination to a retelling of Norse folklore (a youthful interest of his). He begins by introducing us to the three main mythological figures: Odin, the highest and oldest of the gods; his son, Thor, who makes up in brawn what he lacks in brains; and Loki, offspring of giants and a wily trickster. In a series of stories, we learn how Thor acquired his famous hammer, Mjollnir, how Odin tricked a giant into building a wall around Asgard, the home of the gods, how Loki helped Thor retrieve his hammer from the ogre that had stolen it, and how a visit to the land of the giants resulted in the humbling of Thor and Loki. In most of the stories, a consistent dynamic rules as one god tries to get something over on another god, but novelist that he is, Gaiman also provides a dramatic continuity to these stories that takes us from the birth of the gods to their blood-soaked twilight. Employing dialogue that is anachronistically current in nature, Gaiman has great fun in bringing these gods down to a human level. Like John Gardner in Grendel, a classic retelling of Beowulf, and Philip Pullman in his rewriting of Hans Christian Andersen stories, Gaiman takes a well-worn subject and makes it his own.

April 24, 2017
Gaiman is a talented storyteller, as both writer and a narrator. In his latest audiobook, he turns both talents to an imaginative retelling of old Norse folklore. The figures in these myths are well-known to most people: Odin, the highest and oldest of the gods; his son Thor the Thunderer; and Loki, his conniving and treacherous blood brother. They, along with the other gods who inhabit Asgard, live in a universe of giants, elves, dwarves, and men. Gaiman chronicles the history of these gods and their varied adventures from the beginning of their creation to their ending at the final battle of Ragnarok, and on to their eventual renewal. Gaiman’s affection for these myths is evident throughout the audiobook. His gods bellow and rage and whine and battle and plot, but his reading is never over the top. His mellow British-accented voice keeps the pace consistent, hits all the right dramatic notes, and brings new life, for a new generation to discover, to these ancient stories. A Norton hardcover.

Starred review from December 1, 2016
Fire and ice to begin, fire and ice to end. And it's not going to end well, friends: first come the giants, then the all-ravening wolf, and then....The ancient Norse had a cheerless view of the world: the gods are jealous, the elements fierce, the enemies--trolls and giants among them--many, and if you're lucky you'll be killed in battle and gathered up to Valhalla, "and there you will drink and fight and feast and battle, with Odin as your leader." So writes Gaiman (The View from the Cheap Seats, 2016, etc.), famed for his intelligent fantasy novels but long under the spell of that great body of myth. As an English schoolboy, he reveled in Roger Lancelyn Green's Myths of the Norsemen, a somewhat stodgy but valuable collection (as he notes, as a creature of his time, he was introduced to the Norse by way of the Mighty Thor comic books); now, as an adult, he gets to retell the tales, drawing from Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, sagas in verse, and other sources. As he notes, rightly, that body of work is incomplete and perhaps corrupted by later Christian intrusions, so that it has to be viewed with some degree of suspicion; by the same token, he writes, so many of the goddesses in particular have been "lost, or buried, or forgotten," overshadowed by the better-known likes of Thor, Odin, and Loki and all their busy kinfolk. Gaiman writes assuredly and evocatively and with a precise eye for the atmospheric detail: "Niflheim was colder than cold, and the murky mist that cloaked everything hung heavily," he intones, catching the ancient alliteration. There's plenty of mayhem and gore, and once the gods have had their fun, everything comes "crashing down and crumbling into ash and devastation." But before that happens and Ragnarok descends, we have this lively book to cheer us along. Superb. Just the thing for the literate fantasy lover and the student of comparative religion and mythology alike.

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Starred review from December 15, 2016
Gaiman yields to no one else writing modern-day-set dark fantasy in his use of classic mythologies, not just European but even West African Caribbean in the waggish, wonderful Anansi Boys (2005). His favorite body of myths isand those who've read enough of him don't need him to tell them sothe Norse batch, the matter of Odin and Thor and Loki, of Valhalla and Midgard and Hel, of giants and (J. R. R. Tolkien's favorites) elves and dwarfs. It's fairly unsurprising, then, that he'd want to tell northwestern Europe's grandest old stories in his own idiom. Nor, really, is it surprising that he does a bang-up job of it. His simple, Anglo-Saxon-canted diction, which in his original fiction sometimes gets a little pinched and dry-throated, couldn't sound better to modern ears used to the clipped, the droll, the laconic that a century of hard-boiled literary patter has made normal. All common English speakers should easily hear this prose in their own voices (though they should also hear it in Gaiman's reading of the audiobook). From nothing, the counter-biblical original condition of Norse cosmology, to the total destruction of Ragnarok and a glimpse beyond it, Gaiman's retelling of these ever-striking and strange stories should be every reader's first book of Norse mythology. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Gaiman's immense audience and all lovers of myths and the classic fantasy novels they inspire will be seeking this key volume.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2016

Fantasy phenomenon Gaiman, who draws on the tales of the North Germanic people in his work, now combines them into a single novelistic arc. See also Carolyne Larrington's heavily illustrated The Norse Myths: A Guide to Viking and Scandinavian Gods and Heroes (Thames & Hudson. 208p. ISBN 9780500251966. $24.95), also in February.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 15, 2017

In his fiction, Gaiman (American Gods; Sandman) frequently explores the themes and tropes of mythology from around the world. Here, he operates within narrower confines, retelling the classic stories of Norse mythology but with no less humor, sense of adventure, and imagination than when he's playing in worlds of his own making. Here the adventures and misadventures of the Norse gods and goddesses function as short stories that, together, build an arc that leads the reader onward to Ragnarok, the twilight of the gods. Giants, ogres, dwarves, fantastical beasts, and the occasional human freely mingle with Thor, Odin, Loki, Freya, and other, less well-known gods and goddesses, all of whom are passionate, flawed, weird, and divinely entertaining. VERDICT A spectacularly entertaining and elucidating collection of stories with wide crossover appeal. Essential for all collections.--Stephanie Klose, Library Journal

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2017

In his fiction, Gaiman (American Gods; Sandman) frequently explores the themes and tropes of mythology from around the world. Here, he operates within narrower confines, retelling the classic stories of Norse mythology but with no less humor, sense of adventure, and imagination than when he's playing in worlds of his own making. Here the adventures and misadventures of the Norse gods and goddesses function as short stories that, together, build an arc that leads the reader onward to Ragnarok, the twilight of the gods. Giants, ogres, dwarves, fantastical beasts, and the occasional human freely mingle with Thor, Odin, Loki, Freya, and other, less well-known gods and goddesses, all of whom are passionate, flawed, weird, and divinely entertaining. VERDICT A spectacularly entertaining and elucidating collection of stories with wide crossover appeal. Essential for all collections.--Stephanie Klose, Library Journal

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.