One of these were on my to be read (TBR) list and one of them was accidentally finished one night when I couldn't sleep. Norse Mythology is the one that I accidentally finished and Arrows of the Queen was on my TBR list. I've been trying to get going on the Valdemar series, which I did last month with finally finishing Magic's Price, so now it's working on the second trilogy and then beyond. However, that is neither here or there at the moment. For now, let's talk books. Also, both images are thanks to Goodreads and are not mine.
Norse Mythology is a collection slash retelling of the myths of old. Two of the reasons I was drawn to this book in the first place is written by a favorite author and I've been wanting to know more about the background of Thor as he was originally known. Now, that is because of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and not because the idea just popped into my head, but knowing the original stories of some of those characters help them make more sense. Loki lying and cheating his way out of everything, even with knowing he's the God of Mischief, makes a ton more sense to me knowing his stories. I now understand why most people were saying that they were making Thor too uptight in the movies - he's so different in the stories - so, yeah, that was the two big reasons why. Going into the stories themselves, we see Gaiman's short story chops shine. While he respects the original story, we also get to see other characters have a stronger voice. For me, Hela felt that she was taken care of better in his retelling than what happened to her in the original as it felt like she was listened to instead of just cast aside like her brothers. You cared about the fact that they tricked Fenrir and felt the pain of Tyr as he had to take his part in binding the wolf. I thought the depth that he brought worked very well.
The only two missteps of the entire book were the last two stories. The Last Days of Loki felt out of character to the extreme. Yes, he's the God of Mischief. Yes, he's going to make the other Gods mad. But what he did there with pissing the other Gods off made no sense because there wasn't any plan for it. He was doing it for the sake of doing it, which does not feel like the Loki we know throughout the other stories. In the other ones, there's always a plan and a way out. This had no way out and I wish we could have had why. Maybe he was tired of being what he was or wanted the end to come because he thought he could rule so it leads into Ragnarok? But that's speculation. Maybe that's the point of the story, but... I dunno. It feels very undone and untidy which is so not Loki. The other misstep story, Ragnarok: the Final Destiny of the Gods, felt rushed. It felt like we were rushing to the end instead of savoring the end. While the descriptions of the battle were good, I can't help but get a feeling that he just wanted it to be done. I think I'm wrong about that and Ragnarok is probably a rush job in the original story as well, but I wish it could have been more spread out. That said, the ending of Ragnarok / the entire book? I love it. I can see that happening easily and everything happening all over again is nice.
The next book, which was on my TBR list for April and moved over to May, is Arrows of the Queen. It's set about five hundred years after Magic's Price / Last Herald Mage trilogy which is part why the series is so good. Originally, I was kind of sad that we were getting such a big jump. I wanted to see more of the characters that I grew to love in the Last Herald Mage trilogy, along with seeing the aftermath of the events of that trilogy. What I didn't expect is that I would get that in this book. I was able to see the after effects of what happened because it's tied into Talia, the main character of this book, reading about the events as it's told as a story now. It is one of the things that Mercedes Lackey does well during this book, along with the tension that's strung along until the middle of the book and it just didn't go away easily. Others might be annoyed by it, but I thought it worked well.
Talia, for all her strength and the role she's thrown into as Queen's Own (meaning she's the confidant / personal adviser of the Queen and the princess), doesn't start out that way. She starts out as a child who wants to be a Herald more than anything in the world and she gets her wish. I think, in the next two books in the trilogy, we're going to get a bit of "be careful what you wish for" as a subtle undertone. I say that because, as a writer myself, I couldn't help but put that into my own work if I set it up that way in the first book. However, Talia has to learn to trust and her gradually opening until she's forced to worked really well for character development. It helped me connect to her and trust her as the narrator of the story, even though we did POV jump, and made me not want to put the book down. The other part that made me not want to put the book down was the POV jumping because it was done seamlessly. Lackey went to another character's perspective only when it was needed to enhance the story and not hinder it. I think anybody who wants to do that in their own writing needs to read this book to see how it is done. Not forcing it at chapters but just weaving it in like it is supposed to be there all along worked wonders.
As for missteps, I didn't really find any or I didn't have the same that others had. The only thing that I wished was changed was having Skif and Talia realize they should have been friends from the beginning. However, I'm also someone who likes it when fantasy stays away from romance all of the time, so that might be my own bias.
So, those are my two reviews of what I've been reading so far in the month of May. I should have more coming up soon but, if you want to see my reviews from April, go check out my YouTube channel here. Until next time, happy writing and reading!
