The Shadow of the Gods
STATS
Title: The Shadow of the Gods
Series: The Bloodsworn (Book 1)
Author(s): John Gwynne
Genre: Fantasy (Epic)
First Printing: May 2021
Publisher: Orbit
PREMISE & PLOT
Three hundred years ago, the gods of Vigriđ slew one another in an apocalyptic battle. In the lingering chaos of that calamity, jarls and would-be monarchs vie for control of the continent, while independent warbands undertake dangerous quests for coin and glory. The human descendants of the gods, the Tainted, are desired and feared for their power, used a weapons and pawns by jarls and warbands alike.
The novel follows the personal journeys of three heroes. Orka, a veteran warrior living in the wilderness with her husband and son, embarks on a quest for vengeance after a betrayal by her jarl. Elvar, a noblewoman serving among the Battle-Grim warband, seeks immortality through glory. Lastly, there is Varg, a former thrall (the term for slave in this setting) who secures his freedom by joining the Bloodsworn warband. (Hey! That’s the name of the series!) Looming over all three of them is a conspiracy linked to Lik-Rifa, the last surviving god, and her Tainted children.
If you enjoy stories with Scandinavian flavor or stories with lot of violent action, this is the book for you.
WHAT I LIKED
Immersive Setting
I’m not someone who actively seeks out stories with that Scandinavian flavor. It’s just not something that personally appeals to me. That said, I still enjoyed myself reading this book. The worldbuilding isn’t just something that colors in the background of this story. It is deeply integrated into the motivations of the characters. Varg and Elvar would not have gone of their personal journeys were it not for supernatural and cultural elements that define the setting. Orka’s journey is a setting-agnostic one, but her perspective is rooted in the culture, so even this subplot feels like something that you could only find in this book.
Action Girls
Modern fiction has a problem with writing believable female action heroes. It’s not that a woman can’t achieve fair or good odds of defeating a man in melee combat through training, weapons, armor, a favorable environment, numbers, the element of surprise, or simple luck (not to mention supernatural elements that exist within the setting). The issue is that too many writers refuse to think these things through. Time and again, we’ve been shown waifs using nothing but brute force to tear through men with a laughably blatant advantage in weight, reach, and upper body strength (the things that facilitate brute force). This problem is mainly seen in films and television, where we can see actresses with no muscle mass bulldozing through body builders, but it’s something that can pop up in literature if the fights are poorly constructed.
I bring this up because The Shadow of the Gods is a perfect example of how to do female action heroes right.
Gwynne took the time to think through that vast list of factors. As a result, every time that either Orka or Elvar overpower a male opponent, there is not a doubt in my mind that they could have won that fight. The fight choreography accounts for injuries, armor, and the weapons at play. A numbers advantage (or disadvantage) radically alters the level of danger in a scene. Orka and Elvar rarely walk away from these battles unscathed; them being women doesn’t spare them from being battered and bloodied. The culture of the setting further aids in the realism of the fights. Vigriđ is a brutal realm where both men and women are expected to keep in good physical condition and to be able to defend themselves, so the idea of female warriors fighting side by side with males doesn’t feel as strange as it would in a less egalitarian setting.
(It’s also worth noting that Gwynne takes this in the other direction as well. Varg starts off the story with no understanding of anything but bare-knuckle brawling. His first victory in a battle is a function of dumb luck, and the story calls attention to that fact.)
Characters Worth Investment
Orka, Elvar, and Varg are not deep characters. Their motivations are straightforward, and their personal histories offer little nuance. What development they do get throughout the story is minor and very predictable.
It’s good, then, that their simple characterizations are relatable ones. It is very easy to root for them on their respective journeys. While I’d hardly call any of them moral paragons, none of them are Daylen Namaran, either. They also get small moments of characterization with the secondary cast that make them more sympathetic. Outside of one small detail that I’ll get into below, I think that most readers should have no trouble rooting for these characters.
Epic Ambitions
Trilogies, and series in general, are standard fare for this genre. However, many series open with books that feel like standalone installments. They may have sequel hooks and room for expansion, but the author could also easily walk away after the first book without anything feeling unfinished.
Gwynne clearly intends for The Bloodsworn to be epic in scope. This book doesn’t build up to a grand finale; it builds up to the inciting incident. I think that commitment will pay off. I’m excited for the next book in this series, because I feel like things will continually escalate from here.
WHAT I DISLIKED
A Bad Background (Minor Spoilers)
Elvar has the weakest stakes out of any POV character. Orka and Varg are driven by quests for revenge, which is itself an extension of the expectations of their society. Elvar fights alongside the Battle-Grim because she wants to. Yes, there is the “immortality through glory” angle, but the story doesn’t really dive into or explore this idea. This isn’t to say that Elvar’s story isn’t engaging or enjoyable. It’s just that she doesn’t have anything at stake outside of her personal desires. Any big-picture situations she stumbles into are little more than incidental side quests. It’s sort of like splicing together a film from the stories of John Wick, Inigo Montoya, and Ash Ketchum. Someone stands out here.
This doesn’t improve when we learn her origin story. It turns out that Elvar is daughter to the jarl of the city of Snakavik. She ran away from home, seeking her own glory, to avoid being married off to the son of Queen Helka.
This is at once very boring and very damning.
First, the boring part. Learning that Elvar ran away from home doesn’t add anything to her story. She is still doing what she does because she wants to do it. No consequences or stakes are being added here. It’s not like she’ll be kicked out of the Battle-Grim and sent back to her father if she fails in some way; she’s already earned her place in the group. What’s more, when she does encounter her father, he doesn’t try to drag her back to court. He asks her to come back and tells her that she won’t be married off if she comes home. He’s actively trying to mend bridges and make concessions. There was a moment where I hoped that she’d accept his offer, since at would at least be unexpected and take the story in a new direction, but the time she spends considering the idea is too brief to be meaningful.
The damning aspect is the practical reality of the situation. Vigriđ is contested territory, where powerful jarls are trying to establish new monarchies (as is the case with Queen Helka). It is made clear, via Orka’s POV, that Helka is ready willing to wage war to assimilate the lands of other jarls. Political marriage is an alternative to bloodshed. Regardless of her father’s ambitions, regardless of whether this political alliance is abnormal for the region, the simple fact is the Elvar was positioned to prevent a war that would kill thousands of people, and her explicit reason for abandoning them was her own glory. The fact that Vigriđ is egalitarian makes this even worse. Elvar isn’t fighting back against a system that objectifies women; she’s expressing contempt at the responsibilities that came with her life of privilege. This backstory doesn’t demonstrate that she is the master of her own fate, who is willing to choose danger over a life of security (which is what I suspect Gwynne’s intention was here). It reveals that she is selfish.
I’m not saying that this backstory is a deal-breaker. It is brought up and then fades into the background within the span of a few chapters. This was just an inclusion that offered nothing positive. I was glad that I could forget about it once the story left Snakavik.
Book Zero
Earlier, I praised The Shadow of the Gods for committing to being the setup of a grand epic. There is a slight problem in how it does this, though. The tales of Orka, Elvar, and Varg are not subplots of a larger narrative.
These are three standalone stories that have nothing meaningful to do with each other. They happen in the same setting and at the same time. There are small references and a few events that carry over from one subplot to another. However, none of these POV characters have any prior connection, nor do their decisions impact one another. Two of the POVs just happen to meet in the final chapter. This isn’t a novel about three characters with interconnected journeys so much as three novellas that were chopped into pieces and stacked together. That makes it a little harder to stay invested in The Shadow of the Gods as the story progresses.
It would have been nice if these storylines could have intersected in a meaningful way. For example, consider A Song of Ice and Fire. Each book in that series has double or triple the numbers of POV characters that The Shadow of the Gods does. Their journeys span multiple continents. Each book still managed to feel like a cohesive story due to characters sharing common points of origin, having established relationships, or taking deliberate actions to impact one another, such as how Ned was present when Daenerys’s assassination was ordered.
As You Know
Information keeps getting repeated within the narrative, and not in a way that feels natural to the scenes in question.
For example, on page 231, there is a moment where Elvar reflects on “scattered moments with her younger brother, Brođir”. This comes after her previous POV chapter hammered in that information. Page 209 introduced “Brođir, her younger brother”, page 214 identified “her brothers Thorun and Brođir”, and page 217 had Brođir directly address Elvar as his sister. At least one other character got similar treatment at an earlier point.
My initial conclusion was that Gwynne was holding the audience’s hand to account for names that would be hard for English-speaking audiences to remember, but there were also a couple points where information was introduced and then restated on the same page. Page 289 identifies Starl is one of the few locations where the ribs of the god Snaka are exposed. This is done three times in the span of five sentences. Two of those instances were almost identical in their wording.
Plot, world, or characters are not impacted by this. It was just very annoying. I’m still undecided as to whether this repetition shows a lack of confidence in the audience or represents a series of editing mistakes.
Chekov’s Bullets (Minor Spoilers)
The subplots of all three POV characters end in sudden twists that make almost no sense. I don’t want to call these cases of Deux / Diabolis ex Machina, as they lean on established elements. It’s not impossible to justify them. The problem is that they aren’t set up, so the implementation in all three cases feels contrived.
What’s particularly noteworthy is that these twists don’t even need to happen. The same objectives could have been achieved with only slight changes to the scenes in which they occur. For example, one twist is that a character finishes off another who nearly died earlier in the scene. Had that second character simply died at that earlier point, the twist wouldn’t have been necessary.
LESSONS LEARNED
Make Sure Chekov’s Gun is Loaded
This is as true here as it was for Foundryside. There is nothing wrong with a sudden twist or revelation at the end of the story. We just need to be sure that we properly set up the elements of the twist so that their implementation doesn’t feel random.
Tie the Threads Together
Having multiple POVs stretches our investment. Based upon A Song of Ice and Fire and other epic works, I believe the solution is to establish a connection between the POVs so that at least some of the investment from one POV will transfer to another. (The end of this book does technically address the problem for future installments of The Bloodsworn, since two of the POVs have now united.)
Watch the Ripple Effect
Elvar’s backstory is not problematic in isolation. The apparent objective for her characterization is admirable. It’s only when one tries to contextualize it against the established lore of the setting that problems arise. This is important for all of us to consider when introducing new elements into our settings. Small details can create baffling contradictions or radically alter the interpretation of a character.
RATING: 7/10
Overall, this was an engaging read. If you’re looking for a new epic, I highly recommend it. I’m excited to see where Gwynne takes future installments.
