The Bloodsworn Trilogy
A crash course in how to make a world with no consistency and no growth
Warning! Spoilers ahead!
The Shadow of the Gods
When I picked up the Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne, I was very hopeful for a gritty, bloody Norse-inspired saga, and I was mostly happy with the outcome. I had some critiques of the story, but who doesn’t have the occasional gripe with a story? For me, a lot of the characters who were supposed to be driving the story forward fell flat. Orka, Elvar, and Varg all felt like one-dimensional characters, though Elvar was by far the most interesting out of those three. Varg, on the other hand, really had nothing to do after joining the Bloodsworn, I think in his first or second POV chapter, and the rest of the time, for THE REST OF THE TRILOGY, he just kind of hangs out. Sure, he wants to do the ritual thing for his sister, but he asks once he is in, is told to wait, then it doesn’t get brought up again until the third book!
Orka, our primary protagonist, has one driving goal, to find her son, which she does not accomplish in the first book, so her goal is to continue on to the path to tracking her son down, which is a pretty standard plot-line, so no notes there, though there is a fun element when two characters join up with Orka to gain vengeance on the man who killed their father. One of those characters, Lif, becomes one of my favorite characters, though he does not get any POV chapters in the series, which would have been nice, as he is a relatively important character, and in the subsequent books, other characters are given POV chapters.
Elvar was actually my least favorite in this book, but grew to be my favorite by the end of the series; in this book, she is an up-and-coming warrior in the crew of the Battle-Grim, a mercenary band similar to the Bloodsworn, except they are all normal humans, rather than tainted, humans who are desceneded from Gods that have certain capabilities beyond those of regular humans For example, descendants of Ulfrir, the Wolf-God are extra cunning and can grow claws and fangs, descendants of Rotta the Rat-God are extra vicious, descendants of the hawk have good eyesight, descendants of the hound can run for a long time, etc etc.
The book ends with the freeing of Lik-Rifa by a rival mercenary gang turned Dragon cult called the Raven Feeders, who, for some reason, needed young children present as part of the ritual to bring her to the surface1, as she was trapped underground in a chamber with three guardians, daughter of the Wolf-God, Ulfrir, who died several hundred years ago in the Guthfalla, basically Ragnarok, where all the Gods killed one another. Lik-Rifa is released, and immediately kills 2 of the guardians who supposedly she was at a standstill with for hundreds of years. How does that work? You are in a stalemate for hundreds of years, and then as soon as you are free, you take out two of them, despite being injured? I was certainly scratching my head at that.
Other than the whole thing about resurrecting Gods, the book felt pretty grounded, though the combat felt incredibly repetitive. I swear, if I had a nickel for every time someone’s head “exploded in gore” after getting hit with an axe, I would have sever dollars.
The Hunger of the Gods
This book starts with the Resurrection of Ulfrir, the Wolf-God, because who better to fight a God, than another God? In this book. we also get two new POVs, Biorr, and Guthvarr, both villains for different factions. Guthvarr is a cowardly drengr, which is essentially like a knight that fights for a Jarl, his aunt.
As Ulfrir gets resurrected by the Battle-Grim and Elvar, Elvar crafts a collar that binds Ulrir to her will, and the same for one of the surviving daughters that did not die when Lik-Rifa was freed. So Elvar has two Gods chained to her will, which I thought was a little silly, since, somehow, Elvar is able to physically outmaneuver and overpower the daughter..
The other new POV is Biorr, someone who betrays the Battle-Grim when Lik-Rifa is freed (he was a secret agent working for the Raven-Feeders, and is secretly tainted.) Being tainted in this world is seen as dangerous, and those who are tainted are usually enslaved or killed outright due to their strange powers, and can pose a threat to those around them.
Honestly, I thought this book was pretty underwhelming overall. Another God gets resurrected, and them is immediately killed thanks to the plotting of Guthvarr, which I actually liked as a plot point, but after the God is killed for a second time, there is no discussion as for why they cannot resurrect her again. If you can resurrect once, you should be able to do it again, right? But no, the idea is not even discussed between the characters, on either side of the battle.
Other than that, there was not much to discuss with this book. Definitely felt like a bit of a slump.
The Fury of the Gods
Honestly, this may be my least favorite of the three books. I just felt as though nothing is explained thoroughly, and so many characters had been introduced at this point that I started to get confused as to who is who and what the allegiances are. I will say that something I appreciated was the beginning of each sequel book had a short glossary in the beginning that outlined each group, and each character in said group and a brief summary of who they were and what they had done to the end of the previous book.
In this book, we see that the Bloodsworn (In the previous book, we learn that Orka was the previous Chief of the Bloodsworn, but she faked her own death and ran away with her husband so they can raise their kid, who was abducted so Lik-Rifa could be freed.) has met up with the Battle-Grim to save the world from Lik-Rifa and her Dragon Cultists. Turns out, Orka is descended from Ulfrir, and the Gods have a sort of psychic connection to their descendants.2
There is the barest amount of drama when it comes to Orka returning to the Bloodsworn, but ultimately her brother in law, who became chief in her absence, is fine with it, and just moves on with her quest to save her son. The Bloodsworn spend about 2.5 books traveling around the continent looking for the brother-in-laws wife, who was captured in a fight and taken because she is a witch. Basically, it felt like there had to be an excuse for them to be out of the story for a while because they are just too OP to be left in the main plot with the Gods until the very end.
We learn all this through Varg’s perspective, but he is never proactive in any way; instead, the brother-in-law makes all the decisions, and instead he just goes along with his new found-family. Varg is also descended from Ulfrir, we learn.
When the final battle happens, it was…fine. I never really felt like there were any real stakes throughout the course of the story. As a last resort, Snaka, the father of all the Gods, is resurrected off-screen, then killed immediately. Like, the power scaling just feels way off, for the father of all Gods to be killed by just getting stabbed in the chest, with a regular knife! Not even a magical knife! It’s just like a steak knife. They ultimately kill Lik-Rifa by throwing a magic poisoned head into her mouth, but even that payoff doesn’t work because the head survives!3
It just doesn’t make any sense to me.
People loved these books, based on the reviews I have seen, but I’m thinking like 2-3 stars. Too many plot holes for my liking, and almost none of the characters have any arcs. Orka does not change at all over the course of the Trilogy, Varg’s arc is that he has friends now(?), and Elvar learns that slavery is bad, right before getting murdered. Guthvarr doesn’t have an arc either; he remains a coward the entire time, and Biorr doesn’t change in any meaningful way, except to let the children go that he was guarding during the final battle.
Not sure if I want to do more book reviews, but let me know if you want more! I just had to get this off my chest.
Cheers!
Henry
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It is never explained what the children are specifically for, only that the Raven-Feeders need the “for the ritual”. After Lik-Rifa is freed, the children are retained to become part of Lik-Rifa’s army/cult.
I would have liked if we went a little into some of the lineages of some of our Tainted protagonists.
Throughout the story, the head mentions several times that he hates living as just a head.