[Book Review] The Fury of the Gods (Bloodsworn Saga 3) — John Gwynne
The Bloody End!
John Gwynne’s violent Norse-themed grimdark trilogy, The Bloodsworn Saga reaches its inevitably bloody conclusion in The Fury of The Gods. For those among us, who are ready for battle, helm on head, axe in hand, seax in belt, with rage flowing through your veins as you face your enemy across the field, this book is for you!
I thoroughly enjoyed the introduction to the world of the Bloodsworn in The Shadow of the Gods. With all the bells and whistles of a Viking-themed world, I was already heavily invested, and positively biased. The characters were engaging in their regard, and there were plenty of high-octane action set-pieces to get the blood pumping—all part of the recipe for a strong start of a new series. The culmination of Shadow introduces the mythological elements by introducing the big-bad wolf (literally) and the bigger-badder dragon as the major world turners for the series.
The Hunger of the Gods fleshed out much of the character motivations a little deeper, giving more nuance to the mainstay characters of the series, Orka Skullsplitter and Varg No-Sense of the Bloodsworn and Elvar of the Battlegrim. The sequel allowed for the world and characters to expand and grow into more distinct archetypes, with no character fulfilling the stereotypical “hero” role (this is grimdark after all!). The major themes involve rescuing various children abducted by the villains who serve the major antagonist, the dragon Lik-Rifa and her cult of worshippers. The book even spends some time with the “villains” to add another angle to the story, to reasonable success. In this series, the list of major Gods have extended to the dragon Lik-Rifa, the wolf Ulfrir, and the devious rat Rotta.
All of this was to set up the inevitable final showdown between the forces of “good” and “evil” in the finale, The Fury of the Gods. In truth, Fury is mostly just a novel-length battle ensemble. While both Shadow and Hunger had plenty of large scale battle set pieces, there was plenty of plot movement outside of those sets to give the books weight and narrative direction. However, the finale ended up being Gwynne’s way of neatly tying together all of the character arcs and the narrative arc, by ramming them against each other. The first couple of chapters help move the pieces across the board towards the final battle location, and by about halfway, we are dropped in to the final battle.
Gwynne is a master, perhaps among the best in the biz right now for writing well-crafted and thoroughly researched battle scenes, owing to his extensive real world experience as a Viking re-enacter and a battle scholar. His other famous fantasy series have been universally praised for its dense battle narration, and The Fury of The Gods is no different. If you're someone who’s tuning in for bloody bladed escapism, this novel is the perfect romp for you. However, if you want something more from your culmination of a dark-fantasy series, this book may feel a bit threadbare.
Gwynne does an impressive job pitting every character rivalry against each other in the final book, in a way that felt almost too neat, belying the entropic nature of war. Everyone got their comeuppance, mortal and gods. It felt too symmetrical. The motivations of the antagonists in particular began to veer into semi-cheesy territory. In contrast, many of the side characters surprisingly shone through in this book. In particular, the dynamic between Varg and Rokia and the Rat god Rotta and his underling the betrayer Biorr were very enjoyable and were the highlights of the book.
The Fury of the Gods and the Bloodsworn Saga has deeply explored themes of family that transcend blood and kin, which is a central feature of Viking culture as well, and the series does an amazing job of creating that atmosphere. It also explores themes of inclusion and bigotry as the characters who carry divine blood manifesting into their animalistic powers also put them on the receiving end of rampant persecution.
The narrative of this series has always been relatively straightforward, and readers can guess who will come out on top, but will enjoy the journey nonetheless, even though the plot armor on some of our favorites get so heavy that I found myself sighing more than once. You know who will make it, you know who won’t, with near-perfect accuracy. A case of “it’s the journey, not the destination that matters”. Especially when the big bads are taken out in a surprisingly anti-climactic way, perhaps impressing upon us that the true focus was the human side of the conflict all along.
This book left me divided between my internal bloodthirsty glee who revels in the violent side of grimdark fantasy, and the other more academic side of me who is trying to move past my own visceral tastes and chase deeper meaning. There is plenty of the former, but assessing this book from the latter’s vantage leaves me wanting.
