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Title: The Gospel of Loki

Author: Joanne M. Harris

Narrator: Allan Corduner

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-13-14

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 27 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

With his notorious reputation for trickery and deception, and an ability to cause as many problems as he solves, Loki is a Norse god like no other.

Demon-born, he is viewed with deepest suspicion by his fellow gods who will never accept him as one of their own and for this he vows to take his revenge. But while Loki is planning the downfall of Asgard and the humiliation of his tormentors, greater powers are conspiring against the gods and a battle is brewing that will change the fate of the Worlds.

From his recruitment by Odin from the realm of Chaos, through his years as the go-to man of Asgard, to his fall from grace in the build-up to Ragnarok, this is the unofficial history of the world's ultimate trickster.

Read by Allan Corduner.

Members Reviews:

Not what I expected but well worth the read.

I settled down to this book with considerable anticipation. I'd relished Joanne Harris' "Gentlemen and Players" and "Chocolat", packed as they were with original ideas, strong characterization, and a slightly mystical view of the world. I've been fascinated with Loki since I was a child. I discovered him in his Marvel Comics incarnation and was always puzzled that people preferred the oafish Thor to the brilliant Loki . My fascination with Loki even led me to read some of the Norse Sagas which although sometime tedious were wonderfully amoral and extraordinarily blood thirsty.

What I got when I started reading was not at all what I expected. That, of course, is my problem, not the author's.

Perhaps I should have paid attention to the additional initial the author added to her name. I think now that she was flagging that Joanne M Harris was not going to write the kind of fiction Joanne Harris is famous for.

I should also have paid attention to the title "The Gospel of Loki: The Epic Story of the Trickster God". Epic tales have a particular form and the idea that any story about Loki could be a Gospel, literally Good News, has to be a conceit or a trick.

There are lots of good things in this book: the language and the imagery are rich without being obtrusive, the original Norse stories are faithfully

rendered but made new by being seen through Loki (admittedly lying) eyes, and the scale and the pace of the book are epic. Perhaps the most admirable thing is the way Harris positions Loki, the ultimate unreliable narrator, to reveal some hard truths: that Chaos and Order cannot abide or even begin to understand one another, that humour is an honest but misunderstood act of rebellion and that not trusting anyone is a limitation and not a strength.

And yet I found myself wanting something more or different than I was being served. The book did not engage my emotions. It did not provide the intense intimacy that a novel told in the first person normally provides.

Then I realized that this book is so "novel" that it is not a novel at all but something much stranger and original.

It has now been some weeks since I finished the book and my memory of it is still fresh and bright. Harris' Loki has taken up residence in my imagination. I don't like him as much as my childhood Loki but I believe in him more. Surprisingly, I find that I have compassion for Harris' Loki.