Never trust a demon ...

The tone of the writing (and narration) is spot-on here. Loki is perfectly portrayed as the cunning, callous yet charming God he was. A brilliant, contemporary re-telling of the ancient tales - thoroughly recommended!

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3 people found this helpful

Well performed, I just didn't enjoy it that much

This one has been a bit of a mammoth to get through. Thankfully, I slept through a lot of it.

Dreadful music. Why doesn't anyone use real instruments anymore?

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Fantastic new novel from Harris

Amazing story, thrilling and mysterious, I couldn't stop listening! Narrator perfectly suited the silver-tongued Loki.

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2 people found this helpful

Fantastic writing, fantastic producing, frantastic narrating!

This was a spot on sharp edged portrait of Loki the person, not Loki the problem. Finally. Such a well needed fresh breeze of personal development added to the norse mythology litterature genre!

Very well written, with a crystal clear red scripted thread sewn evenly throughout the entire book. I'd say it was a balanced meal of being both entertaining without getting shallow or repetetively no-reason-condescending (as it often is when it comes to Loki, without being questioned)...

In all fairness this was the first book I've read with such a heartwarming and pure interest in portraying Loki as an intelligent being with a quite relateable ADHD-lack of impulse control/foresight mixed with a satisfying ability of self-insight. Thank you for the great read!

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The Real Deal

Would you listen to The Gospel of Loki again? Why?

I will listen again! This was a wittily written book, well plotted and loved revisiting the Norse mythology.

What did you like best about this story?

Loki's wit, craftiness and sense of "poor little me".

Which character – as performed by Allan Corduner – was your favourite?

Loki. Corduner captured Loki's sarcasm, cunning and sense of humour wonderfully well.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Loki's capture and imprisonment. Loki's arrival and reception in Asgard was also rather sad.

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Great story and great narration

This is a great story made much better by a very entertaining narration. In fact, I think the narration really makes this audio book as it is told in the first person and Allan Corduner makes the perfect Loki, complete with voices.

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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. Although he is an inveterate trickster, he is also the victim of a trick by Odin that ripped him from Chaos and bound him to a world that could never truly be home.

This is not a book to read if you are looking for escapist fantasy. It is a long song about the nature of chaos and order and the betrayal that is inevitable when the two meet. It is about fate and destiny and sustaining power of humour. It is, in fact, exactly what is says on the cover: an epic tale of a trickster god, except the real trickster is Odin.

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29 people found this helpful

Surprisingly good.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yeah definitely, the girlfriend recommended it to me because I always found Norse mythology quite interesting. i was skeptical at first as I thought the premise was a bit gimicky but it was a fascinating story that stuck to the original Norse mythology surprisingly well while at the same time putting a more ammusing and modern twist on the tales through Loki's (the self professed humble narrator) story telling.

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2 people found this helpful

Loved reading the book, hearing even better.

I've read the good a few times, and really love it bit listening to it, is far better. And the voice is really great too. Sly voice.

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Enjoyed it and a bit different!

Well worth a listen. Injects humour at the right points and holds your interest throughout. Will certainly look for others in the series.

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2 people found this helpful