The Age Of Odin

Odin is not just Anthony Hopkins or "that One-Eyed god" or Thor's dad.  He is the All-Father of the Norse Mythology.  If you were like me and had a minimal knowledge of Norse mythology then reading this book is an awesome wake up call.  I myself knew some of Norse mythology but nothing to the extent of what author James Lovegrove details in this magnificent book.  Most of our knowledge of Norse mythology revolves around Thor and his love/hate relationship with Loki.  Well let me say that Thor is in this book, and he is important.  Loki is in this book and he is essential to the plot.  The epic beatdown that the Hulk delivered is not in this book as none of the Avengers are in this book either, sorry to be the bearer of bad news there.  What this book does is it captures how important Odin is as a character and that Marvel only focuses on one of the champions of the Norse leaving some of the other amazing characters out in the cold winters of Jountheim.

SPOILERS!
The main plot of this book is different from the previous two "Age of ______" novels put forth by Lovegrove.  This one centers around Gid, a down on his luck loser who is trying to put his life back together and finds an add offering good pay for military work which Gid has plenty of experience.  What he doesn't know is that he is joining an army of Norse gods and soldiers to go and prevent Ragnarok.

Gid has a fist fight with Thor, he woos (if that is the right word here) a beautiful Valkyrie, and ends up becoming the hero of his own story.  What I found outstanding is how Lovegrove was able to tie in the epic deaths of the Norse gods (Thor and Odin as two examples) using modern day machinery.  Fenrir the great wolf is instead a rolling fortress that has been designed as a wolf and it takes Odin's life.  The giant serpent that Thor puts down is a mechanical one made from science and again it and Thor take one another life.  Even the ending where Heimdal kills Loki is done poetically  Of course there is that whole unpleasant business where one character is blood eagled.  (If you don't know what it is, look it up because it is disgusting.)     

Where Lovegrove almost lost me was in the last 5-10 pages.  He began to take a path that had me screaming NO NO NO...but unlike so many authors he fixed it with only a couple of sentences.  He was traveling down the path of the cliche ending.  Where was it a dream, was it real?  That ending I HATE fervently.  He went down that path but then gave a solid answer.  He didn't need to say it was real for you to know it was very real.  Lovegrove showed you a side of this hidden reality fiction that I haven't encountered too often.  Many times authors force you to sit there and think what the hell happened here and why did it happen?  What Lovegrove did was explain why it happened and gave you only an element of speculation to really grasp why and how it went down.  Overall this book is phenomenal and if you have read any of his other novels you know what magic this man can do with mythology and science.  An A+ from me.