goddesses Archives - The Y Logs

Yzabel / October 18, 2015

Review: Homunculus and the Cat

Homunculus and the Cat by Nathan Croft

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

Just a typical kitten saves the afterlife story, disguised as a book about death.

In a world where every culture’s mythology is real, Medusa’s sisters want revenge on Poseidon, Troy is under siege again, and the Yakuza want their homunculi (mythological artificial humans) back.

Near Atlantis’ Chinatown, a kitten and her human campaign for homunculi rights. Against them are Japanese death gods, an underworld cult, and a fat Atlantean bureaucrat.

The main character dies (more than once) and a few underworlds’ way of death is threatened.

There are Also giant armored battle squids.

Review:

[I received a copy of this novel from the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.]

Good ideas in this mash-up of various mythologies and their associated creatures, however, in the end, it was a bit too choppy to my taste.

The world of Gaia was inventive, fun, full of conundrums and syllogisms, all of those making for a place brimming with diversity… and with the problems associated to it, especially acceptance. This theme, along with the one of “humanity” in its largest meaning, was developed through the homunculi: artificial human-shaped beings, crafted by alchemists, gifted with certain powers, with a beautiful appearance for some, with intelligence and feelings, yet considered as unworthy because they didn’t have a soul—or so, some people said.

The political undercurrents permeating the story (the vote, the tricks used in Atlantis to thwart it against the homunculi, the strong will of a few people like Petra to help them get rights at last) were definitely interesting. Perhaps because of all the many creatures in this novel, the hypocrisy behind their reluctance to accept the “soulless” articificial beings was even more tangible, and made for a good metaphor of injustices happening in the human world. I can say I’d really have wanted this specific plot to shine more.

Where the mashup worked much less for me was in the narrative itself. A lot of things happened, more or less tied to the aforementioned plot depending on the moments, but they happened very fast, in a chaotic way. I guess it reflected the chaotic nature of Gaia, yet it didn’t male for a coherent read, and there were several moments when I had no idea anymore what was happening, why, or how the characters had come to that particular point or conclusion. Even though it made more sense once I read a few pages back, it was annoying nonetheless.

The other problem with such fast-paced events was that they didn’t leave much room to character development, and I felt I was told, rather than shown, the relationships between Tyro and the cat, Tyro and Mina, Tyro and Herakles… (Tyro wants to save him, but since I didn’t get to see them interact much, I didn’t feel very invested in knowing about the outcome. Same about Tyro and Ankh’Si: the conclusion here was so rushed I wasn’t sure if my copy of the book missed a chapter or two.)

I really liked the world developed here, however it was so diverse that it eclipsed the characters. Since I like those to be as developed in a “humoristic” read as in a “serious” one, albeit in different ways, I suppose, it didn’t work very well for me in the end.

Yzabel / August 23, 2015

Review: The Gospel of Loki

The Gospel of Loki by Joanne M. Harris

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

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.

Review:

[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]

I was quite keen on reading this one, but now that I’m done, I can’t help but feel that something was sorely lacking, and that the portrayal of several of the gods and goddesses wasn’t what I wanted to read.

Don’t get me wrong: different portrayals aren’t bad per se. They allow to shed another light on a character, to see a specific element in another way, to cast a whole other meaning and play with what is the “officially accepted” meaning, and so on. However, even though I’m fare from being a specialist in Norse mythology, I didn’t really understand some of the choices made here. For starters, what was wrong with Loki as a Jötunn (I’m not a proponento f Christian interpretations, so having here as a “demon” was definitely weird)? I especially couldn’t agree with the portrayal of Sigyn done here. I’ve always felt there should be more to her than what we know of, but seeing her reduced to a soupy housewife made half-crazed and happy to finally control his husband in the cave didn’t sit well with me. Granted, Loki made fun of all the gods and goddesses, only the way it happened with this one didn’t seem like an appropriate idea.

The tone of the story was somewhat light and funny in spite of the end of the Worlds it was bound to lead to, and highlighted Loki as a Trickster. The two episodes with Sleipnir and Thor disguised as a bride were particularly fun to read—I can never get tired of the latter, I guess. The gods and goddesses in general weren’t shown under their best colours, which here too fits with Loki’s point of view (being able to see the defects in people, himself included, and using them to his own advantage).

The “trickster tricked”, though, is another peeve I couldn’t shake off. Loki has always been a very ambiguous figure for me, not an evil one, so while his portrayal as being rejected because he’s a “demon” fits with his growing resentment (wouldn’t things have been different he had been accepted as Odin promised he’d be?), the end result looked more like a child being constantly thwarted and then whining about his fate, than a God bent on revenge for having been wronged once too often. This is not the kind of Loki I wanted to read about. He deserves more than that; his being tricked does happen (Útgarða-Loki being a good example), yet it quickly felt as if he always got the end of the shaft without never learning anything, and it doesn’t seem believable that a character like this one could be tricked from beginning to end.

I was probably also a bit annoyed by the omniscient view cast over the story, as it is told from Loki’s point of view after Ragnarök: I tend to grow quickly tired of structures of the “but the worst was still to come” kind. It didn’t help me to stay immersed in the narrative.

Overall it was a strange reading experience: when I was in it, it was alright, but every time I stopped, I had trouble picking the book again. It *is* pretty close to the Edda stories in some ways if you except the demon/Pandaemonium one, and probably this is both a strong and a weak point, as in the end, apart from being narrated by Loki, it doesn’t bring that much novelty or development to the already known myths. The Gods remain fairly one-dimensional, and while it was somewhat fun to read, I don’t feel like I’ll be opening this book again one day.