I recommend it very highly. It is also the best retelling of Thomas the Rhymer I know.
(b) want to know what annoys you about most retellings of Norse myths,
The treatment of the gods. Neil Gaiman, for example, almost burnt out my trust for him as regards Norse myth with The Sandman, in which Loki is only the malicious aspects of the trickster—fire and wit and hate, as if straight out of some Christianized Satan-syncretism—and finished the job with American Gods, in which the entire plot is revealed to be a long con run by the two characters I was really hoping it wouldn't be, because the diversity of human belief is a thin excuse for out-of-character behavior. I haven't tried Odd and the Frost Giants. (There's also the fact that Gaiman rarely seems to write numinous that convinces me; I don't care if they're anthropomorphic, therianthropic, or a black stone at the root of a cornstalk, gods are not merely humans writ large with world-changing powers. But that's another rant.) The various deities in Eight Days of Luke, Æsir and Vanir, fit seamlessly into the modern world in ways I do not wish to give away and yet feel like themselves, not like the simplified versions, interchangeable typologies. Loki is not the Devil; Odin is not Zeus and neither is Thor. I feel the same way about Greek myth, mind you—it's almost true that I got into Brandeis on the strength of my contempt for Disney's Hercules. But I have run across fewer novels that bent me out of shape about Poseidon or Athene. Please don't point me in the direction of any you know.
no subject
I recommend it very highly. It is also the best retelling of Thomas the Rhymer I know.
(b) want to know what annoys you about most retellings of Norse myths,
The treatment of the gods. Neil Gaiman, for example, almost burnt out my trust for him as regards Norse myth with The Sandman, in which Loki is only the malicious aspects of the trickster—fire and wit and hate, as if straight out of some Christianized Satan-syncretism—and finished the job with American Gods, in which the entire plot is revealed to be a long con run by the two characters I was really hoping it wouldn't be, because the diversity of human belief is a thin excuse for out-of-character behavior. I haven't tried Odd and the Frost Giants. (There's also the fact that Gaiman rarely seems to write numinous that convinces me; I don't care if they're anthropomorphic, therianthropic, or a black stone at the root of a cornstalk, gods are not merely humans writ large with world-changing powers. But that's another rant.) The various deities in Eight Days of Luke, Æsir and Vanir, fit seamlessly into the modern world in ways I do not wish to give away and yet feel like themselves, not like the simplified versions, interchangeable typologies. Loki is not the Devil; Odin is not Zeus and neither is Thor. I feel the same way about Greek myth, mind you—it's almost true that I got into Brandeis on the strength of my contempt for Disney's Hercules. But I have run across fewer novels that bent me out of shape about Poseidon or Athene. Please don't point me in the direction of any you know.