octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

I liked this well enough, but I think there's a fine line between universal themes and stereotypes, and this fell a little closer to the latter for my tastes. It just seems such an obvious backstory - Boo hoo, the gods have been bad to me, therefore I shall reject them. I'm an atheist myself, and sometimes it gets a little same old, same old when literature constantly expects turning away from religion to come from some great tragic saga of undeserved misery. I mean, I suppose a person rational enough to examine the evidence and say "Nope, not really that convincing, thank you," is probably not the type to go on a murderous spree, but still. This is old hat.

Sometimes you're reading a story and the things you expect to happen play out in front of you, and they're satisfying anyway. The bomb was always going to go off, and the tension between acting like a god, and trying to rid the universe of gods, was always going to come back to bite Gorr in the arse. And that's all well and good, but the most interesting bit here, in my opinion, was small - Gorr losing an eye to Thor. This sets them up as a sort of double image, but again the focus on action and hammers (I'm sorry, I don't give a shit about the stupid hammers) takes attention away from what could be a really strong piece of characterisation using the ideas of empathy and sight - seeing through someone else's eye(s), taking on their perspective. Which Thor does a little, but the focus seems to have slipped a bit.

I was wavering between 3 and 4 stars here, because there's a lot of good stuff that I really did like - I think this is my favourite of the Godbomb collection. I'm trying not to give spoilers, but I liked the way in which Gorr's bomb manifested itself (outside of the merely destructive). I liked that it ended on a quiet note, with Thor keeping a promise to a small believer. I liked that the gods found something to pray for, though of course their own prayers were entirely self-centred. I didn't like that the idea of the god-who-doubts seemed to be dropped, though I'm not surprised given the lack of focus on mirror images after Gorr lost an eye in the last issue. And I don't care at all about the shrinking of the bomb into a stupidly named sword that I hope (but don't believe) will never appear again, because the constant focus on weaponry does seem to get in the way of the types of story that I prefer.

I read and reviewed the issues collected in this volume separately, so this is basically just for my own records. All 6 issues earned 3 stars from me, so no surprise what the average is. Overall, it didn't hold my attention as much as the first collected volume, although I still enjoyed it. The stand-out idea for me here was the re-imagining of Thor as the god who doubts - he's almost set up as a skewed sort of mirror for Gorr, sympathising to a limited extent with Gorr's philosophy if not his actions. But this interesting idea got buried under lots of fight sequences and was never quite as explored as it might be. Combined with Gorr's backstory, which is pretty paint-by-numbers in its unoriginality, this volume strikes me as having some excellent moments, but unfortunately misses the opportunity to really focus on theme and character in a way that would have strengthened the whole for me.

This is King's first novel, and I think it's still his best. Granted, I haven't read all of them, but of the ones I have this is it for me. It's not the creepiest (that honour goes to the bloody clown) and it's not the worthiest (which probably goes to the far less enjoyable The Stand). It is however the punchiest, written before King decided 600+ pages was an appropriate novel length, and I love the focus and concision of it. There's not an indulgent word or subplot here, it's just this tragic little story about a girl so abandoned by society that she turns at last into the monster they've always wanted her to be. There's no great surprises here, which is I think as it should be - these people have arguably got what they deserved, at least some of them, and the rest were happy enough to be bystanders, mostly - mistreat a person often enough and cruelly enough and they'll eventually erupt. It's a shame, in a way, that it didn't happen sooner... and a sad comment that the analysis, in story, of what happened through journalistic reports and so forth is so unwilling to really focus on the shared responsibility of the community around that child, because you just know that's what's going to make sure that this disastrous holocaust of response will inevitably happen again.

Oh dear. This is dire. Which is disappointing, because I loved the idea of it - Alice in Wonderland with zombies. But sadly, the Alice elements are minimal, and the tiny surviving shreds of that idea can't survive the absolute beating given to it by plot and characterisation. The plot is absolutely silly - the spirit separating from the body in order to fight zombies on the astral plane - but given that my eyes had already rolled out of my head at the most unbelievable set of teenage characters I've ever read, well. Silliness barely makes a dent. These people don't act like any teenagers I've ever met. Not on any level. And yeah, I get that this is a horror fantasy about zombies and spirits and white rabbit clouds so there's a certain level of you-can't-expect-realism-from-this, but the characters are all so deeply, laughably unrealistic. Worse, they're unpleasant. Pretty much all of them, in fact, and as is so frequently the case in YA the love interest is by far the most unpleasant of the lot.

I'm sorry, but at this point I'm rooting for the zombies.

After the whole Godbomb thing. this issue is, I presume, the rest before the story continues. All the Thors have returned to their own times, and are coping with their experiences in their own ways. There's very little on Young Thor and Old King Thor, it's mostly Avengers Thor that's followed here and he's the best of them I reckon (this issue really brings home how absolutely little interest I have in Young Thor, he's dull as a bag of hammers). Avenger Thor isn't really following a storyline, he's just turning up in random places doing random acts of kindness for people who need or want a god, and if it's not exactly exciting I value this sort of kindness in stories, so I enjoyed it anyway.

I'm new to reading Thor comics - have only read this series, so far - so I'm a bit under the impression that this issue would mean more to me if I knew who Malekith was. He seems like a returning player in the whole Thor mythos, but from my perspective he's just another psycho looking to cause a large amount of slaughter. Which, great, this is clearly the storyline for the next however many comics, but I feel like I've just had this story. Isn't this how the God of Thunder series started? With the God Butcher roaming around causing havoc with large-scale and affecting slaughter? It is emotionally affecting, I grant, but the manipulation in it's fairly clear and it feels like a retread so soon after the last. I did like the spiders though.

I've liked - sometimes really liked - all the previous issues in this series, so I suppose there had to be a dud eventually. This one just didn't grab my attention. It felt very formulaic: here's your quest! Here's all your superficially quirky crew! None of whom were interesting, by the way. There's just too many characters for characterisation to take place, too much thrown at the wall in general. It felt as if it lacked focus. Here's hoping the hounds will help with that by chomping their way through more of the dead wood, and soon.

At last I'm able to feel something towards this series that rises above indifference! (But Octavia, why are you reading books you don't particularly enjoy? you ask. Because I'm working my way through the Mythopoeic award shortlists, that's why.) And consistently, my biggest issue with liking these books has been the characters. I find Gansey and Ronan utterly ridiculous. And honestly, I don't think you can blame me, given sentences like this: "Sprawled in his khakis and citrus-yellow V-neck sweater, he looked indolent, tossed, a sensuous heir to the forest around him."

That gag-worthy sentence refers to Gansey, by the way. He and Ronan have induced nothing but eye-rolling incredulity from me from the outset, and they're just as silly in this book except, for some reason, there seems to be a lot less of them. Which, yay! I don't know if they actually get less page time, but it feels as if they do and that's all that matters to me. Adam and Blue, while not filling me with unalloyed delight, are a comparative relief, at least when Blue isn't moaning and whining about her drearily endless romantic angst. Thankfully, her mother's missing in this volume so she's got less time to worry about her ill-fated kisses, which is a definite improvement. And Adam, who would be my favourite of the lot if this over-dramatic bunch could be said to inspire any sort of loyalty on my part (spoiler: they can't) whines a little less himself this time round. I can't say that he and Blue get a close focus in this volume, but they feel more featured than the others and with the worst elements pushed into the background I actually liked this one. Plus, plot-wise, it felt like some progress was made at last in this ongoing treasure hunt so, on balance, a restrained thumbs-up.