The Hunger of the Gods: 2 (The Bloodsworn Trilogy)

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Any authors who include this section in their books have a bigger chance of me reading their sequel ASAP rather than putting them on a backlog until their series is completed first. Though some characters, like Svik and Einar, took more of a supporting role/backseat in this installment.

Elvar, on the other hand, is taking the Battle-Grim across the land to carry out her blood promise, and Varg is helping his team find Vol. I'm not reviewing much anymore but given the fact that I wrote a not-so-positive review of book 1, this book totally deserves the praise! Believe me when I say that without those and specially the recap I would not have enjoyed this series and probably would not have continued it. That being said, I didn't mind the fact that we experience some other characters' journeys and it wasn't confusing as their stories intersect with the main characters much of the time.I love this book more than words can say and I absolutely love the world in which the Bloodsworn live and thrive. Not only does he have a character listing giving a brief description of everyone in the book, but he has a "what happened in book 1" section that makes it so you don't have to go read the first book again to get right back into the series.

And despite it having fewer battle scenes than Gwynne's standard in his sequels, the Gwynnado in the middle section and the final 15% of the novel were excellent as always. In The Hunger of the Gods, the story, conflicts, and missions of Orka, Varg, and Elvar converged in several sections. My minor issue with the pacing aside, The Hunger of the Gods have furious battle scenes, savage display of power, intricate world-building, and well-written characters. Elvar has sworn to fulfil her blood oath and rescue a prisoner from the clutches of Lik-Rifa and her dragonborn followers, but first she must persuade the Battle-Grim to follow her.

And also, the character interaction especially the conversation between the main characters were handled wonderfully and I would love to read more of other characters reaction when they find out Orka is the Skullsplitter. I reread The Hunger of the Gods as it was released a few weeks ago, but this time tried it out in an audiobook format. And just for fun, I predict the third book of the trilogy will be titled The Battle of the Gods or The War of the Gods. Another plus for this book was that we saw the conflict from two perspectives, the "good" and the "bad" guys that line blurred and it wasn't so clear who are the good people (well except Varg and Orka of course).

Even though this book does have some slight pacing issues, Gwynne was able to make me enjoy and feel invested in this story throughout this 600+ page tome! Right at the top of the heap would have to be the tongue creatures that Varg and the crew come across on their way across the ocean. Firstly, this series continuously integrates Norse-inspired elements such as lore, legends and using Norse languages, making this book feel like a real Norse epic fantasy! I really enjoyed the depth of the connecting stories and how they are all running steadfast into one another.Orka is still hunting for Breca, and she is using every lead, person, spell, and scrap of information she can find to help her. Un propósito como una partida de ajedrez en el sentido de que Gwynne avanza la trama como quiere y a menudo no ves a donde va, o lo ves pero no aciertas.

The first few pages of The Hunger of the Gods contained a detailed recap of The Shadow of the Gods, a character list and what happened to them before, plus Norse terminologies and pronunciations guide. So here we are again, another year and another book by John Gwynne, one of my top favorite authors of all time. The Gods are a big part of the story in this entry which made the world-building and magic systems more complex and I am here for that. It has a well developed and immersive Viking world that feels real and much better then a TV show could ever produce.The following three books in the series – Valour, Ruin and Wrath, were all shortlisted for the David Gemmell Legend Award for Best Fantasy Novels of 2014, 2015 and 2016. The Hunger of the Gods, the second book in The Bloodsworn Saga, is my second most anticipated books—the first one belongs to The Lost Metal by Brandon Sanderson—of 2022.