The Chronicles of Loki: Book One: The Gathering Storm

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The Chronicles of Loki: Book One The Gathering Storm, is the first book in a trilogy centered on the life of the Norse trickster, Loki. Essentially, this is a reworking of the Norse myths in which the character commonly identified as the god of mischief and wickedness gets to tell the story from his point of view. The twist in this book, however, is that it take what folklorists call an euhemeristic point of view with this mythology, i.e., it treats Loki, Odin, Frey, and company as if they were real human beings who lived ages ago on a lost island continent they called Igdrasil, which, as in the myths, was also divided into nine realms inhabited by distinctly different peoples and cultures. Perhaps the most challenging (and fun) part of this first book has been reimagining Loki's various adventures and misadventures as they might have actually happened without the benefit of magic and sorcery (though supernal elements are introduced in the second book. The book moves on two time axes. One takes place in the present. In this timeline, Loki, his family, and allies are setting in motion what will be a war of vengeance against Odin and the Aesir. Readers are introduced to the machinations of key characters in the mythsOdin of Asgard, Frey of Vanaheim, Surt, High King of the Muspelhim, the rulers of the wee folk of the West, i.e., Ivaldi, the principal ruler of the Dwarves, and Mama Cosi, Lokane of Alfheim, as well as Loki's children, Fenrir (aka the Wolf), Fafnir (ruler of Jormundheim), and Hela, Queen of Nifleheim. The second timeline is a memoir of Loki's life, which in the first book encompasses his time as a hostage among the Aesir, how he rebuilt the walls of Asgard, what really happened with Idunn and her Golden Apples, his ascent to the throne of Jotunheim, courtship of his wife Angrboda, and birth of his first child, the aforesaid Fenrir.

Author Bio

M. Gregory Kendrick is a retired professor of Modern European history at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), and the author of The Heroic Ideal: Western Archetypes from the Greeks to the Present, and Villainy in Western Culture: Historical Archetypes of Danger, Disorder, and Death.