“Think fondly of the dead, whether death took them in bed or in battle.”
Thilde Kold Holt, Northern Wrath.
Set initially in the late 10th century in medieval Denmark, the Hanged God series is a blend of history and fantasy, leaning into a version of Norse mythology that is very real. The old belief system that upholds Odin as the Alfather is fading, as many in the south convert to Christianity. These leads to conflict, and for the people of Ash-hill to go to war, all the while the gods themselves prepare for the inevitability of Ragnarok – the end of the nine worlds as they know it.
I received this trilogy without knowing anything about it, as part of the Broken Binding fantasy subscription. The books themselves are beautiful, and it’s clear TBB are in the mood for championing lesser known authors such as Thilde Kold Holdt for whom The Hanged God is her first published works.
Norse mythology is up there with Greek mythology for repeatedly fascinating Western audiences, and to rehash something that is so frequently revisited can be difficult to make unique. For this, I think Holdt deserves praise, as the story weaves a kind of mysticism and unknowability about the divine into the plot – more so in Shackled Fates, and Slaughtered Gods, (books 2 and 3). The concept of destiny and of its unavoidability pops up as a major theme. To guess the gods’ intentions is often as fruitless and it is alien.
That said, there is much about these books that I didn’t like, and while I think the plotline is good and imaginative, it could have been much better in the hands of a better writer. At risk of being overcritical, I find the prose throughout these books to be juvenile, as if written for or by a child.
We, as the readers, are constantly reminded of small details from earlier on, spelling out exactly all the things we are supposed to realise about the scene and giving us no time to do it ourselves. Aside from a few of the earliest chapters in Northern Wrath, which I expect were improved precisely because prospective writers are encouraged to make their earliest chapters their best, there is little nuance.
Characters are underdeveloped, doing things because the plot demands it of them. Every point of view character shares traits like determination. Most of them seem to want the same things.
I’ll point out the example which I did like, which happens in Ash-hill as we are introduced to the series’s primary protagonists, Einer and Hilda. They are childhood friends and perhaps they will be more than this one day. You wonder this implicitly from their interaction before Einer makes it explicit, which I thought was done really well. But there is no more of this.
Finally, I feel that some of the more interesting plotlines were abandoned, such as the idea that Midgard – (Earth) – is drifting away from the other eight worlds because people are losing faith in Odin. As the series progresses, it becomes more detached from reality, more about the interplay between gods and giants rather than the world most point-of-view characters came from. I would have liked more about how Midgard was changing, more about how even Asgard or Jotunheim are established. It all feels a bit surface-level.
It speaks to me of a story which needs a bit more editing and re-writing. More like a first draft than a final draft. You could make a great trilogy out of these books by editing some of the lacklustre prose.
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George William Rolls 