Mit seinen oft humorvollen Worten hat Neil Gaiman mir das ein oder andere Mal ein Schmunzeln entlockt, auch wenn es mir schwer fiel, die Namen den einzelnen Charakteren zuzuordnen. Glücklicherweise gibt es dafür hinten ein Glossar zum Nachschlagen. Ab und zu hätte es etwas mehr Tiefgang geben können, aber auch so war die Atmosphäre im Buch gut greifbar. Umso mehr, da ich das Buch im Norwegen-Urlaub gelesen habe und mir einige Schauplätze dadurch gut vorstellen konnte, während ich in die Mythen vertieft war.

The only thing I would have liked it to be longer and with more detail. Otherwise it was good. The most important parts were in it I think and it is a great introduction to the Norse mythology. I’d like to read more now and learn all about Loki‘s schemes and Thor‘s thirst for battle.

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman is a nice book to read on the go. This was the second book I've read by Neil Gaiman and I love his writing style. Once again, I got through this book very quickly and was able to find my way into the world of the Norse gods. The stories of the strong Thor, the lovely Freya and the cunning Loki are written as you would imagine the tales in earlier times while you sit around a campfire on a warm winter's night, and as the individual stories are kept relatively short, you can easily reread them, which I will probably do, as I couldn't internalise all the names the first time through - there were just too many gods and background information for that. All in all, I would recommend it to any reader who is interested in Norse sagas and Norse gods, as it is an entertaining and interesting book to read in a short amount of time.

Wie vmtl viele andere Menschen kannte ich aus der nordischen Mythologie nur die wichtigsten Götter und weiß, wie es mit ihnen mal zuende gehen wird (dachte ich zumindest). Ich musste feststellen, dass ich doch mehr Namen kannte als gedacht (Danke Popkultur 😅) Neil Gaiman schafft es, die Erzählungen in ein modernes Sprachbild zu übersetzen, was die Lektüre super angenehm zum nebenher weglesen macht (das ist nicht negativ gemeint). In kurzweiligen, mitunter humorvollen Worten führt er Lesende in die Mythologie ein. Für mich war das wunderbar erfrischend, da ich andere Mythologien in etwas älterer Übersetzung gelesen habe, wobei ja doch immer irgendwie der Lesefluss gestört wird. Anders hier: Das Buch liest sich sehr flüssig und die Mythologie ist zugänglich. An mancher Stelle hätte ich mir etwas mehr Tiefgang gewünscht, bzw wollte gerne noch weitere Geschichten lesen. Trotzdem ist das Buch für mich einer der besseren Reads dieses Jahr. Kann ich jedem nur empfehlen, falls die eigenen Grundkenntnisse in dem Thema aufgefrischt oder ergänzt werden sollen.

Knowing the Edda and Nordic Mythology in general a little, there wasn't much "new" to be learnt here. But still this was an interesting book for me, for various reasons. One reason is the quality of the retelling: Gaiman managed to combine passages reminiscent of the tone of the "original" Edda with "modern" parts suited to present-day-readers without previous knowledge of the less omnipresent Nordic myths. Another, of course, is the humour he put in. Not that the original myths are humourless, largely thanks to Loki - but there is also a bit of Gaiman humour in there now. And lastly, I was glad about the revisiting of this mythological area in general, in such an accessible way, because of all the fantasy literature I read. It is very interesting to be reminded how many writers draw from the Nordic myths quite freely, not least and recently prominent George R. R. Martin for his Westeros. I was very happy with this book, though readers should bear in mind that this isn't a novel, but a collection of stories of Northern Gods.

3.5* Da ich alte Mythen total interessant finde und bisher alles mochte was ich von Neil Gaiman gelesen habe, hatte ich sehr hohe Erwartungen an dieses Buch. Neil Gaiman erzählt darin die nordischen Mythen, so wie sie überliefert sind, er erfindet somit keine neue Geschichten, sondern erzählt die alten Geschichten in seinen Worten. Es ist somit auch nicht eine Geschichte sondern viele Kurzgeschichten, die jedoch zusammen doch eine grössere Erzählung ergeben, also durchaus zusammenhängen. Ich kannte zwar viele Elemente aus der nordischen Mythologie bereits, doch ich hatte nie Mythen noch nie in ihrer "ursprünglichen" Form gelesen und so fand ich die Geschichten sehr interessant (wenn auch nicht alle gleichermassen). Mir hat auch der Schreibstil von Neil Gaiman wieder sehr gut gefallen und das Buch war dadurch wirklich kurzweilig.

More visual review here- http://storypals.net/book-report-norse-mythology-neil-gaiman/ Finally, the day has come when I decided to put my review up here on my blog. Trust me when I say this, I have been slacking on reviewing this particular book which is how now I have 4 books piled up only to be reviewed later. The reason why I am being such a dork? This book is really hard to review, I mean what do I say which is not already said? What do I add to it which will give some value to people who haven’t heard about this book already? The whole world is raving about this and of course, there are plenty of reasons why they should be, the cover is gorgeous, the author is kickass, the stories are so good that they leave you asking for more. Anyway. Because any review cannot be cut short to just this blabber, let’s do the needful and talk about what it is and talk a little about my feelings, the characters and the not to miss story. For me the fascinating part was the introduction, it did give the book such a kickstart that I wanted to devour the book as soon as possible. Neil Gaiman's introduction is where he talks about his deep fascination with the myths of the lands of the North. -- Anything passionate turns me on. :P To be honest, the book was a great read, the stories were amazing and I was introduced to Norse Mythology in a very different way, what I know is only through Marvel comics and that too film knowledge which is mostly broken. The book's narration is smoothly divided between the major deities, even though the Big Three are the focus. The storytelling is in the good, old-fashioned way. By this I mean-- The story has been retold but it didn't feel like a new voice or the characters have been modernized, the essence was there and I could feel it. Each character had their distinctive voice, making them different from each other. The book was easy to read, stories were great and nothing more for me to say.

First of all, the "letter" Neil Gaiman writes in the beginning is simply precious. I very much love stories that draw from mythology, not only when the author gives them their own twist but also when they retell them. I grew up loving Greek mythology and in more recent years Marvel has done a great job in holding my attention with norse mythology. Thanks to that, a couple years ago I bought The Gospel of Loki by Joanne M. Harris and I had so much fun reading it. That book was the one to introduce more of this myths ands stories, so now, reading Neil Gaiman's take on it, allows me to go back and forth between the two books. Tells me the tales in a different light, tells me more. It's truly beautiful in my opinion! Unlike Harris's book, it doesn't focus on what happened to one character and how he feels and what led to all the different actions he took; this book's focus is the myths themselves: how the world came to be, what happened before, how things unraveled. But still, unfortunately, I have to say I think I prefer The Gospel of Loki, not so much because of how sassy Loki is or how deeply we delve into his character, but because Harris takes her time explaining the myths, in a different way that Gaiman does. His telling of the myths resembles more a conversation. And it's not that I don't like it! I do, I just didn't engage the same way as with the other book... I already knew most of the stories in this book, but it was still enjoyable to read them and listen to them being read by Neil Gaiman. He has a great voice for narration and his perspective in the stories is good too! But had I read this before The Gospel of Loki I think I really would have enjoyed it more. Still, it was a nice book, the stories weren't exactly the same, had differences I wasn't expecting and it also had amazing new stories. And the ending was amazing. The very end, after Ragnarok.