The Radiance of Alfheim: Eschaton Cycle (Gods of the Ragnarok Era)

In my focused reviews of the characters of the series, The Gods of Ragnarök, by Matt Larkin, I will now describe an adversary whose appearance and role in the story surprised me. The story of this character is based on Norse Mythology, but is quite different from the myths; giving the reader an exciting character to follow; a villain of rare quality and ability mixed with a level of competence not seen in most villains in other stories.It is often the lack of competence in a villain that allows most heroes to succeed, but in this story that is not the case. No cheap clever ploy will be the key to succeeding in defeating this enemy.There is no amount of reading the story of Skadi in Norse Mythology that will prepare the reader for the onslaught of this villain retold in Gods of Ragnarok. Brace yourself.This review is not a review about one of the books of Matt Larkin’s creative retelling of the Norse mythos, nor is it intended as a complete profile of the character Skadi. Matt Larkin has an excellent history of this character, which puts her life in prospective in an enjoyable read on his patreon site. It is a site that is worth a look because it gives a glimpse of the timeline of events and the condition of the world before the story of Odin and the Aesir begin.This review is going to give the prospective readers an impression of the steely strength of this character and what a formidable and worthy adversary she makes for the Aesir and others who stand in her way.After Skadi is driven back into Niflheim, the Aesir would wipe their brow, catch their breath and thank urd(fate) there were not two Skadis.Skadi of Norse Mythology: the name Skadi roughly means Harm or Shadow. Skadi lives in the highest reaches of the mountains, where the snow never melts. She’s an avid huntress, and her bow, snowshoes, and skis are her most often-mentioned attributes. She was once married to the god Njord. However, their marriage was a failure; Njord couldn’t stand the cold and dreariness of the mountains, and Skadi couldn’t stand the light and noise of Njord’s home by the seashore, so the two parted ways.The giants or Jotuns(or, to use a word that more properly translates their Old Norse name, the “devourers”) are predominantly forces of darkness, cold, and death. Skadi fits this pattern, and seems to have had particular associations with winter. Her status as a goddess by marriage, however, along with the frequency of her historical worship, seem to suggest that she has a more benevolent demeanor than most of her kin, perhaps in a capacity as a patroness of winter subsistence activities. In both the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda, Skaði is responsible for placing the serpent that drips venom onto the bound Loki.Skadi of Gods of Ragnarok: Matt Larkin in his series Gods of Ragnarok brings Skadi to the reader in a way that is loyal to the old Norse Myths, but with a turn that keeps the reader riveted to the books as they slowly gain a greater picture of a character, a magical creature, that slowly reveals itself as one of the most credible and formidable villains in fantasy.In describing Skadi in this review I will not go over the details of her actions in the novels. Please read the novels for the experience. It is a riveting and yet human story of a character who set herself on a path of darkness long ago and cannot change that path and no matter the outcome or harm done to others she will relentlessly pursue her object of furthering Hel’s ambitions with every ounce of cunning, strategy and insight she possesses.Matt Larkin has a patreon site which gives the reader a complete history, a description of Skadi’s history going from a beautiful, half human, half jotun, devoted to her father and Hel’s cause, to something very dark. She is strong willed, but willing to compromise; a young woman proud and strong, but with the ability to feel love, grief and conflicted emotions. It is tragic to imagine Skadi slowly becoming transformed into a dangerous, resourceful spirit that the very thought of her brings feelings of dread to the Aesir, feelings shared by the reader as they feel themselves alongside the Aesir when facing Skadi.I will describe the qualities that make Skadi a distinctive villain worthy of Odin and point out her unexpected advantages and mistakes along the way in her long conflict with the Aesir. Skadi is not flawless, none of Matt Larkin’s characters are, but she is worthy of being called “the Adversary”. My name for her not the author’s. Let’s begin.When Skadi is first encountered in the series Gods of Ragnarok she is summoned to help a supposed ally. This ally had been possessed by Skadi before with terrible consequences and would only now call upon her in the most desperate situation. And the outcome for the summoner and those she was to aid was severe. Here is a very fundamental question.Why was Skadi, a spirit allied to the Hel as her summoner was, so hostile? Unless why this occurred is known Skadi’s actions make no sense. This is often the case with most writers and the villains they write about. They are simply evil and that is the reason for the evil actions that they undertake. And at first this is the case with Skadi to the reader. Skadi is cruel and brutal, totally lacking in sympathy, but she is not without purpose.The impression the reader has is of an ancient foe of humanity brought to a diminished future with the adversary seeing the tide turning against humanity. Skadi understands that with aggressive action the goddess Hel can see her goals attained. Skadi has no time or patience to be of use to any besides the goddess Hel. All other issues are a hindrance or at best a distraction.Here the reader will benefit greatly from paying attention to an important aspect of Skadi.Skadi is not human.Skadi has the personality of someone who has lost certain parts of her emotions that made her human at one time. This is important to understand because it directs her actions as the story develops. Skadi is naturally cautious, but is not afraid and retains many emotions; including the anger over her failed marriage to Njord, a Vanir prince who later became king of the Vanir. But Skadi has no sympathy for even the human allies of Hel who seek to gain personally through her worship. She has no time and deals harshly with others who do not directly serve the cause of Hel even if they do worship Hel; if the worshipers’ actions do not directly support Skadi’s actions to the benefit for Hel she ruthlessly betrays and crushes them.Once summoned the Aesir have no idea of the winter wolf unleashed in their midst.Even worse Skadi is ancient and battle hardened. Odin and the other Aesir have no idea of the insight and knowledge this monster has and it is this experience of being a battle-hardened magical creature that makes Skadi so dangerous.But Skadi is not an adversary with blind rage and a lust for battle. Soon after possessing her most recent victim, Skadi soon learns of the current political and military conditions and begins a campaign that resembles a campaign inspired by Sun Tzu in the Chinese Military Classic the Art of War with some of the peculiar aspects of Norse mythology thrown in.First Skadi consolidated control of her vessel and begins an effort to gain as much information as she can. Torture is a part of this effort and she is skilled at it.As urged in Sun Tzu, she does not act directly against the Aesir, but acts in an indirect fashion to spoil their plans before moving to Jotunheim and gathering information there before she begins to consolidate her power and control of the land of the frost giants.After she leaves the West Skadi enters the land of the Jotuns and joins with old allies and reestablishes ties and soon moves to overwhelm a Jotun ruler and take a new body of a female Jotun more suitable to her.Here is a key issue driving much of Skadi’s behavior. Skadi is an evil spirit occupying a host body. She has no concern for those she possesses, or their loved ones and takes what she thinks she needs. Skilled in sorcery and insightful in the way her enemies think, she moves to slowly dominate Jotunheim and then occupy a fortress that is positioned to be a staging area that can enable the Jotuns to raid into human lands.To understand one of her greatest coups contributing to the fall of the Aesir was birthing a child of Loki; gaining a child who would go on to serve the Jotun cause with some of Loki’s special abilities as assets. This is based on the importance of bloodlines and inherited powers in Norse mythology.The Aesir realized the danger Skadi represented and gathered their limited forces to overcome Skadi and her forces; the Aesir suffering excessive losses in the process and while victorious against Skadi’s forces and slaying her possessed body; all they were able to achieve was to drive her weakened spirit back to Hel’s service in Niflheim.Qualities that make Skadi a distinctive villain worthy of Odin: Skadi has Odin’s same proclivity for moving secretly and gathering information and forming cunning plans. Her superior knowledge of magic enables her to surprise her opponents and affect her escapes.She knows the land well and is able to easily move about and survive in the harsh terrain and remain undiscovered by enemy scouts. Her mind is focused and not distracted by unneeded emotions and is able to evaluate people and circumstances accurately. Her planning and timing are skillfully applied in a way that is superior to Odin and she is able to avoid traps and being ambushed better than Odin, who sometimes is inconveniently restrained, which is a true understatement. Her use of magic and knowledge of Jotun culture and society are advantages that serve well her again and again.But this is not to mean Skadi does not make mistakes. She makes many of them. Remember, to the Matt Larkin’s credit, as a writer one of his best skills is that all of his characters have some flaws. It is this quality more than any other quality in his writing that puts the reader alongside the characters in the stories.Skadi’s made two mistakes in the series which would cost her and the cause of Hel considerably. One was despite the fact that Grimhild of the Niflunger clan had summoned her to help the cause of the Niflunger clan that served Hel, Skadi turned on Grimhild and Gundrun in a contest of wills for control. Grimhild and Gundrun could have made valuable allies and servants. The Niflunger were excellent spies and assassins and could have provided Skadi valuable information on Aesir movements and plans.Skadi’s human nature before she became a Vaettr could have seen this, but being stripped of her gentler emotions after being a spirit in Niflheim, as a servant to the goddess Hel set Skadi on a path of unnecessary conflict with this allied family wasting valuable time and effort.Skadi was to be served in the cause of Hel. Skadi was not to be summoned to serve anyone else’s interest.The second mistake made by Skadi was that she became a victim of her own success in the conquest of Jotunheim and she made the mistake of establishing a fortress that was exposed to the Aesir forces. This allowed her enemies to have a non-moving home base to concentrate their attacks on. The place Skadi settled in was an accessible stronghold that she occupied without a mountain range providing an additional barrier and due to the scattered nature of the Jotun population; reinforcements were too far away to provide timely help in case of attack.Eventually the Aesir were able to overthrow her fortress, her warriors and slay her body sending her spirit back to Niflheim. This is a fascinating part to Skadi’s story in that it surprisingly has several parallels in imperial and military history. A concept that appears again and again in Matt Larkin fantasy novels is how so many events in his series Gods of Ragnorak have similar examples in history.An interesting historical example comparing Skadi’s war and the end of Skadi’s rule can be found in the recent military history of the island nation of Sri Lanka and the complete destruction of the guerilla terrorist organization, the Tamil Tigers, by the Sri Lankan army.The Tamil Tigers could be considered the most disciplined, efficient and brutal guerilla terrorist organization in modern history. A succession of wars was fought with the government resulting in terrible destruction and loss of life with the Sri Lankan military eventually learning all the tricks in the Tamil Tiger bag and thinking up a few of their own. It is the only instance of a guerilla organization being utterly crushed militarily.A key component of this outcome was the need for political recognition of the Tamil Tiger leadership by the international community. This required the establishment of a defined territory giving the military a localized and established objective to concentrate their forces on much as the Aesir were able to concentrate on Skadi’s fortress.The Tamil Tigers and Skadi were crushed by skillfully led superior forces. The Aesir were weakened by the war expending their limited forces and even their more limited talent in destroying Skadi’s mortal body and overrunning her stronghold.In Matt Larkin’s story of the Gods of Ragnarok this would represent the highwater mark of Aesir power and they would go into a long decline before Ragnarok began.How to describe Skadi’s personality. A good place to do this in such a way to give the reader of the review a good picture of what the enemies of Skadi had to deal with is by using the fun Myers-Briggs personality test concept and the type of personality Skadi displays in the story.The essence of the theory behind the Myers-Briggs test is that much seemingly random variation in the behavior is actually quite orderly and consistent, being due to basic differences in the way’s individuals prefer to use their perception and judgment."Perception involves all the ways of becoming aware of things, people, happenings, or ideas. Judgment involves all the ways of coming to conclusions about what has been perceived. If people differ systematically in what they perceive and in how they reach conclusions, then it is only reasonable for them to differ correspondingly in their interests, reactions, values, motivations, and skills."Skadi the Mastermind Personality:This personality type tends to be quiet, reserved and comfortable in their own company. Self-sufficient and prefer to work alone than in a group. Socializing significantly drains the energy of this personality type, and the mastermind does not like small talk! They are more interested in big ideas. Uncertainty is the enemy. They excel at developing plans and strategies for every eventuality. They are insightful and quick to understand new ideas.This passage very much describes Skadi, who in my opinion, is the ONLY Mastermind Personality in the entire series. With these qualities it is easy to see why among the Jotuns she is a wolf among sheep.Since in my reviews I engage in what if scenarios I ask myself the question.What if Skadi had been the leader of the Aesir instead of Odin or even an ally? What would she have done differently to protect Asgard? After thinking about the differences and I have already written 3 reviews on Odin’s leadership I was startled to see there would be a clear difference between Odin’s and Skadi’s approaches.For Skadi one could think of German SS soldiers rendered psychotic after long term dosing of methamphetamine on the eastern front for 4 years. According to recent historical documents, these soldiers became psychotic, losing the ability to relate to others in a balanced emotional manner. Cold and ruthless killers, deadly fanatics. Not too different from Skadi.Add to this mindset a sorceress with an inclination to breed every type of magical warrior available to join in the cause. What magical warriors would she try to create? Thanks to Matt Larkin’s imagination I can guess at what some of her projects might have been.Berserkers: During the series these were important shock troops for the Aesir and were in fewer numbers as time passed.Wolf shifters: Ideal scouts and raiders. Again, fewer were born each year weakening the Aesir.From Skadi’s point of view there could never be enough of these useful shape shifting warriors to supplement Asgard’s mortal forces.More Valkyries, and more Einherjar. She undoubtedly would have loved these magical warriors and battle hardened ghosts and would have much more aggressively produced as many as possible rather than letting the numbers dwindle as Odin did through neglect.Valkyries interbred with human males to produce dimension traveling warriors like Hermod. One Hermod was bad enough for the enemy. An entire unit of them would have created a nightmare for the enemies of Asgard. As it was the Aesir could only count on one.Half jotuns: Strong, brutal, plentiful, selected for loyalty and well trained they would have reinforced Asgard and made excellent shock troops. The Aesir lost many of their best mortal warriors, who were constantly trying to prove themselves worthy of the Apples of Immortality, and lost their fighting edge over time compared to the first generation of Aesir who made the long trek to Vanaheim.Seductress female jotuns: Beautiful female jotuns, acting as spies and agents, among the jotuns would have warned the Aesir of enemy plans and movements. In the series such agents used by the Jotuns did considerable damage to the Aesir by stealing valuable magic items denying the Aesir their use at critical times.Prescient immortal warriors; These warriors with the sight would have aided the Aesir in out maneuvering their enemy’s times and again. Odin was rarely around for the sight to be used for the benefit of Asgard and Loki was using his sight to undermine the Aesir, destroy Asgard, and bring about Ragnarok.Abandon the lazy Vanir to remain in Alfheim: Most of Odin’s efforts in the series was spent in trying to recover his lost love Freya from Alfheim with the defense of Asgard and prevention of Ragnarök a secondary priority. Skadi did not suffer from confused objectives and mixed priorities. She would have concentrated on the true objective.Finally, Fenris Wolf. If anyone could have dominated and controlled the monster, turning it to the Aesir’s purpose, it would have been Skadi.It is not to say that Skadi could have averted Ragnarok, had she been on the Aesir’s side. Ragnarok was fated to happen. But the enemies of Asgard would have had much to fear from Skadi’s efforts.I encourage the reader to enjoy this series as it as much to offer. It is a human story filled with fascinating characters, from a pagan world very different from our own, but familiar to us all.And remember that in this story; the villain whose mind was as focused as a hunter’s arrow, her cunning as deadly as an assassin’s dagger in the night, her brutality, a match for the harsh winters of the north; began her life as a woman with a hope for happiness and love for her family and her marriage that was never to be.

If you have ever wondered about the more obscure world in Norse mythology, such as Alfheim and the creatures that live there, this part of the series will interest you immensely. Matt Larkin’s extensive knowledge of mythology, not only of the Norsemen but also of the surrounding people make for a compelling retelling.Matt Larkin has written a phenomenal series. It is a retelling of the vast collection of Norse myths in a way that is realistic enough to imagine it could have even happened for real. To achieve this while at the same time staying true to the original stories themselves is a balancing act that can only be achieved by a brilliant writer.

Radiance of Alfeim Book 6 of “Gods of Ragnarok Era” written by Matt Larkin picks up with Odin one step closer to finding how to destroy Ragnarok. Odin also continues his quest in reuniting with his soulmate Freja, who he had cast out Vanaheim along with all of the Vanir to Alfeim. Odin’s continues his massive orchestrating of all including Sigurd, Brynhill and of course Thor and his other children.....many who meet their own end as a result of Odin’s schemes.....it’s his manipulation of all, that eventually leads him to his desired end.....but is that the end Odin? Love the book....the series.....and the fact the author works his tail off to deliver a well researched, brutally dark story that keeps the reader thoroughly entertained. Great stuff!!!

Larkin mixes mythology and history and legend to create something totally different. The Nordic gods are real people who make mistakes and suffer the consequences.Odin and Frigg, Thor, Frey, Tyr and Freja are much as they appear in the mythology. Loki's part is radically different for far from being a frost-giant, he's an oracle and fire-worker. The only similarity to his mythical counterpart is his relationship with Odin.This is a brilliant series and I am not looking forward to it being finished

Like all of the books in this series, this is absolutely immersing, you start it and you almost HAVE to read it all in one go. The way this series takes the Eddas and the Sagas and turns them into something darker, but more human, is great. Time to driven into the next book!

Another triumph in Norse Mythology for Matt Larkin.

The 9 Realms are running out of time. The flames of Ragnarok burn through Odin's mind and all his manipulations and attempts to change the events that he sees now that he has the vision given to him through the waters of Mimir seem futile and pointless. The end is no longer a seemingly distant future but is rushing towards him. To that end Odin gives up his indirect schemes and now is taking direct action. But those actions seem to be for naught as the free will of his chess pieces continue to disrupt everything. And, unbeknownst to him, one of those closest to him is actually an agent of the End. An End that seemingly will not...be...stopped!!!Matt Larkin, Master of the Mythic Legend, gives us this, the 6th book in the RAGNAROK ERA. As in each of the preceding, he weaves a world choking in the never ending mists of Niflheim that has its share of flawed heroes fighting wars without end against villains and monsters of nightmares and legend. Larkin has beautifully twisted and wound multiple story threads in a way that would make the Norns jealous. As those threads begin to unravel and reveal their secrets, Larkin starts to reveal the complete tapestry woven only in his mind.

Still as captivating as ever. Can't help myself from reading long into the night. I can't wait for the next chapter in the series.