Runelight by Joanne Harris
Mar. 21st, 2012 11:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Six hundred miles apart, two girls each bear on their skin a runemark: a symbol of the old days when the known Worlds were rules by the gods from their sky citadel, Asgard.
But Asgard now lies in ruins, and the power of the gods has long since been destroyed.
Or so everyone thinks …
Filled with inventive and humorous detail, trickery and treachery, carnage and lunacy, Runelight is the second title in a series of gloriously imaginative and dramatic tales about the Norse gods.
It’s 3 years since the events in RUNEMARKS. Maddy Smith still lives in the village of Malbry with her father Thor and the other reincarnated Gods, all of whom are still struggling to adapt to their new lives. But the events of RUNEMARKS continue to have repercussions and the forces of chaos are on the rise again, determined to win a final victory over order.
When Ethel prophesies that Asgard will rise again, the stage is set for Maddy and the gods to go to World’s End. But Maddy has additional reasons for travelling. She’s discovered that her twin sister, Maggie, lives there and knows that she is in league with the forces of chaos. Determined to save her from the wrath of the other gods, the stage is set for treachery, trickery, carnage and lunacy, together with the return of some old friends and enemies …
Joanne Harris’s sequel to RUNEMARKS is another entertaining YA fantasy that reinvents Norse mythology and brings it to a new generation.
Maddy grows up in this novel. More certain of her powers, she remains a determined character but is forced to betray her friends and family to help the sister she’s never met. She struggles with her feelings about it and it’s interesting how Harris draws in the loneliness that Maddy experienced as a child to help shape her decisions. However Maggie worked less well for me, mainly because she ends up trapped in a love story with the shallow Adam Scattergood. While her actions are understandable, it was frustrating to have her bad decisions purely arising because she’s in love and I would have liked her to rise above a rather stereotypical motivation.
The world building is lush and detail and the humour worked for me. However there are times when it feels overwritten, with Harris working too hard to show all sides of the story, e.g. when you get an analysis of a scene from both Maggie and Maddy’s point of view. The cast is also huge and I had to keep flicking back to the character list to remember who everyone was and their relationship with one and other. With the exception of Loki and Thor, I also found the gods drawn too similarly.
In conclusion, this is another enjoyable and entertaining read and is storytelling on an epic scale. I can’t wait to read the next one.
The Verdict:
Joanne Harris’s sequel to RUNEMARKS is another entertaining YA fantasy that reinvents Norse mythology and brings it to a new generation. It’s storytelling on an epic scale, which does mean that at times I lost track of which character was which and I also found it overwritten at some points. But this doesn’t detract from it being an enjoyable and entertaining read and I can’t wait to read the next one.
RUNELIGHT was released in the UK on 3rd November 2011. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the ARC of this book.
Six hundred miles apart, two girls each bear on their skin a runemark: a symbol of the old days when the known Worlds were rules by the gods from their sky citadel, Asgard.
But Asgard now lies in ruins, and the power of the gods has long since been destroyed.
Or so everyone thinks …
Filled with inventive and humorous detail, trickery and treachery, carnage and lunacy, Runelight is the second title in a series of gloriously imaginative and dramatic tales about the Norse gods.
It’s 3 years since the events in RUNEMARKS. Maddy Smith still lives in the village of Malbry with her father Thor and the other reincarnated Gods, all of whom are still struggling to adapt to their new lives. But the events of RUNEMARKS continue to have repercussions and the forces of chaos are on the rise again, determined to win a final victory over order.
When Ethel prophesies that Asgard will rise again, the stage is set for Maddy and the gods to go to World’s End. But Maddy has additional reasons for travelling. She’s discovered that her twin sister, Maggie, lives there and knows that she is in league with the forces of chaos. Determined to save her from the wrath of the other gods, the stage is set for treachery, trickery, carnage and lunacy, together with the return of some old friends and enemies …
Joanne Harris’s sequel to RUNEMARKS is another entertaining YA fantasy that reinvents Norse mythology and brings it to a new generation.
Maddy grows up in this novel. More certain of her powers, she remains a determined character but is forced to betray her friends and family to help the sister she’s never met. She struggles with her feelings about it and it’s interesting how Harris draws in the loneliness that Maddy experienced as a child to help shape her decisions. However Maggie worked less well for me, mainly because she ends up trapped in a love story with the shallow Adam Scattergood. While her actions are understandable, it was frustrating to have her bad decisions purely arising because she’s in love and I would have liked her to rise above a rather stereotypical motivation.
The world building is lush and detail and the humour worked for me. However there are times when it feels overwritten, with Harris working too hard to show all sides of the story, e.g. when you get an analysis of a scene from both Maggie and Maddy’s point of view. The cast is also huge and I had to keep flicking back to the character list to remember who everyone was and their relationship with one and other. With the exception of Loki and Thor, I also found the gods drawn too similarly.
In conclusion, this is another enjoyable and entertaining read and is storytelling on an epic scale. I can’t wait to read the next one.
The Verdict:
Joanne Harris’s sequel to RUNEMARKS is another entertaining YA fantasy that reinvents Norse mythology and brings it to a new generation. It’s storytelling on an epic scale, which does mean that at times I lost track of which character was which and I also found it overwritten at some points. But this doesn’t detract from it being an enjoyable and entertaining read and I can’t wait to read the next one.
RUNELIGHT was released in the UK on 3rd November 2011. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the ARC of this book.
