Testament of Loki - Dec 13

To continue the topic about 2018’s novels, let us…not make a stink like a mink, (cough, I thought this was funny), but talk about… ‘The Testament of Loki’, for a change. Written by Joanne Harris, this…actually has nothing to do with Disney, MCU, or Riordan, at least not too much.

What is this novel? It is a sequel to an earlier ‘The Gospel of Loki’ novel. That one was yet another retelling of the Norse myths, just one done from the point of view of Loki, from the beginning to Ragnarok. That is it, really, as far as fantasy novels go, this is as basic as you can get; whereas the Greco-Roman myths never had a proper conclusion, they have sort of faded away by the time of Christ, the Norse myths actually did: the Ragnarok would come, the old world and practically everyone will die – good, bad and ugly – and there will be some sort of a new age, a new world, and everything and everyone will be new. The end, and has vague echoing similarity with both monotheism – Judaism, Christianity, even Islam – and dualism, such as Zoroastrianism. Jolly good, but then we get ‘The Testament of Loki’, and this is where the novels change.

On one hand, ‘Testament’ is a YA novel, not unlike those of Riordan or J-Ro. In the first half of ‘Testament’, Loki escapes the afterlife via a video game of all things, takes over a body of a teenage girl and eventually helps her come to grips with her identity, fix her life, find her backbone, etc. – a not too different story from the other YA novels, even the LJ trilogy that became briefly popular during the summer of 2018 due to the movie made from the first novel. Now, of course, those books can be found in various stores, offered at a discount, but this is how the glory of the world passes.

And on the other hand, ‘Testament’ in the second half is Loki hopping all over dimensions, doing his best to stay ahead from Odin, Gullveig-Heid, Mimir, and even Thor – and he succeeds as he gets to be reborn as a new person at the novel’s end. Here, the tone of ‘Testament’ shifts from a typical YA to something more along the lines of Neil Geiman, with some Lovecraft thrown in, purposefully or not. In the second half, ‘Testament’ becomes one crazy ride of a novel, (on Sleipnir, no less!), and the only thing spoiling it is Loki’s…no, not so much narcissism, as his complete lack of understanding when he should fall silent and not make it all about him.

…Yeah, good luck with that – whether it’s Marvel or not, Loki always makes it about him; in A: IW movie, he dies, supposedly. Cough. He already ‘died’ in various films, including the ‘Thor: Dark World’ movie, so good luck with that as well. Loki has to keep on moving, even if it is just his mouth, because otherwise? He just might stop existing and explode/die/etc. However, in ‘Testament’, this attitude of the Trickster becomes exhausting, and people may stop rooting for him and just wait for the novel to end, which it does, as Loki had tricked everyone, outmaneuvered everyone, and gets to be reborn as a new person in a new world, where he gets a much expected break from activity, because even he as a baby cannot move around much, (well, not at first). Somehow, despite his, and his author’s, best intentions, the readers are not rooting from him as much as they did in the beginning of ‘Testament’ anymore. Ms. Harris, who had created this version of Loki, might have succeeded a bit too well in making him into an anti-hero, and as such, he is hard to root for in the novel’s end.

Oh, and the YA human characters of ‘Testament’? Yes, they get largely abandoned/dismissed by the second part of the novel, which decreases the novel’s impact on one hand, and on the other makes ‘Testament’ almost into two novels – one that is Loki’s adventure among the modern YA Americans, and the other which is Loki doing Odin’s bidding and rebuilding the old world, building a new one from scratch, etc. Yes, this is not unlike Ms. Cervantes ‘Storm Runner’ novel, which is also really two novels stitched into one, and we have discussed Ms. Cervantes’ ‘Storm Runner’ and their relationship with Mr. Riordan and his PJ-verse the last time. Now let’s just admit that ‘Storm Runner’, (and ‘Aru Shah’) is supposed to expand the PJ-verse and bring new literary life into it; whether they succeeded is another story – ‘Aru Shah’ feels completely unrelated to PJ-verse, while ‘Storm Runner’ feels like a weird imitation of the original, and it is not even so very flattering. ‘Testament’, on the other hand-

…On the other hand, Ms. Harris was never a part of Mr. Riordan’s PJ-verse; ‘Gospel’ was a simple retelling of the Norse myths, while ‘Testament’ is a more experimental piece, (which is mostly successful, too). ‘Gospel’ was an alternative to PJ-verse’s ‘Magnus’ subsection, and while it was never as successful as PJ-verse novels, it still worked. So has ‘Testament’ – because it cruised the coattails of its’ predecessor and because it dips its’ toe enough into the YA waters to swim in the wake of passing of HP novels, and PJ-verse novels, and similar novels; what will happen when Ms. Harris decides to write a sequel to ‘Testament’ is another story.

Of course, this in itself is an open question; Patricia Briggs’ novels – Mercedes Thompson and co. – are even more successful and popular than Ms. Harris’ books are, (about Loki and otherwise), but lately Ms. Briggs seems to have gone onto a downswing: lately there are no new novels by her, which is strange, since the last ones were some of the best. Of course, maybe she just does not want to write books anymore, for whatever reasons – in real life she owns a ranch, (or something along those lines), and doesn’t need income from books; she possibly writes (wrote) MT and co. novels for entertainment, and if she doesn’t want to write, she won’t. The end for MT and her universe. Anything else?

…Yes, there is a rumor that a new MT novel is coming in May 2019, but we will have to wait and see if anything comes out of it. For the moment, MT novels are on a hiatus…but we got plenty of other novels, including ‘The Testament of Loki’, to fill in the gap in the meanwhile.

This is it for this time. See you all soon!