Having read the adventures of Grimnir up to this point, it was obvious that I would continue on with the conclusion so when this was offered, I gladly accepted.
One of the only books I’ve managed to read on time this year, so that says something right?
Thanks to the author as well as St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley for the review copy.
As the Black Death rampages across Europe, two creatures of the Elder World clash over the rotting corpse of Christendom in Scott Oden’s third book in the Grimnir Series
Skrælingr. Orcnéas. Fomoraig. He is Grimnir . . .
For over a century, he has tracked the dragon, Níðhöggr — the Malice-Striker — from the shores of Lake Vänern, across the Baltic Sea, through Russia, and down into the Mediterranean; he has hounded the wyrm from Old Muscovy to Messina. And finally, to the Eternal City — to Rome, itself.
And outside Rome, on a cold November night in 1347 AD, on the ruins of the ancient Appian Way, Grimnir’s saga comes crashing to an end. A crossbow bolt, loosed in terror, slays him out of hand. It is a mundane finale to a life spent hip-deep in bloodshed and slaughter, surrounded by steel and savagery and the sorcery of the Elder World.
But Death is just the beginning . . .
Now, on the grim and misty isle of Nástrond, under the shadows of Yggðrasil, Grimnir is plunged headlong into the twisted Valhalla that is the afterlife of his people. Here, bloody in-fighting, schemes and betrayals are the order of the day. Grimnir is forced to contend with a cabal of witches, with giants and trolls who have never felt the light of Miðgarðr’s moon, and with his own rapacious kin as he journeys beyond the shores of Nástrond to find answers. And with every death, Grimnir unravels another thread of a monstrous secret woven at the dawn of time — one that will turn him from the pawn of unknown gods into the most powerful being in the Nine Worlds. And the most hunted.
This is the third and final adventure of Grimnir, who is… eh more or less an orc? He’s got many names, and people have many names for him. In this volume, we see the Grimnir that finally dies (oh no!), rather embarrassingly, actually. It turns out that those of his kind go to a special island called Nástrond, where they will wait for Ragnarok. As long as you’re on the island, you can die and you’ll come back to ‘life’ within a few hours. Except it’s different for Grimnir for some reason…
As with the previous novels of our grumpy protagonist, I quite enjoyed my time with Grimnir in this volume as well. I mean, get ready to be reading a lot of Norse words and pronouncing them almost certainly wrong in your head (is that just me then?). There are a lot of words here that are not of the English language but they are nonetheless words that make this book feel more… authentic?
Grimnir is grumpy as usual, and death hasn’t changed that one bit, especially since he was right in the middle of something when he died. He’s still foulmouthed and easy to anger, but it’s hard not to cheer for him anyway. So, I can say that it was easy to stay immersed in this one from beginning to end.
All told, I’d recommend this one to anyone that like viking stories, or to anyone that likes a good anti-hero in their story. A great conclusion to the Epic of Grimnir! 4/5 stars!~
superstardrifter 
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