A review by justgeekingby
Grumpy Old Gods: Volume 1 by Elizabeth Shaffer, Juneta Key, Katharina Gerlach
4.0
I was provided with a free copy of the anthology to provide an honest review. Please see the full review on my blog for individual reviews for each story: https://geeking-by.net/grumpy-old-gods-review/
An enjoyable anthology is not just about the sum of its parts (the stories); it’s also about whether it successfully embodies the theme in a cohesive manner. That task falls to the editor of the anthology and is just as important as just having content to fill the anthology. A selection of stories that complement each other, that take the reader on a ride of emotions and adventures works much better than a jumble of words no one wants to read. Grumpy Old Gods: Volume 1 is mostly successful in creating a compendium of tales about gods that fit with the anthology’s synopsis. As you can probably tell from my review there is one glaringly obvious example that I feel did not fit at all, and there are a few others that I feel were great stories yet didn’t quite fit with the topic.
What I did absolutely love was the massive amount of variety when it came to pantheons and deities! I expected to find Greek and Roman gods everywhere. When I did come across the top three pantheons (Greek, Roman, Norse) there were many examples of minor deities explored. What some of the writers did let themselves down on though was their lack of research. It is particularly frustrating to come across people writing about mythological characters and then getting their Greek and Roman names mixed up. While the gods of those two pantheons may share a lot of similarities they are separate deities with entirely different personalities and traits. It’s like saying a tiger and a house cat are the same because they’re both cats.
It was these few problems, and the two stories that I felt were particularly problematic, that brings my rating for the anthology down from a 5/5 to a 4/5. For an initial outing, it’s a great start, and with better editing and story selection it can only get better. There are two other volumes of Grumpy Old Gods now available; Volume 2 which follows the same theme as this one and Volume 3 which is a special spooky themed edition.
An enjoyable anthology is not just about the sum of its parts (the stories); it’s also about whether it successfully embodies the theme in a cohesive manner. That task falls to the editor of the anthology and is just as important as just having content to fill the anthology. A selection of stories that complement each other, that take the reader on a ride of emotions and adventures works much better than a jumble of words no one wants to read. Grumpy Old Gods: Volume 1 is mostly successful in creating a compendium of tales about gods that fit with the anthology’s synopsis. As you can probably tell from my review there is one glaringly obvious example that I feel did not fit at all, and there are a few others that I feel were great stories yet didn’t quite fit with the topic.
What I did absolutely love was the massive amount of variety when it came to pantheons and deities! I expected to find Greek and Roman gods everywhere. When I did come across the top three pantheons (Greek, Roman, Norse) there were many examples of minor deities explored. What some of the writers did let themselves down on though was their lack of research. It is particularly frustrating to come across people writing about mythological characters and then getting their Greek and Roman names mixed up. While the gods of those two pantheons may share a lot of similarities they are separate deities with entirely different personalities and traits. It’s like saying a tiger and a house cat are the same because they’re both cats.
It was these few problems, and the two stories that I felt were particularly problematic, that brings my rating for the anthology down from a 5/5 to a 4/5. For an initial outing, it’s a great start, and with better editing and story selection it can only get better. There are two other volumes of Grumpy Old Gods now available; Volume 2 which follows the same theme as this one and Volume 3 which is a special spooky themed edition.