After playing Valkyrie Profile on Playstation (see review) which I love, I wanted to know more about the Norse Myths whose gods and goddesses show up as characters in the game. I also love mythology and do know quite a bit about Roman and Greek mythology. I thought that these myths would add to my general knowledge especially since it is more likely that I am descended from the Norsemen than any Greek or Roman.

While this book provided the information that I was seeking, it could have been written and perhaps edited better. It wasn't written in the most easy to read manner. The stories are continually interrupted by inserted passages from the Eddas and Sagas or from Longfellow, which is nice of course for study which I gather is the main purpose of this particular textbook, but it can be annoying, they perhaps could have added these as footnotes or place them in an index at the back as not to interrupt the flow of the reading.

I found quite a few proofreading errors in this particular edition. I would hope in a future edition that they would pay more attention to that particular detail.

The book was divided not by how the myths fit together, but by each individual god or goddess. I didn't like this because some of the stories overlapped and some of the stories got chopped up. In one place, there is a introductory paragraph to a character and that is it, then later in someone else's story we are reunited to our missing character. It was a very odd way to organize the book.

The Index and the glossary are combined in the back of the book, it functions well as an index, but it is a terrible glossary. There are quite a few gods and goddess and sometimes the lessor deities are hard to remember. I would turn to the glossary for help and would not find it forthcoming.

The one really good aspect of this book is the illustrations, it has some very nice ones.

I would not recommend this book for individual study. It will give you the basic knowledge of the gods and goddess, but not their stories, and it was their stories which I sought.



Recommended: No