Laeth
Jul 6, 2026
very fun read.
This is a retelling of an existing mythical story, and I hadn’t even heard of it before. I don’t think you need to, and it is hard to imagine that the original is as funny as Susana’s version. Furthermore it is tied to the other books within the same Timelessness universe, but it works well on its own. The first part almost seems like a buddy cop movie, except with the gods Thor and Loki. As they go on their quest, their differences in personality appear at every turn through their conversations and reactions, and are the main source of humor. Almost every paragraph is filled with witty banter from Loki and, let’s call it, bodily humor from Thor, sometimes in the same short sentence, like this one: «Loki’s instinct was to gape and curse. He did neither. Thor did both». This is a short book, but almost every sentence is packed with meaning and humor and thus has great economy of language. Also worth mentioning, though I dislike footnotes in general and especially in fiction, all the ones in this book are quite humorous, and so I cannot complain. The descriptions of place are also very well done, despite their succinctness. Consider this one: «To say the hall was immense would be an understatement. Loki reckoned the term infinite had been applied to lesser spaces. It was so huge he could hardly perceive its walls, columns, and ceiling without using Reach despite the hall being lit by hundreds of roaring fires burning atop pillars the size of redwood trees neatly arranged in filed throughout the room. The whole thing was tremendous in fact, it conveyed a feeling of overwhelming oppression, rather than openness». Such a short paragraph gives a very large (pun intended) picture of the place the heroes find themselves in, and how small they feel despite being gods. The story then changes as the contests begin. The banter and contrast between the two main characters continues as they are bested at every turn in surreal ways. Suddenly it’s no longer a buddy cop movie, but an absurd circus. All the contests are hilarious, and slowly but surely you get a sense that they are being tricked (the title promises it after all), though only Loki seems to suspect it, and mostly because there is this other, giant Loki, and the annoyance at there being someone with the same name is a big part of it. Thor, on the other hand, wants to succeed through brute force, and this too yields some hilarious moments. Finally, this part also features one of the funniest fight scenes I’ve ever read (or seen). Since this is a very short book, it would be hard to say more without spoilers. The short of it is: it’s funny throughout despite clear shifts in theme between the parts, and the twist at the end does not disappoint. A very fun read.
