Loki's Wolves

What do you do when your told that you have to go on a quest to save the world from a giant, poisonous serpent that a god had failed to destroy thousands of years ago and your entire family thinks that you're going to fail and die? Being a descendent of the mighty god Thor, Matt was chosen to fulfil this prophecy with help from Fen and Laurie, the descendants of the trickster god Loki. They travel around the state searching for the other descendants as well as three key items to help in the final battle. On the way they discover that they all have special powers which prove useful when they run into countless troubles such as Trolls, Valkries, Norns and Maras. Their team is made up of the descendants of Thor, Loki, Frey, Freya and Balder with some brief help from Odin's girlfriend before she brutally murders Balder and blames the killing on Fen. While grieving over the death of their friend, they realize that in the Myths Balder could be brought back from Hel. So they decided to make a slight detour from their quest- into Hel. The pace of the plot was very strange. It was slow at the beginning and fast at the end.

The first major setting of the book is at the fair celebrating an ancient Viking holiday. This setting was described as well as it needed to be- it simply noted that the fair was very crowded, and it described some of the booths and and a few of the rides. All of the rest of the settings were described very poorly if at all. The only other major setting was the descendant of Balder's (Baldwin's) house. It disappointingly was described as, a house.

Loki's Wolves is told in a third person point of view. The narrator switches between telling the story from Matt, Fen, and Laurie's point of view. From the way the narrator tells the story it would have been better to have made the book first person while rotating between the characters every chapter.

The main character of Loki's Wolves is Matt Thorson, a brave, friendly and very tall 13 year old boy who grew up in Blackwell with his family who are all descendants of the Viking god Thor. He met Laurie and Fen when he saw them trying to steal a shield from the town longship. Both of the Loki descendants are very rebellious, much to the discomfort of Matt. The twins Ray and Reyna are hardly ever talked about and they don't contribute to the story nearly as much as anyone else. The last descendant is Baldwin who has the uncanny ability to make everyone like him without even trying. He is murdered by Astrid who shows up to help unexpectedly and seems to be nice until she betrays all of them in more than one way. Every character (except for the twins which seem to almost be one being) is extremely different from the rest. For example, Matt has trouble breaking the rules in anyway and can't doing something if it has a negative impact on anyone else. However Fen has been pulling off mischievous stunts his whole life and has no problem tricking innocent people. Also, Ray and Reyna are barely ever talked about in the story and they usually just stay in the background and don't do anything. One is almost never talked about if the other is not and are always referred to as "the twins".

The obvious theme to Loki's Wolves is Destiny. Matt didn't win a contest to be "Thor's Champion", he was chosen by the runes to fulfil the prophecy. All of there fates were already decided as mentioned many times in the book. The old myths represented their destinies. Matt is destined to die while defeating the serpent, and Fen was destined to kill Baldwin (which he did accidentally by not realizing he was poisoning him).

Loki's Wolves is exciting and always keeps you interested but has it's faults. It’s hard to put down, but it’s also disappointing in some aspects. It's an easy read with limited vocabulary and no real challenge.

Rating: 5/10