Book Review: Grumpy Old Gods Vol 1

Confession time – I got accepted for their anthology Grumpy Old Gods Vol 3. Another confession – instead of doing my research, I only read their other stuff after I got accepted. Third confession – I liked it a lot more than I expected. As always, the review is completely honest and a true reflection of how I feel. I may have been accepted into a later anthology, but I wouldn’t have fibbed. We have all read books where the best thing you can say about them is that they were the perfect size to put under the table leg to stop it wobbling, and while I would have found something tactful to say if I didn’t like it, fortunately for my conscience, I loved this.

Grumpy Old Gods Vol 1 is a collection of thirteen stories from different authors, all of them about the former deities that are now out to pasture or somehow superannuated. The authors have taken the idea of the old gods and run with it. I don’t want to put in spoilers, but these are great stories. Some are just hilarious, others are sweetly sad.

It’s a great selection. Many of the stories go across more than one pantheon, so you get wonderful quotes such as, ‘Odin, Merlin, Zeus and Nubis sat around a table playing spades and debating the part humanity would play in the coming Apocalypse,‘ while others stick to one tradition and mythology. There is a great selection as well, as we have stories that refer to Norse, Greek, Egyptian and First Nation beliefs, which is wonderful to dip into.

I really enjoyed the excellent, well presented, well written stories. I am definitely going be reading Vol 2 just for pleasure, and I sincerely recommend this anthology.