10 Fantasy Novels To Read If You Love The Lord Of The Rings
3. Norse Mythology
Another book by British author Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology is a compilation of stories retelling legends from, well, ...Norse mythology.
The folklore of ancient Northern Germanic, Icelandic, and Scandinavian peoples is one of the richest and most influential of the Western world, but can be rather inaccessible for English-speaking readers. Even good translations of original source materials such as the Icelandic Poetic Edda and Snorri's Edda can be difficult to read as they maintain stylistic features characteristic of the nearly one-thousand year-old works.
Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology retells in prose stories familiar to audiences of today (Þrymr's theft of Thor's hammer, as found in the Poetic Edda), as well as less-known tales. In doing so, Gaiman brings the Nordic world of vengeful gods, battle-hungry giants and the glories of Valhalla to life for a twenty first century audience perhaps more familiar with the Thor of Marvel fame than the great thunder god of old.