Journies are important in a tale; they must hook the reader in order to arrive at an ending, but an end that leaves one bitter at the time taken on the journey is to no one’s satisfaction. The Fury of the Gods by John Gwynne arrives at an end that left me wanting to turn back the clock and start the series all over again. Though the Bloodsworn Saga is a story of revenge and violence, it’s also one of finding family with Orka and a found family with Varg. The Fury of the Gods features heartfelt moments that stand side-by-side with the swings of swords and axes.

When The Hunger of the Gods ended with Orka captured, Lik-Rifa killing Orna, the eagle god, Vol having being saved by the Bloodsworn, and Elvar sitting on her father’s throne at Snakavik, it felt like the beginning of a cascading avalanche of events that would fall faster than expected when the third book arrived. The Fury of the Gods rarely gives you time to recover, and when it does, the author will give you an emotional gut punch as Orka, Varg, and Elvar start to fulfill their quests they started way back in The Shadow of the Gods. With those resolutions comes the foreboding feeling that some of these beloved characters might not make it out of this as Lik-Rifa’s force comes closer to contact. Guðvarr and Biorr are exempt from this feeling, as their fates have always seemed like foregone conclusions despite their point-of-view chapters being entertaining.

On the surface, the Bloodsworn Saga seems like it’s all about violence and revenge, but if you weren’t able to see past the surface of the first two books, The Fury of the Gods provides moments that would move any hardened hearts. Families reunited, oaths sworn, gods and men coming to an understanding, and moments of camaraderie on and off the battlefield with a shared goal of preservation and survival. Additionally, there is the violence and the revenge that will get the heart pumping and the pages turning faster and faster to keep up with the pace of the action. If you’ve listened to No Page Unturned or read some of my previous reviews, boats in fantasy have never been something I look forward to, but The Fury of the Gods has one of the best boat battles I’ve ever read in fantasy. It had duals of runic magic between boats, face-to-face combat, and that eucastrophic moment like Gandalf and the Rohirrim arriving at Helm’s Deep.

The Fury of the Gods also has its unexpected moments. The first two books set all the characters and story in place to hit the ground running like a landslide, but between the fast-moving plot, there were still secrets the author kept tightly under his vest, only to reveal at the last moment when they had the biggest impact. When it’s done well, I’ll never grow tired of point-of-view characters who were on separate journeys in the first book coming together for the same cause in the last. The Fury of the Gods delivers this beyond engaging battles from different perspectives. What stands out in this book as a result of the converging of the stories is far more often seeing the actions of one point-of-view character in another point-of-view a character’s chapters offering us, the reader, something unique alongside a well-done conclusion to a story we’re already invested in.

There is a scene with Elvar that I’ve been hoping for and anticipating since the first book in the series, one that essentially changes the lives of everyone in Vigrio, but Elvar’s motivation for it had a much more personal reason shows how she has grown from the valor hungry rookie in the first book. She had to change and evolve to be the leader this fellowship needed against Lik-Rifa’s forces. It hasn’t been apparent to me until this book, but Varg and Orka have had similar development that comes to a head in this finale, where the peak of their transition from my journey to our journey occurs. The difference is that Varg was learning how to do it, while Orka felt she had to resist it to protect herself. Reading those walls coming down, in part thanks to the return of Breca, who, as a minor character, is a lot of fun in this book, is just as engaging to read as Orka’s revenge. Varg similarly comes to an understanding of what it means to be part of the Bloodsworn at the end of the first book, proves it with his actions in the second, and is rewarded in the third. Unfortunately, this puts Elvar, Orka, and Varg in the same situation readers may fear: do these resolutions foreshadow their death?

The antagonists of the book, namely the dragon god, Lik-Riffa, and the rat god, Rotta, were both menacing and entertaining. Lik-Riffa is clearly insane, pretending to be functional, while Rotta must balance being clever, arrogant, and also a coward. They both carry the madness that comes with being beyond mortal bounds. Though they tend to act with selfishness that is akin to being human, they’re clearly not. How I ultimately felt about Biorr is complicated. He wasn’t completely wrong about how the tainted were treated, but he was wrong in the lengths to which he’d go to change it. Like Varg and Orka, it took the third book to realize Biorr’s and Guðvarr’s similarities, except that Guðvarr is more honest about the cowardly opportunist trying to survive he really is while Biorr has to tell himself over and over again that he’s doing what he must to help the Tainted, not just himself. Guðvarr’s continual survival is entertaining while Biorr’s zealotry for the cause isn’t. Both of them serve to give the reader a point-of-view of Lik-Rifa and Rotta’s schemes and machinations for the war with their brother. Likewise, their comeuppances feels inevitable yet fulfilling.

With all the pieces in place, John Gwynne leaves nothing off the table nor any threads hanging but doesn’t close off this world from returns in the future. It is worth noting that a bittersweet ending can be powerful, but a satisfying, happy conclusion for the majority of the characters was the better choice, albeit one that came at the cost of some tragedies to get there. The Bloodsworn Saga is a trilogy that I look forward to revisiting for many years to come.

Check out No Page Unturned, a book podcast featuring this reviewer on the Geeklyinc network

Joshua was provided an advance copy of the book by Orbit Books.

If you liked this review, please consider buying the reviewer a coffee.

Follow Joshua MacDougall @FourofFiveWits on Twitter, Bluesky, and Twitch.