You know that old adage that forms the basis of just about every other fairy story in existence, the one about being careful what you wish for? Of course you do, we all do. Everyone has heard and knows it. Everyone except, it would seem, apart from Loki. Somehow the God of Mischief skipped that particular life lesson. After becoming the hero of the hour in the War of the Realms saga*, having gained his own kingdom to rule over as he sees fit and finally being granted everything that he ever desired, his Lokiness takes over and throws the biggest, heaviest spanner that his impish subconscious can find straight into the heart of all that he ever wanted and brings it to a grinding, cataclysmic end. Loki isn’t just The God Who Fell to Earth, he’s the god who crashed through the mantle, before being hideously burned by the magma and was then broken by the core. And The God… is the story of how he fell from “grace”.

Like all of the things  that have ruined Loki’s life, it is, of course, all Thor’s fault as the second lesson that he learns, courtesy of his brother, is that while a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, too much can be catastrophic. Having been granted access to the story of his life, Loki isn’t able to let it go and while desperately trying to juggle the roles of King, hero and attempting to be who he thinks he should be rather than who he is, he ends up becoming the victim of a self-fulfilling prophecy and constrained by the pages of the tale that he should never have read. 

The God Who Fell to Earth is a beautifully illustrated, magnificently told story that questions the idea of identity and how each of us sees ourselves. It’s about accepting that, fundamentally, we are who we are and that while we may be able to change some of the more minor elements of our individual make-up, the whole will always remain the same. Loki will always be Loki and nothing will ever be enough, because the role of the God of Mischief, his reason for being, is to constantly tug at, play with and try to alter the status quo.  Acerbic, lightning fast and packed full of the sort of story-telling that leaves all of the big literary and cinematic mucky mucks choking on its dust, The God Who Fell to Earth proves that sometimes the best tales  are about the most unlikely of heroes… Tim Cundle

*It\’s true. He did the Flash Gordon thing and saved every one of us. Seriously. Go read it. It\’s really, really good.