PositiveThe Atlantic\"Readers hoping for a fully novelistic reinvention of these myths in Norse Mythology will be disappointed. Gaiman has neither fabricated passages that might fill lacunae in existing manuscripts, nor concocted new adventures for old gods. Instead, Norse Mythology is a considered retelling of sixteen familiar tales, presented in virtually the same sequence as they are found in Snorri’s Prose Edda, and crafted as sympathetically as any modern author can ... Gaiman does, however, take some creative license—largely for the better. This is perhaps most evident in his fantastic riffs off the pun-heavy Old Norse sense of humor ... By and large, his lively expansions to existing passages succeed in being true to the spirit of earlier tellings. His alterations neither fundamentally change the source material nor our understanding of it, but they may very well enhance our experience of reading it ... Gaiman’s retelling adds another leaf to this ancient tree: It’s not a new species in its own right, but rather a fresh sign that the old one is still thriving.\
