Ragnarök Unwound

Jacques (Zombies vs. Aliens) kicks off an urban fantasy series with a disorganized mishmash of elements from Norse and Greek mythologies and Arthurian legend. Loki the trickster god has escaped imprisonment, and the frost giant uprising has begun. These troublesome events can only mean one thing: Ragnarök is nigh and the cosmos is doomed. Now it falls upon Ikepela Ives—a tetchy 20-something who happens to be the fabled Fate Cipher—to untangle the binding threads of destiny and save the world from the impending apocalypse. Unfortunately, Ives doesn’t know how to fully use the powers her estranged, immortal mother bestowed on her. With the help of her fae roomie, Jules, and an ever-accumulating gang of mythic kooks, including Hildr the Valkyrie and Hel the goddess of death, this reluctant heroine must locate Loki before it’s too late. As she quickly comes to grips with her abilities, Ives discovers that the Asgardian gods are being manipulated by a mysterious hooded figure. For all its world-ending hijinks, this novel feels oddly inconsequential due to a scanty plot that hardly sets up the stakes before entering its final act, and the emotional beats feel unearned. There’s little to make this mythology mash-up worth wading through. (Jan.)