Book Review: The Twilight of the Gods by Kurt Baumeister

 

The Twilight of the Gods by Kurt Baumeister 

 340 pages, Paperback
Expected publication March 1, 2025 by Stalking Horse Press

 

Kurt Baumeister is the author of one of my favorite reads of 2019 Pax Americana, that book is a Vonnegutian satire of American politics. I found it to be hilarious and strange, another fine product of James Reich’s always impressive Stalking Horse Press. That book was a hilarious send up of the GW Bush years, which frankly people living under the filthy gross Trump administration need to be reminded of. So I am excited to be reviewing Stalking Horse books always.

Now having read two books by Baumeister I see that his style is dialogue-driven, conversional satire that involves figures of history and mythology in intense banter. It is impossible not to laugh at many of these conversations. One reason I think Pax worked better for me personally is I lived through the years and knew the people he was satirizing.

 “This is not your comic book trickster.

Kurt Baumeister's Twilight of the Gods is satire and alternate history on an operatic, cinematic, and cosmic scale, with a cast that transcends time and space. The grinding of The Wheel of Fate is heard in Valhalla, as it is in Berlin and Boston.

Can Odin's many schemes be undone? Who can rewire the robotic nightmare of politics and write a brighter future for humanity? Only humanity's champion, the long misunderstood, supposed force of evil, Loki. This is a tale of fallen gods and failing humanity, of love lost and found, of parents and children, magic and sex, art and lies, good, evil, and the end of Fate.

This is the story of Loki. In his own words.”

Twilight of the Gods is probably a better satire and commentary than this reviewer is giving it credit for. Just like I know Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light is a great novel, it just didn’t work for me personally. The thing is TOTG is built on the mythology of Norse gods, a topic that kinda lost me. To tell on myself I don’t know much about Loki, besides Marvel and references to nordic gods in black metal so I feel like some of the subtext was just over my head. 

I don’t think you need that knowledge to make this novel work, but I do think it help. However there are simply hilarious moments.  “What is the purpose of wisdom? He said, his glare imperious. Dude is always so serious, so self absorbed, like the meanest of his intellectual farts represent high Fucking art.

“To bring triumphant battle,” boomed Thor flexing, always flexing.”

 I am a plot and structure reader and writer. I like a well-executed plot, and that is something this book never puts in the foreground.  Plenty of readers will not care about this, it is intentionally centered on these exchanges but for this reader that is like a rope slipping through my hands. It is another reason this book didn’t get a higher ranking from me.  In Pax Americana I could ride with it easier as the elements of satire were ones I related to making fun of a little better.

There is plenty of stuff to like here and readers who love dialogue, and are not so plotcentric. I think many readers will enjoy the book more than I did. This is well-written an executed. And there are moments when the humor is excellently layered with the point.

“And I can only imagine after watching his Nazis fall, Oden must have felt comfort to be amongst authoritarians again, to feel warmth and nostalgia for the duality of the docile and the powerful. Odin still had that small fraction of his powers, the part that seems at once meaningless compared to what we once had an intensely meaningful when comparing us to you, the part that if you think about it too long can convince you not just that you're your own race but your own species it can easily convince you that humans, you…little people…to put it nicely, don't really matter you might as well be birds fish or insects.”

The Twilight of the Gods is the kind of satire that indie press exist for. I will always be excited and interested when Baumeister or Stalking Horse has a new book. This one didn’t hit the mark as strongly as the last, but I suspect many will entertained by this wicked social satire.