NorsePlay.

Okay, total spoiler which we dislike doing, but there's no way around it: While not the best episode of The Librarians , "And the Reunion of Evil" (season 3, 2016) includes a surprising jotun NorsePlay element where two librarians stumble from the heart of a snowstorm into a Swedish ski lodge hotel while possessing an artifact that a trucing private reunion of giant clans have gathered to consume. The jotun are presented as troublemaking descendants  of Loki, who instead revel in causing the ills of the world (disasters, plagues, insurance fleecing, etc), which is something of a downgrade as major adversaries of the Gods, but then it would explain how they've stayed under the radar for so long. The giants wear Scandinavian patterned sweaters, and some fur accent garments, while overdrinking and playing hnefatafl and k ubb in displays of oneupmanship. [watch in mirrored format here .] #    #    # Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there was something spe...

The unwritten criticism of young adult offerings (and it's not a genre, it's a  market ) is that none ever seem to pass the bar of its progenitor J.K. Rowling -- all else that follows Harry Potter's been derivative. Nor have they been able to strike such a grand balance between character & world-building as Rowling. That bar still remains unapproached by Rick Riordan's latest trilogy series launch,  Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: The Sword of Summer , though you'd think with the richness of Norse Lore to draw from it might surpass the young wizard, but  Magnus  makes for a fun read. Much like Riordan's  Percy Jackson  series, our titular protagonist has a mystery daddy, is a  streetwise kid,   has an important prophecy at age 16 event to propel their plot, and much internal thought reactions of sophomoric adolescent "smartness" in their texts for the teen reader & young-at-heart to identify with. And our newly chosen hero & hi...

Long out-of-print and originally published in a shorter version titled  When The World Tottered  in 1950, Lester Del Rey ambitiously tackles the Twilight of the Gods in his 128-page novella. Most authors take the easy way out by instead writing a story about nearly avoiding doomsday, but Del Rey rises to the challenge and gives the audience the lead-up and final battle ... but perhaps not just as prophesied.  A predecessor to Greg van Eekhout's  Norse Code , Del Rey delivered  Ragnarök  fifty years earlier in the genre. An inexplicably long winter strikes, vexing weathermen, and causing worldwide privation, the results of which start communal breakdown & vigilantism in Leif Svensen's small rural town. Only because of their ancestors' stories do Leif & his recently returned prodigal brother Lee even think to reference  Fimbulwinter, and when a mysterious hitchhiker also happens to mention the prophesied world-ending final winter, do the p...