Teaching Old Gods New Tricks is actually a compilation of Darragha Foster's previously released stories that came out in 2006: Devil King Of The Sixth Heaven, Death Warmed Over, and Devil's Food Kate. The author also did some revisions of those stories in this collection - nothing too major, just a few paragraphs here and there, so the storylines remain essentially the same as before.

If you haven't read the stories before, here's a primer. The Norse Gods under the leadership of Odin decide that it is time they retire and live among humans. They choose... New Mexico as their new home. This collection details the lives of three Gods as they live among humans and find love in the process. There is Loki, the trickster god who in this story has made peace with Odin and others, Hel who was the Queen of the Underworld until she decides to come out to play in the daylight, and Odin, the Father of the Gods himself.

Given that this is a reissue, I will just cut and paste the reviews of those separate stories here, with a few revisions to ensure continuity and stuff like that.

First, Devil King Of The Sixth Heaven which is Loki's story. The title refers to a divine figure in Buddhism but the author's series centers around gods of the Norse mythology that are currently living in America. I really have no idea how Buddhism and Norse mythology ever can meet since both are vastly different but somehow everything makes sense here, hmm.

Anyway, this is a simple sexual romp of a story, literally and figuratively, between our Professor of Comparative Religions and Scandinavian Studies heroine, Liliah, and our hero who turns out to be Loki, the trickster god of Norse mythology who ended up doing some really bad things that heralded the end of the world a long time ago. There's nothing else to this story, which is pretty much the story's greatest strength or weakness depending on what you want from the story.

The sex scenes push the envelope and a little bit more than that in the context of a typical romance story since sometimes more than two people are involved in the party. We are talking about Norse gods, after all. They can be kinky. Loki is that naughty fellow who sired the serpent that will eat the world, the wolf that will eat the moon, and the demoness that rules the underworld, after all. I wonder why Liliah never asks Loki about the time when he turned into a female horse to distract a giant's six-legged horse only to end up giving birth to Odin's famous horse Slepnir. Speaking of which, won't it be cool if Loki ends up somehow pregnant with the kids in this story? That will be something to remember, I tell you.

Sorry about going off-tangent but there really is nothing much to say about this straightforward story about Liliah's enjoyment of Loki's "Hickory Farms Beef Log". No, really, that's what the author uses to describe Loki's magnificent state of endowment. Or is that "en-ouch-ment" if you're not a size queen? After several hearty meals of wholesome beef, these two decide that they're in love and Loki is granted his freedom to love a woman. How sweet. Just keep those male horses away from him, Liliah!

Next, Hel's story Death Warmed Over. I have to hand it to Darragha Foster - she writes stories with premises that would make an editor run out of her office screaming in frustration. Hel, the youngest of Loki's three monstrous offsprings, is the Queen of the Underworld according to Norse mythology. The right side of her form is that of a young and very beautiful woman while the left side of her form is that of a shriveled corpse that comes complete with Medusa-like snakes that pass for hair. Hel also smells of roses rotting over a grave. As another character would say, Hel's ideal boyfriend should be blind and with a dodgy sense of smell. That or a fellow Norse God who is brave or foolish enough to love a woman that even Thor, the strongest god, failed to defeat in a bout of wrestling. No one, not even a god, can hope to defeat death, after all.

Alas, with the rise of modern religions and the decline of the worship of the Norse gods, these gods are forced to retire and live among mortals. Hel is the last to leave her divinity behind, for she has to stay behind and oversee the reincarnation of the many souls in the Underworld before the new gods boot her out of her office. Now, she has to relinquish her throne and walk the mortal world. Her destination? New Mexico, where many of her fellow Norse gods are enjoying the hospitality of a renovated and refurbished Valhalla currently managed by Heimdall, the god that was supposed to watch over Bifrost the rainbow bridge and sound the horn to signal the end of the world, and his human wife.

Hel's father, Loki, once upon a time caused the death of the god Baldur. It's a long story; let's just say that Baldur's mother Frigg had made nearly every thing on earth promise never to hurt the beautiful Baldur. The mistletoe is the only thing that does not make this promise. Since Baldur cannot be killed by pretty much everything, the Norse gods entertain themselves by throwing things at Baldur like they are all William Tell wannabes. Loki places a mistletoe branch in the hand of Baldur's blind brother Hodur and encourages poor Hodur to take aim and... oops.

During this time, the messenger god Hermod and Hel are happily shagging, with Hel experiencing the joys of the flesh for the first time. Hel blames herself as well as Hodur for Baldur's death, reasoning that her loss of control in Hermod's embrace leads to her inability to... er, do something, I suppose. This is the main issue standing between Hel and the hero of this story, Hodur, as they meet again in the New Mexico Valhalla, where Hel is now the new employee and Hodur the latest guest to arrive.

The premise of Death Warmed Over sounds really good, doesn't it? I really love how Ms Foster takes a particular aspect of Norse mythology and uses it to create an interesting setting for her story. And the heroine! And what an interesting heroine Hel promises to be.

Unfortunately, Death Warmed Over soon becomes a very disappointingly mundane story. After the build-up about Hel's dual visage of beauty and hideousness and how she wants a lover who will accept her for what she is - both her beautiful and hideous aspects of her appearance - the author does a copping-out of stunningly awful proportions by having Hel turning into a completely whole beautiful woman with perky breasts just in time for Hodur's appearance in this story. All that build-up about Hel's snake hair and the waft of rotting roses constantly emanating from her form - gone, to be replaced by a typically beautiful heroine. All that build-up about conflicts are also evaporated when it becomes clear that Hodur, for some reason, never holds any grudge against Hel or Loki for the death of his brother. So there is really no conflict here other than the presence of a crazy guy who wants Hel to love her and be his spouse as he uses her to ascend to godhood himself.

The pacing is a little off as well. The book starts very beautifully on an introspective bent as a bittersweet Hel prepares to leave the world that she has known all her existence for the first and final time. I love how Ms Foster allows Hel to reflect on Hel's sexual awakening and her subsequent attempts to reconcile her sexual desires with the fact that as the Queen of the Underworld, it's not like Hel can have any man that she wants the way other goddesses like Freyja do. Ms Foster demonstrates that she is capable of writing pretty well in an introspective manner instead of always being in a relentless cheery mode. I also love the build-up of the story that parallels Hel's dry sense of humor very well: Hel realizes that Hermod, her first lover, only lusts after her when he is very drunk and when he's sober, he runs ultimately into the arms of a divine creature of another culture. A male divine creature. That he met at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

Hodur is a one-dimensional Fabio-clone hero, although he fortunately doesn't speak in a clunky and smarmy manner like Hel's father did in the previous story. Hel, on the hand, is pretty consistent as a regal heroine who doesn't take crap from anybody, although there is a very clear and contrived moment in this story when Hel behaves in an uncharacteristically passive manner that allows the bad guy to cause more trouble in the story. Ms Foster really overplays her hand in that manner - she's not being even a little subtle there, hmmm. I also love there are stronger world-building and canon detail in this book, especially when the previous book doesn't really do much for Ms Foster's premise other than showcasing sex scenes after sex scenes. Here, the going can get pretty slow as the first quarter of the book, before Hodur's appearance, is all about Hel learning and discovering how Valhalla works. While I don't fault anyone for yawning and putting aside this book during those moments, I find the details in Ms Foster's world-building most interesting so I enjoy learning alongside Hel how Valhalla works.

And the slow but detailed world-building is what convinces me that this story is originally meant to be a much longer book only to be cut short and modified into a shorter length more appropriate for an ebook. All the details about Valhalla works go nowhere because the story soon plunges into a sex romp marathon between Hodur and Hel with very little about Valhalla's backdrop actually being used effectively in this story. It is as if Ms Foster takes all that trouble to explain to me her world only to push her world to the background in the later half of the book. Likewise, all that effort in detailing Hel's unusual appearance goes nowhere and feels completely wasted since Ms Foster ditches the whole thing and make Hel a beautiful and therefore very ordinary heroine quickly into the story. The chance for a long and difficult internal conflict between Hel and Hodur is removed when Ms Foster makes Hodur more interested in getting into Hel's pants than anything else.

I love Death Warmed Over and I find it very interesting and riveting in those chapters leading up to the moment when Hel miraculously turns into a beautiful woman. When Hodur shows up, I can fall asleep there and then because all that is special and unique about Death Warmed Over is shoved aside for elements of a more typical fantasy romantic erotica. I personally find the villain more interesting than Hodur because unlike bland and perfect Hodur, the villain is demented and desperate enough to be simultaneously fascinating and pathetic to me.

And finally, Odin's story Devil's Food Kate. Kate Tabor is a pastry chef who owns Naughty Bits, an "erotic bakery". That's right, she makes her yummies in the shape of human genitals complete with creamy and sweet gooey fillings. One day, into her shop walks Odin Borsson. He takes a bite from her cannoli - hey, take your mind out of the gutter - and she's hooked. He then purchases 24 of such cannolis (shaped into a woman's you-know-what) and pays $16.00 for them. If you think that's cheap, wait until you see those two in action. Anyway, Odin is the leader of the displaced Viking gods and he is interested in having Kate as his new consort because she is a descendant of a Valkyrie, Alfheitur. Odin in the past banished Alfheitur for daring to fall in love with a mortal so now he's going to marry her descendant Kate as reparation. I'm sure Alfheitur will be touched by this gesture. Kate, unaware of her upcoming wedding to a randy bisexual oversexed ex-god, is busy preparing for a very important event. A part of me wonders whether I have the courage to attend such a social function if I'm invited, heh. Anyway, she also has no idea that her client is Odin and the event she is cooking for is going to be her big day when she takes a bite from the devil food cake she has made and becomes a demigod-like creature that Odin will marry and beget fine warriors from. She also has no idea that the specific recipes she is told to use contain special ingredients that will awaken her divine spark that she inherited from Alfheitur.

Odin will marry her after he's drugged her up and made her cook for the big day. Be still, my ever-romantic heart.

One very good thing about Devil's Food Kate is that the author has finally found a decent balance between sexual tension/scenes of intimacy with plot development. While characterization could be developed further, for its length however the story manages to give me a pretty good idea of who Odin and Kate are. The story is coherent and flows smoothly. The sophomoric humor involving the names of the pastries Kate makes aside, Devil's Food Kate feels like a complete and well-written from start to finish. It doesn't feel like it ended too abruptly to me. Technique-wise, therefore, I think Ms Foster has finally got it right in this book.

I also adore the ending which sees Kate throwing Odin's he-man antics right back at his face. How can I not adore a heroine who tells the hero, "I am a self-made woman, Odin - not a simpleton with a magic vagina and holy womb!" Her confrontation with Odin is too good not only because Kate manages to show Odin that he cannot boss her around, I can't helping thinking that everything about the scene is a very nice jab at all those oh-so-helpless and oh-so-innocent heroines in too many paranormal stories that end up finding love after serving as, er, magic vaginas for the heroes. Odin starts out thinking that Kate is so innocent and therefore so sweet and so marriageable only to have Kate show him how wrong he is. And he, of course, loves being proven wrong this one time.

To sum things up, I find Devil King Of The Sixth Heaven forgettable, Death Warmed Over a very interesting story with plenty of possibilities that the author failed to fully capitalize on, and Devil's Food Kate the best story of the three in terms of characterization, pacing, and plotting. Normally I would take the average rating of all individual stories for the rating of a collection such as this one, but I feel that the score should be a little higher than average to properly reflect how much better I feel the second and third stories are compared to the first one. Hence, I'll give Teaching Old Gods New Tricks an 80. It has plenty of possibilities but the author missed out on fully making all her ideas take flight. I really hope one day Ms Foster will take the opportunity to revise and expand the stories, especially Death Warmed Over.

This book at Amazon.com

This book at Amazon UK

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