What happened?! I was enjoying the hell out of this book--right up to the last sentence. Wha...? The cliffhanger (seemingly mid-sentence) ending ruined the whole thing for me. Heavy sigh.

Writers, why do you do this? I can't think of one author that I read on a regular basis that has such a weak writing style that they need to rely on this most irritating of trends. I just don't understand it.

It also took away any enthusiasm that I had for reviewing this book so I'll leave it with my favorite quotes and a general grade. My quotes may indicate some of the glee experienced while reading; this review indicates how I felt about the ending.

Favorite quotes/highlights from Kindle:
I looked upward and had difficulty focusing on anything much, due to severe squirrel turbulence.
Note: Best line ever.


Note: Gotta love Oberon

It’s bloody difficult to concentrate properly when you’re dying of renal failure and all your brain can do is squeal.
Note: Ya think?

Overall: C ( )

I am sorry to say I didn't like this at all. Ok, that's not quite true, it had some really good moments. But overall the story is a disappointment. For one, Oberon is missing for most of the book. Then Atticus gets himself onto a collisions course with fate. Fine, no problem, but I didn't like the ending at all, there is hinting of bad things to happen, then they actually happen, and then the book ends. This was too unfinished or too to-be-continued-in-another-book, especially for this kind of series. This is quite simply not the kind of series where a cliffhanger like this ends with fits. I am going to ask friends if it gets better again before I continue. I don't like this! ( )

I gave up 85% of the way through because I was so utterly fed up. The logical heir to Butcher and Dresden, my butt. Only if it had been butchered. I'd have to be completely hammered to finish this. I'm not even sure if by alcohol or by the actual weapon, either.

I... I don't understand how this book can be so utterly, unapologetically awful. I mean, Atticus is the epitome of a Gary Stu, but the pacing and plotting of this book was just.. just.. I'm speechless at the awfulness of this book. ( )

Minor spoilers in the review.

I wasn't expecting this - but i liked the first book, the second was "okay" and this one is just not fun for me. The main characters motivation is poorly explained but he kills stuff and people for unbelievable reasons. Also he is just a druid but he outsmarts any god of course... Do i care about the new characters that join him on the quest? No. And also no - i don't want to hear stories from four people sitting around a fire. That is just bad story telling.
Well - enough good books out there - i won't continue this series. ( )

Lost interest. ( )

Started this audiobook right before I got COVID, and I didn't listen for the 3 weeks that I was isolated. Took me a bit to get back into it when was able to pick it up again, so I'd forgotten some of the stuff that came in the first 1/3 of the book. All that to say that this book seemed to have gone on for quite a bit, and then (more or less) abruptly ended. Like other reviewers, I cringed a bit at the "does this make me look gay" part, as well as the idea of Freya's gang-rape fate. But overall, I like this series and will continue reading it - assuming that there's not many more parts that haven't aged well in the **checks notes** TEN years that this book came out. ( )

Hearne lýsir sem fyrr ævintýrum sjálfumglaða og léttlynda drúídans Atticus og árekstrum hans við guðlegar og yfirnáttúrulegar verur sem eru yfirleitt nokkuð hrokafyllri og slétt sama um afleiðingar gjörða sinna.
Þessi saga er n.k. framhald af fyrri sögu þar sem hann lofaði að taka þátt í að drepa þrumuguðinn Þór. Málin flækjast enn frekar þegar Atticus fær ítrekaðar viðvaranir um að gjörðir hans geti leitt til heimsendis í það minnsta.
Nokkuð sundurlaus saga og ekki eins húmorísk líkt og fyrri bækurnar um drúídann. ( )

I'm really enjoying this series, I like seeing how the different mythology pantheons interact with each other. Love the little humorous anecdotes too. Oberon is an awesome dog. ( )

Talk about your conflicted feelings. For those that have read the Iron Druid chronicles, you know how great the writing is and how good the stories are. If you haven't read them and you like urban fantasy with humour and a good, researched dose of the varying world mythologies, you can't go wrong trying out this series. (I particularly loved Jesus in this one!)

But Thor... *sniffle* let's just say I prefer Marvel's version, even if it's not historically accurate.

I listened to this one and while the story gets 4 stars, the narration is a solid three. Christopher Ragland does a very credible job with Atticus, but he blows it with Oberon, making him sound like an inane, slobbering canine version of Pee Wee Herman and his idea of Leif's voice is a bad Clint Eastwood impersonation that was painful to listen to. Additionally, I count many Scandinavians as close friends and none of them have that exaggerated muppet-Swedish-chef accent. I'm not even going to get started on the female characters; I'm just grateful Granuaile didn't play a bigger part.

I'd definitely listen to another of these, they're very engaging, but looking at the author's website he lists audio using a different narrator, and I think I'll try out a sample to see if he does a better job.

Since this book was listened in its entirety while I was in my car, and Moonlight Reader clarified the "Read in a boat, tent or cabin" square of the Summer Book Bingo as anywhere that wasn't your house AND I've already complete a bingo, so this is just for fun, I'm using Hammered for this square. Also, run-on sentence, sorry. ( )

Enamored!
Second time around: This is a very different Thor than the 21st-century Marvel sanitization in movies. ( )

There was a lot in this book I liked, but there was also a lot I didn't. I don't feel like dealing with spoiler tags, so I won't go into any details, but a few things really bothered me. Some other things only bothered me a little, but the cumulative effect left me with "meh". I didn't dislike it, but I can't say that I enjoyed it nearly as much as the first two.
( )

Bei diesem dritten Band hat mich Hearne nun endgültig verloren. So gut es manchmal schmecken mag, dreimal Pommes-Currywurst hintereinander ist einfach zuviel. Was im ersten Buch noch amüsant war und was ich im zweiten noch nachsichtig geduldet habe wird hier einfach nur noch albern und lästig: das ganze pubertäre Getue, die schlüpfrigen Scherzchen, überhaupt das ganze forcierte Wizzichsein - gimme a break.
Man sollte eine neue FSK Kategorie einführen: wegen exzessiven pubertären Getues nicht für Personen über 30 geeignet.

I like the series so far. ( )

Leagues better than the other two books. Leagues. I adored the stories told by the other characters, I loved the action. While there were some obnoxious pop culture references, there seemed to be less of them, and there were a few that were actually, shockingly enough, funny! (Although this obsession with 'kittehz' needs to die a horrible, horrible death. And the squee reference. ) I also adored the beard-magic. So weird and creepy.

There's some bad stuff, though. As I mentioned, the pop references are more annoying than funny. Jesus didn't seem very well fleshed out, was kind of bland. Mary in the previous book felt much closer to a modern Mary than this Jesus to a modern Jesus. (I guess Hearne has his work cut out for him since you inevitably compare his work to Neil Gaiman's.) There was also the rape of Freya. While Hearne, thankfully, used cats-ex-machina to save her from brutal gang rape by giants, Atticus didn't seem all that concerned or conflicted about it at any point, besides a throwaway "I felt kinda bad." He went out of his way to not kill Tyr, for example. But Freya rape? Meh. I hope she comes back and kicks his ass five different ways. ( )

I probably would have given this book a 5, but it wasn't quite as amusing as the first two, mostly because Oberon, the Irish Wolfhound, is with the widow throughout most of the book and in my opinion, we didn't actually need a full chapter on each of the Thor hunting party members. That being said, I'm a big fan of these books. As a matter of fact, I can't think of many current fantasy book series that I've enjoyed more. By the way, if you get a chance to listen to the audio book rather than reading it.. do it. It's hilarious. ( )

Book 3 in a series and almost as good as book 1. Well narrated and an interesting story. Atticus leads a band to take out Thor, who is not nearly as nice a guy as portrayed in the Marvel Comic Books. ( )

I have to admit that I love the big action sequences in novels. This is a bit surprising to me because I almost entirely prefer them over movies. I've really started to like this series a lot. My one But is only my wish for a lot more story per book. Very quick reads and lots of machismo. Yet more guilty pleasure reading, but this time with Gods (tm) Supersized! ( )

This one is quite possibly my least favorite in the series (so much of what happened seemed unnecessary, yet Atticus still played it off as "I had to" or "he made me"). However, I still enjoyed this book enough to continue the series.

Also: not nearly enough Oberon. ( )

Hearne, Kevin. Hammered. Iron Druid No. 3. Random, 2011.
Atticus O’Sullivan, the Iron Druid, has made a deal to help Lief, his vampire lawyer, get revenge on Thor, a god that even other gods think is the Donald Trump of the Norse pantheon. Well, OK. The Donald wasn’t in the picture in 2011, but you get the idea. Atticus has a drink with Jesus, who tells him attacking Thor, much as he deserves it, is not a good idea. He is also visited by Morgan, who also thinks the task is too dangerous. But an oath is an oath, so once he has recruited a few friends, including werewolves, vampires and ice giants, he is off on this own private Ragnarök, with predictably violent results. If you liked the first two books in the series, you will probably like this one. ( )

I accidentally read this before the second one in the series, didn't really hurt the experience, could easily keep up. The book did feel like it had some filler, backstories for characters that while interesting, did little to advance the story. The ultimate battle was a little to short given its import, but overall another fun read. ( )

Still a weird series, because whilst I'm *enjoying* it quite a lot, and it has forged its' own distinct arena from Dresden, the character just doesn't work internally. On the outside? He looks like a frat boy, cool. Internally? He's a *2000* year old druid! He shouldn't think this way.
Still, the way he thinks *is* fun. So I'll keep going. ( )

This book was pretty ho hum compared to the others I have read so far, granted this is like the 3rd book in the series.But most of it was slightly dull, and I didn't really need to know every little detail Atticus was making in his move. But once the quest started things really started picking up and once again I was glued, to the very end. Even stayed up late when I should have been sleeping because I had to wake up early in the morning, but no I was determined to finish once I got engrossed.

Kevin Hearne's world is pretty spectacular. His use of every god pretty much known to man, is and epic use of creativeness. And Jesus in this book, was quite comical I thought. Thor, with loving Thor in the Marvel Movies, it was a little hard to depict him as an epic douche, but I managed it.

I'm pretty stoked in finding out what happened to the Widow, and to find out what happens now that Atticus and his crew, from what it is sounding like has started the mega end, should be very interesting. ( )

Hard to decide whether to give this one star or three stars. On the one hand, I couldn't put it down. On the other hand, it left a very, VERY bad taste in my mouth. I was very entertained by the first two books in this series; I read them back-to-back, couldn't put them down. This third book in the series had some of the things that I really enjoyed, but the direction he chose to go displeases me so much, I'm not sure it will be worth it to me to pick up the next one when it comes out. ( )

https://www.astridterese.no/2012/11/16/hounded-hexed-and-hammered/ ( )

Finally, the series arrived in a mythology I actually know a little about (altough most of it from fantasy books and Manowar Lyrics). It has been a fun ride, as always, and I have come to enjoy the humor and plots of the series. I have also recommended this specific book to a few friends who are also fond of the norse mythology, and for them the author should get bonus brownie points for listening to Amon Amarth while writing the final battle.

All in all, the book was well worth a read, as I have come to expect from Kevin Hearne. ( )