[3] Harris acknowledges these early influences in The Gospel of Loki, as well as the twelfth-century historian, Saxo Grammaticus, and Snorri Sturluson, author of the Prose Edda.
[6] Although it follows the original myths quite closely, some parts of Loki's backstory and motivation are the author's invention, and the stories have been rearranged to give a more classic narrative structure.
A deliberately unreliable narrator, he tells the story of the creation of the world, the emergence of the gods, the war between the Aesir and the Vanir, and his own initial recruitment from the realm of Chaos by the duplicitous Odin.Then comes Loki's arrival in Asgard, his many exploits and misadventures, his struggle for acceptance, his repeated failure to integrate into Asgard's society, his fall from grace and his final descent into malice and self-destruction.
Writing for The Guardian, Harris says on this subject:[8] Of all the gods of Asgard, Loki is the subversive, the social and racial outsider; a gender-fluid character in a binary world.
"[7] The Times describes it as "lively and fun":[10], and The Newton Review of Books says: "Harris writes compellingly to create our appreciation of Loki’s psyche...We are seduced into a shamefaced understanding, even admiration, for his chaotic and very immoral ways.