These are ten times more imaginative, terrifying and exciting than Greek mythologyu00a0u2013 though, admittedly, my enthusiasm may stem from the fact that until now I knew practically nothing about the Edda or the Norse gods, except that our days of the week are named after them. To call this a talking book is to describe Lewis Hamilton as a Sunday motorist. Itu2019s a full-scale production, the sort of entertainment you feel you should book seats for. Itu2019s partly the musicu00a0u2013 Naxos are expert at choosing exactly the right music. The moment you hear those first crashing, thunderous chords of Mahleru2019s Symphony No.u00a02 in Cu00a0minor, followed by Benjamin Soamesu2019s hushed, reverential announcementu00a0u2013 u2018The Creation of the Universeu2019u00a0u2013 you know youu2019re in for a major 2001: A Space Odyssey kind of experience.nAs for the legends, theyu2019re the stuff of nightmare. From the regions of fire and ice, Muspelheim and Niflheim, emerge the gods (good) and the giants (bad), constantly at loggerheads and preparing for the final showdown, Ragnaru00f6k. Odin, king of the gods, breathing life into ash and elm driftwood and creating man and woman; Loki, the treacherous god, whose children from his union with an ogress include a wolf and a serpent; Thor, with his great hammer that always comes back to him like a boomerang; the Berserkers, warriors who get so psyched up in battle they canu2019t distinguish between friend and foe. Compared to this lot, the folk on Mtu00a0Olympus are suburban.