The Sword of Summer

Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: The Sword of Summer
© 2015 Rick Riordan
491 pages

Magnus Chase is the Boy Who Lived.  As a youngster he witnessed his mother sacrifice herself for him, dying at the hands of some evil creature that he remembers as a wolf.  Having been homeless ever since, Magnus is confronted  on his 16th birthday by a lost relative who duly informs him:  Magnus, yer a Norse god!

..okay, the son of a Norse god. Not Odin, of course, just Freya -- the fellow we named Fridays after. God of summer and the growing season, apparently.  (Demeter with a beard?) Long ago,  Freya gave up his sword for love, which is unfortunate because he needed it to fight in Ragnarök,  the battle at the end of the world. The only one who can retrieve it from its watery grave is his only living son...Magnus. You know how these things go if you've read any Riordan at all. The plot for all the series so far: "Hey, kid, you're a demigod. The world is ending in a week (by the solstice/equinox/new moon)  unless you and your plucky sidekicks (one girl who can fight, one boy who can't but is a magic native providing exposition) can find, rescue, and transport the Magic MacGuffin across the continent and frustrate or kill  the minions, mini-bosses, or Monster of Chaos itself.  (It's hard to take Ragnarok seriously when the world is on the precipice of doom every single novel.) This happens in nearly every book of all the series, which is why I haven't bothered reading him in a while.

I found Sword of Summer mildly enjoyable in a cartoonish sense.  Very little of Norse mythology's dreadful awe is here, though it's impossible to make light of Loki being chained with his slain son's entrails.  Aside from that Riordan's world -- full of Elvish TV addicts,  Dwarfen Taylor Swift fans, and entirely too many characters who introduce themselves with an interesting monicker, then add, 'Call me Jack//Otis/Bob' -- is definitely juvenile.   Magnus, introduced as homeless for several years, doesn't bear any sign of that beyond leaf debris in his hair.   There are interesting moments, though;  Magnus' Valkyrie,  Samirah, is a hijab-wearing Arab woman who sees no conflict between working for Norse gods and worshipping Allah.  According to her, her family has a history of involvement with the Norse.  There are more subtle jokes, too;  one set of characters consistently refers to their boss as the Capo.  They're not Sicilian mobsters, though, they're using the word in its Latin sense: their boss is a head, carried around in a bag.

 As glad as I am to see fiction about northern mythology,  the Norse stories mentioned as background to Magnus' quests, combined with the mostly-funny chapter titles, are the chief entertainment, aided slightly by more unexpected characters like a deaf-mute Elf and and Samirah.  I might read the second book, but only when in need of a little light diversion, as I was this past weekend.

The Mark of Athena

The Mark of Athena
© 2012 Rick Riordan
608 pages


In The Son of Neptune, Percy Jackson -- a demigod, the son of a human mother and Poseidon -- discovered another population of half-blood like himself, a veritable city called New Rome. The Romans are hostile to Percy and his Greek brethren, but the two sides must unite against Gaea and her plans to destroy life and create it anew -- which is unfortunate, because Percy's plans for an alliance soon crumble into war. The Lost Hero  introduced Jason Grace, the leader of the Romans, and in The Mark of Athena he and Percy (joined by five other demigods drawn from both of the camps) have to score a victory against Gaea before the Romans reach Camp Half-Blood and destroy it.  Their quest takes them to the old world where Annabeth Chase must descend into the bowels of Rome on a private mission from Athena, one that offers the hope of achieving peace between the demigods and preventing the real city of Rome from being toasted by two campy giants.

Riordan's novels tend toward the episodic, with a monster milestone threatening to destroy life next week if the kids can't scamper across the continent (or the world, in this case) in two days and win out, but Heroes of Olympus has already established itself as a different beast altogether from Riordan's previous Greek and Egyptian series.  The first two novels read very similarly to the previous series: there were three characters, each trio had a private romance, and the group had to accomplish ludicrously  big things alone. But Heroes of Olympus is developing into a more mature series. Now there are seven characters, each with a fascinating story to tell, and tension between them is rife. Jason and Percy are accustomed to leadership, for instance, and subtly vie for the role of alpha male. While a monster-killing mission usually drives these novels, here it's incidental, just a very small part in the larger scheme of things, and marginalized by Annabeth's solo mission. There are of course lots of monsters;  the book writhes with urgent fight scenes against all manner of unpleasant beasts,  from giants with snakes for legs to American tourists. Happily, not every fight is resolved with strength; sometimes clever escape is the best option, and the book ends by depriving two heroes even that, giving readers something of a somber cliffhanger.

Heroes of Olympus continues to delight.

The Throne of Fire

The Kane Chronicles #2: The Throne of Fire
© 2011 Rick Riordan
464 pages

Sadie Kane isn't even a teenager yet, but she and her older brother have four days to find the three pieces of the lost Book of Ra, ressurected the old king of the gods, and help him defeat Apophis, giant snake and lord of chaos. Sucks being a kid, especially if you're the heir of two powerful lines of ancient Egyptian pharaohs. And to make matters worse, the only adults who might be of help, magicians skilled in the Egyptian ways, are convinced that Sadie and Carter are up to no good -- and they're determined to kill the two youngsters who are causing so much trouble. At least they have a dwarf on their side.

In The Red Pyramid, Rick Riordan introduced his fantasy series steeped in the world of Egyptian mythology, and I for one found the new setting fantastic. It combines the familiar (chaos vs order) with the alien.  The central importance of the Nile is especially obvious here, as the attempt to resurrect Ra means taking a dangerous journey down it through the twelve Houses, meeting and prevailing over a panel of bizarre deities and demons while being chased by a mad Russian.  It's not quite as novel as the first book -- the setting is established and the general plot well-trodden, since Rioridan's characters usually only have a few days before the world ends. At least poor Harry had the better part of a year to hunt down Horcruxes -- but entertaining enough.

The Son of Neptune

The Heroes of Olympus, Volume II: The Son of Neptune
© 2011 Rick Riordan
521 pages

In The Lost Hero, Rick Riordan introduced another epic battle between the gods, forcing three young demigods to free Hera from imprisonment and forestall the awakening of Gaea and her Giants -- but without their leader, Percy Jackson. The 'lost hero' returns to the story in The Son of Neptune, robbed of most of his memory and under constant attack by monsters until he finds refuge in a camp of demigods...named Camp Jupiter.

This is no small camp of half-bloods; Camp Jupiter is a bonafide city styled on Rome, where its illustrious history and mythology live on. These campers are born of the gods' Roman personalities and they regard their rumored Greek relations with contempt. Beset on every side by monsters and without their own leader, they regard the unexpected arrival of Percy with suspicion. But Hera -- Juno -- has a plan, and Percy must play a part in it together with two new characters, both with mysterious pasts they would prefer to hide.  The trio are given a quest -- to travel beyond the reach of the gods, to a place where no demigod has returned from alive before....Alaska. There they must free Death from the clutches of one of Gaea's giants, because no one is staying in the Underworld like they should and it's causing quite a bit of confusion.

I welcomed the return of Percy and couldn't wait to read this book, eager to see how Riordan developed the Roman camp. They're far different beyond referring to the gods by different names; the Romans are populous enough to live in a large city defended by legions of demigods and their descendants, governed by a senate. They are organized, energetic, and militant. I delighted seeing little nods to both history and mythology. For instance,  Percy is forced to join a disgraced legion which lost its eagle in the artic hinterlands years ago, under the leadership of a man named...Varus.  One of Riordan's new heroes (Frank Zhang) gives him the opportunity to create a character with a fascinating backstory out of a possible Romano-Chinese connection in history, a 'lost legion'. The Son of Neptune is the "end of the beginning" for Riordan's new series: now Juno's plan to unite the camps is laid out in full, for only together -- and with the gods -- can they triumph over the ancient and wrathful earth-goddess by marching on the Doors of Death. I took for granted that the heroes would triumph in this little adventure -- surely they must live on to fulfill the Prophecy of Seven introduced in the original series. It wasn't quite as novel as The Lost Hero given that the reader has already learned most of the mystery by this point, but I still enjoyed the Roman aspects and dramatic tension which is building in the series. The next book, the Mark of Athena, will unite the seven properly, and I'm excited to see where they're going...for the next battle will be fought not in America, but in the home of the gods....Greece.

The Lost Hero

The Lost Hero
© 2010 Rick Riordian
557 pages

Rick Riordian's debut novels introduced us to Percy Jackson, a half-mortal half-divine Demigod destined to save the world. Now the hero of heroes has vanished -- and three new demigods have come into Camp Half-Blood's care,  all older than the usual freshman camper and all with troubled histories.  The oldest, Jason, doesn't even know who he is.  These are dark days for the kids of Camp Half-Blood: their leader has vanished,  Olympus is closed, the gods are silent, and strange things are rumbling in the darkness. A great conflict is a-building, and it will test the mettle of three new heroes -- Jason, Piper, and Leo.  The result is an exciting, unpredictable story that's left me looking to a sequel with eager anticipation.

The Lost Hero is most impressive. Although I looked forward to revisiting the Greek gods, I did have concerns that it might be repetitive. This isn't the case. Three distinct viewpoint characters tell the story, and each have a history that has set them up for conflict with one another and their allies in the story; they all start out compromised, unlike Percy and Annabeth. Riordan is clearly writing for a more mature audience here: there's more work put into the long-term story, and the writing itself isn't as light-hearted in nature as with the kids' series. The reader is treated to two stories -- not only the action-adventure thriller, as the three struggle against monsters to prevail, but a darker mystery:  there's clearly a larger story behind this one, but we have no idea what role Destiny has in mind for the heroes. This mystery is gripping and the ending a spectacular reveal. I'm quite excited about future offerings in this series.

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I wrote this on 6 October, but for some reason never got around to posting it.

The Red Pyramid

The Red Pyramid
© 2010 Rick Riordian
516 pages

For centuries the gods of Egypt have been removed from the Earth, imprisoned by human magicians in an attempt to put an end to their destructive inter-deity conflicts. But shortly before Christmas, in the British Museum, an archaeologist ended their long exile in an attempt to save the cosmos from ultimate destruction. Freed from the Duat, the shadowy netherworld, five gods -- Osiris, Isis, Horus, Set, and Nepthys -- found new homes in human hosts. Now, their strength growing, the battle between Maat (order, justice, peace) and Chaos could very well destroy the Earth. In the center of this growing storm are two young people, long-separated siblings who become  orphans when they lose their father in the opening pages. They will play a pivotal role in the battle to come.

The Red Pyramid begins the Kane Chronicles, Rick Riordian's second fantasy series. While his Percy Jackson and the Olympians brought the Greek gods to life, The Red Pyramid moves to the land of Egypt.  Although the essential story is the same --  the god of chaos and death is being naughty,  human children who unwittingly possess great divine power are thrown into conflict with him, they brave peril and sarcastic deities to save the Earth from ruin, and.....find out whoops, there's an even bigger threat in the shadows -- the exotic splendor of Egyptian mythology sets The Red Pyramid firmly on its own feet, and even adds to the original Greek series. The Egyptian gods are a fascinating lot, a mixture of familiar human forms and severe predator heads, like falcons and alligators. As alien and exotic as these beings may appear to western readers,  the dualistic worldview in which they are grounded will seem familiar: the gods strive to preserve or destroy Ma'at, the cosmic sense of order and justice, against the forces of chaos.  This doesn't quite correspond to the good vs. evil  view of western society, but it is similar -- and more sensible, from an outside standpoint. Even to a mostly secular mind like mine, our life's energy is poured into the fight against entropy: we create works of art and organized long-lived societies to fight the universal tendency of decay.  The conflict of The Red Pyramid thus seems more fundamental than the family squabble between gods and titans that gave the Olympians series its overall arc.

Though the story is mostly familiar, I enjoyed the new setting and characters and will be reading further in the series as I am able. Riordan's odd sense of humor was also a high point.

The Last Olympian

The Last Olympian

© 2009 Rick Riordian

394 pages

During the late winter or early spring (depending on when you call which which), I began reading the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series on the recommendation of a friend. The recommendation stemmed from (I assume) my interest in Greek mythology, as the setting for this series is an Earth in which the Greek gods exist -- and true to the old Greek myths, they spend much of their time feuding with one another and romancing mortals. The conclusion of the first book hinted that a battle between the Olympians and the Titans -- the Olympians' predecessors, who have been stuffed into volcanoes and such for many thousands of years and who are quite grumpy about it - is brewing. An ancient prophecy hints that Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, will play a key role in the final battle: the fate of the universe hangs on his decision.

This is quite a load for a lad of fifteen, and when The Last Olympian begins, he is with his mortal semi-girlfriend, resting up after five books' worth of fighting monsters and going on quests that feed into Kronos' steady rise, while dreading his sixteenth birthday. According to the prophecy, he will make this choice upon reaching sixteen. This respite ends when a Pegasus lands on his stepfather's car and informs him that the Titan army is on the move: the final battle is at hand.

There are no quests to go on, no magic relics to fetch, no magic landscapes to invade: this book is about the Battle for Olympus. As the titan Typhon makes his way from his former home (Mount St. Helens) to New York, destroying everything he can in his wake (an unnecessary expenditure of energy, I would think) while nearly all of the Olympians struggle to stop him, Poseidon is fighting a losing battle with the titan Oceanus and Mount Olympus itself is guarded only by Hestia. Percy is informed that it is up to him and his fellow demigods to protect Olympus (which is, by the way, at the of the Empire State Building: Manhattan is thus Percy's battleground). To make matters worse, the children of Ares are refusing to fight (their honor having been besmirched by the children of Apollo) and Hades and his army are refusing to cooperate. Hades has never been popular among the rest of the Olympians, and he has decided to return spite for spite.

Percy, Annabeth, Nico, Thalia, and the other demigods have their work cut out for them. More interesting than the battles themselves (at least to me) is the interpersonal drama and the prophecy-driven plot. What kind of choice will Percy be forced to make? What will happen? Who will die? The series and book end well, I think. In his afterword, Riordian referred to the series as the "first" Camp Half-Blood series, hinting that perhaps he will return to them. I hope so. Although this was a series written for kids, I enjoyed it and I think Riordian distinguishes himself in at least one particular way: unlike other authors, he doesn't have his main character(s) do all of the work. Based on the interstory quests they've gone on and the work they do in the novels, it seems at least two of the supporting characters could have their own book series.

The Battle of the Labyrinth

The Battle of the Labyrinth
© 2008 Rick Riordian
361 pages

Continuing in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series this week, I read the last book that Riordian has published. The next book will not be released until May. The book begins, characteristically, with Percy arriving at a new school, encountering a monster, and then making a dramatic escape that lessens the school's structural integrity. When Percy arrives at Camp Half-Blood, he learns that the camp may be in more danger than he and his fellow Olympians feared: the Labyrinth, the ancient structure that once held the Minotaur, may offer the armies of the Titans a direct path to the camp. Annabeth -- the series' Hermione -- is tasked with finding Daedalus, the architect of the maze, and convincing him to deny use of the Labyrinth. At the same time, Percy is continually visited by dark dreams. In the book, the adventurers attempt to make their way through the Labyrinth, which now spans most of the United States at least, all the while encountering monsters, other demi-gods, gods, and plot twists. This book seems to be longer than the previous books and is more engaging than the others.

Unlike other series I've read, the events in this book don't completely revolve around the central character. Other characters are off doing things between books that add to the plot. On a side note, the author explains how Athena -- a virgin god -- has kids. As it turns out, they sprout off of her head, which is what I suspected. That's the way Athena was born. This book is definitely a step up from the others, at least from my view. I enjoyed reading it and look forward to The Last Olympian.

The Titan's Curse

The Titan's Curse
© 2008 Rick Riordian

This week I read book three in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, and I must say that this was an improvement over The Sea of Monsters, at least in my estimation. The book gets off to a rough start: the author doesn't introduce the situation very well, establishing no ties to the ending of the last book so the readers don't really know what's going on. The last book saw Zeus' daughter Thalia rescued from her fate of being a tree. She joins Percy in this newest adventure, which immediately begins by their having to rescue two half-bloods from a school after being attacked by a monster of sorts. If that seems familiar, it's how the last two books began as well.

Despite this rocky start, the book soon picks up. Trouble is (as usual) brewing. Kronos' revival seems to be going well as his armies are growing larger and more dangerous. We're introduced to several more gods in this book: Artemis, Apollo, and Athena all make extended appearances. (Apollo defends his role as the sun-god while dismissing astronomy as boring. ) Percy, Grover, and Thalia -- along with Artemis' hunters -- are tasked with rescuing Artemis from the clutches of Kronos before the Winter Solstice. (Solstice deadlines are also a familiar element of this series.) The story's plot is also personal for the readers, as one of the other familar characters is placed in jeopardy. The quest takes them to San Francisco, where the citadel of the Titans is being rebuilt. The story is both fun and darkly serious at times. A lot of the drama is self-conflict, as the characters try to deal with the monsters within them.

The book ends with a temporary resolution: the ultimate conflict is still (they think) at least two years away, in which time they will double their training efforts while blocking the Titans' ascent at every turn. I will be continuing the series.

The Sea of Monsters

The Sea of Monsters
© 2006 Rick Riordian
279 pages

I continued in the "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" series this week with book #2, The Sea of Monsters. Percy Jackson is now in seventh grade, but is troubled by bad dreams. After he and a new friend (Tyson) are attacked by pyromanic cannibals and rescued by Annabeth, they head for Camp Half-Blood. Sadly, it seems to be be in trouble: the magic protecting it from being attacked by all sorts of monsters is fading. Percy's bad dreams -- involving his satyr friend Grover being in trouble -- continue. Once at camp, and after Percy and company dispatch a few monsters, Hermes pays a visit to Percy and tells him that he has to help Grover. The attack on the camp's magic and Grover's predicament -- which involves a wedding, for some reason -- seem to be connected, and soon we find that Percy must journey to the Sea of Monsters to rescue Grover and find the solution to their problem. While I won't reveal what the solution is, let's just say that Percy's full name -- Perseus -- is appropriate.

The solution to both lays in the Sea of Monsters, which is the sea that Odysseus spent so much time marooned on. It, like Olympus and Hades, moves with western civilization, and now lies in the Bermuda Triangle. To find Grover, they have to get past some of the same obstacles Odysseus faced, including Circe, who takes "Men are pigs" far too literally. They're also being accompanied by one of Ares' daughters, Clarisse, who is a bit ill-tempered. She actually takes the same journey on a Confederate ironclad, manned by dead Confederate soldiers. This is possibly the weirdest plot development I've ever seen. At journey's end, Percy encounters Polyphemus, the cyclopes who Odysseus fooled. Riordian references this repeatedly, with amusing results.

The second book in the series was another fun little book. The story wasn't as engaging as the first, but the characterization and so forth were done better. I intentionally didn't mention major parts of the book, because one of my readers is actually reading the series, and so I wanted to avoid spoilers. I will continue in the series. On one minor note, on one occasion two characters needed to find an awful noise to scare away a monster. They settled on Dean Martin, which amused me given how much I like Dean Martin. I wonder if the author is a fan, and if he included that part as a bit of self-depreciation -- or maybe he just wants to poison an entire generation of children against Italian crooners.

The Lightning Thief

The Lightning Thief
© 2005 Rick Riordan
375 pages

I began this week with Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief, a recommendation from a friend. The Lightening Thief is work of fantasy-fiction, set in a world where the Greek gods are real and ruling over the affairs of mortals -- and, like in the days of Heracles and Perseus, are ever-busy chasing mortal skirts and siring half-god half-mortal offspring, called (appropriately enough) half-bloods. The book is the first in a series of books for children and young adults called Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Percy Jackson -- Perseus Jackson in full -- is our hero (a term that originally applied to the mortal sons of the gods like Heracles), and when the book begins he has no idea who he is. He will soon find out, though, as he flees from Furies and Minotaurs who want to destroy him. Forced by circumstances beyond their control, the young Percy's protectors are forced to bring him to Camp Half-Blood so that he may learn who he is -- and his destiny.

Young Percy has entered an extraordinary world, but like Harry Potter as entered it at a rather inconvenient time: darkness is stirring, and an epic battle between good -- or at least, not evil -- and evil is about to begin. As Percy learns about his identity as a demigod and his new role in relation to the world, he will be caught up in this struggle, beginning with being tasked with returning Zeus' thunderbolt to him, which someone else has stolen. Percy will engage in his adventure accompanied by Annabeth, a daughter of Athena, and a satyr named Grover. Once they set off, it's hard not to compare the book to Harry Potter: here we have a young protagonist who is constantly in trouble with the "real world" because of his abilities, who is whisked away to his kind's hideaway to learn about his "heritage", who is forced to take an active role in the growing battle because of who his parents were, who is aided by an intellectual girl and an endearing if somewhat clumsy sidekick.

The story was published by a company that does books for older children, although I was told it was a Young Adult book. It's a fun story to read, if not as "sophisticated" as the Harry Potter books. I enjoyed the story, but unlike the Harry Potter books, it did remind me of the books I read as a child. Beyond that, my only real trouble with the book was the idea that all of the gods were involved in accidentally impregnating mortals -- including gods like Athena, who are supposedly virginal. Athena's virginity isn't up for discussion, either: the Greeks built a temple to her and called it the Parthenon (from the Greek word for "virgin") in her honor. Interestingly, the author paints the Greek gods as being deeply involved in western civilization, so much to the point that they move Olympus and Hades every time the heart of western civilization moves. One character says that Olympus has been in Germany, France, Spain (for a time), England (for a long while), and is now in the United States. Despite this, the Pantheon maintains its Greek origins: demigods are dyslexic in all languages but ancient Greek and understand Greek automatically. The currency of choice is Drachmas.

One of the more entertaining aspects of the book is how the gods have changed as western civilization has changed. Zeus dresses in a business suit, Ares as a biker. The gods constantly comment on humans and their relationship to them. One repeated commented is that humans have a spectacular talent for interpreting what happens to them according to what they already believe. There's also a slight environmental message in the book: Grover constantly laments about the way humans are treating the wilderness, and says that these abuses will only cease when Pan (protector of wilderness) is found by the satyrs and wakened from his lengthy sleep.

All in all, a fun little story. I enjoyed it and look forward to reading other books in the series.