Reviewed by sa090 on
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I think I'm one of the last people to hear that this series is only a trilogy, at first I heard it'll be a series of 5 books as well, which really pushed the importance of reading this book in my TBR priority list and now I'm finally ready for The Ship of the Dead coming this October. Anyways overall I liked this book more than it's prequel, I think I got a little more acquainted with the characters here and my major issue with the Sword of Summer actually got addressed so it's a plus for me even though that still doesn't make it okay in the bigger scheme of things. More of that later, let me focus on the things I really enjoyed first.
The first thing is how Magnus is, in The Olympians series we can always count on Percy to fix things up most of the time but in this series, it's very interesting to see Magnus in an opposite light to Percy. He's not the bravest guy around, he's not the most powerful one and sword fighting isn't exactly second nature to him which imo makes it a great opportunity to see the other members of his party shine and I'm glad Rick took the chance to do just that. Samirah being a badass with the spear and axe, Blitzen and his mad skills with a thread, Hearthstone and the runic magic that I honestly wish he'll use more of and of course not to forget our newest addition to the team; Alex. All of this happened while making sure that Magnus was still an important member of the team, not necessarily in its fighting prowess without Jack's assistance but still vital.
Speaking of our newest character, regardless of the little identity issue which I kind of decided on my own with how Alex was portrayed in the book, she was a blast to have around. I have never seen a character use the same weapon as she did, and actually have her be ruthless with it was very entertaining. The complete opposing sides of her and Samirah's stand on a few things about themselves was a nice subplot in the series and I'm looking forward to see what happens next concerning that, would be so awesome to have it turn from a con to a huge pro.
That wasn't the only interesting subplot btw, learning more about Hearthstone and his abomination of a relative was sad, I didn't expect it to be like this but Rick seems to be trying to outdo himself with the "who's got the most messed up background?" Game he's got going on and I'm actually curious to see who'll win in the end? or would that be lose in the end? I'm just going to hope for a somewhat good resolution, seems like we're all set to see one in the near future.
After all this, what's my only issue with the book? Samirah's religion, yes he's trying to be really diverse with his character but it doesn't work out like this. He made quite a bit of research about it as can be seen by the various hints in this book and the prequel while also having that conversation on top of the rainbow but it's still iffy to me. Add Magnus and Samirah's conversation in Chapter 12 and it shows just how much of a touchy/big-deal topic this is. That's my only issue with the series, not because she's a Muslim (love them) but because it doesn't fit here in any way and bringing real world rules means that you have to abide by them or at least it does to me, especially if breaking said rule nulls her Islam. I do appreciate Ch. 12 though, really shows he's "trying" to make it work.
Again still enjoyed it more than book one and after that last conversation with my favourite character happened, I'm very very excited for the last book of this series. Since it's the last book and we got the name "Quetzalcoatl" dropped, should I expect some Aztec themed books at some point? Not sure but that'll definitely be interesting!!
Final rating: 3/5
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 6 March, 2017: Finished reading
- 6 March, 2017: Reviewed