Hello everyone!
As we cheerfully start our way into October and the first week of it is drawing to a close, I figured I could probably dust off some oldie-goldies when it came to books.
Let's face it, there are some that you pick up and read again and again.
If they include hilarious teenage-god encounters, that happens even more often!
The only thing better now would be to have Lucifer on speed-dial for the sarcastic remarks, but I suppose if you can't get him then any old god will do.
In this post, I continue my trek through Rick Riordan's books, as I tend to do every once in a while when I'm feeling especially down about something, because inevitably it'll be one of his deity representations that makes me giggle like a lunatic and feel better.
Tonight, that honour falls to Horus & Co.
Please turn your pages to The Kane Chronicles.
As always with posts in which I deal with authors I've read before, you may find other works and reviews linked at the bottom. I think I've gotten through all the series so far except Apollo's, but I'm working on those, too.
Meanwhile, the Egyptians are getting feisty and restless, and there's literally no way of keeping Set contained when he's like that.
A little bit of background, however, before we begin: these books feature teenage magicians, a heck of a lot of magic and hieroglyphs no regular mortal can read, Egyptian deities running around in the latest animal fashion, and baboons playing basketball.
You read the last bit right.
AGH!
Now, to business:
in The Kane Chronicles, we meet up with Carter and Sadie Kane, aged fourteen and twelve respectively, who live on opposite ends of the globe. Carter travels with thir father, Julius, while Sadie has been staying with their maternal grandparents since the death of Ruby, the children's mother. But one Christmas Eve, when Julius and Carter come for their bi-annual visit to London, things go pretty wrong all down the road and the kids need to hightail it to Brooklyn with their uncle, Amos Kane.
Why?
Well, funny you should ask.
Carter and Sadie are the most powerful magicians to be born to any family that answers to the House of Life (or the Ministry of Magic, however you want to call it in your head), because both sides of their family (the Kanes and the Fausts, their mother's family) are descendants of pharaos.
So yeah, everyone and their mother wants a piece of them, but they don't feel like giving anyone a piece and strike out on their own.
Because, surprise surprise, doomsday's coming. And in this version, a giant snake is going to swallow the sun, but let's get there first.
In the first book, The Red Pyramid, Carter and Sadie are finally united for a more permanent period of time after being separated for Sadie's sixth birthday and the debacle of their mother's death. Their father Julius wants to make things right, but in trying to do so he frees five previously-sleeping Egyptian deities from their confines, and the gods can't survive on Earth without human hosts - which basically means Carter and Sadie suddenly find themselves one god stronger inside their heads (Horus and Isis, respectively). Good thing, too, because the House of Life is after them for crimes they know they didn't commit, they need to find and free their dad (who, coincidentally, is also a host, for Osiris), deal with their posessed uncle (Set is such a troublemaker), and figure out who the fifth host is and for who (Nephthys, Set's wife, by and by). Oh and there's the minor issue of Set trying to turn North America into a desert and Apophis the Snake of Chaos rising. No big deal.
In book two, The Throne of Fire, the Kanes are still on the run from the House of Life (though how come the Egyptians didn't just waltz over to Brooklyn House and find them there I have no clue) and they're also trying to figure out how to stop Apophis from rising. Also, they've sort of started their own thing, teaching initiates the Path of the Gods, which has been forbidden by the House for centuries. Things on their to-do list now include dealing with Bes the Dwarf God (and promising to get him back after he sacrifices his soul for them), an annoyed pair that are Horus and Isis, Apophis being an all-around jerk, the House of Life siding with Chaos, and finding and waking the Sun God, Ra. This also includes sailing his royal barge down the magical dimension of the Duat and rising into a new day, but it's kind of difficult to babysit a senile god who seems more intent on gumming his royal sceptre and asking about zebras than anything else.
Still, by book three, The Serpent's Shadow, the Kanes are now more determined than ever that Ra needs to somehow get back to his old self, and that by finding Bes' shadow they might learn the secret of defeating Apophis for good. Dealing with romantic turbulence along the way (what else would you call falling for a dying boy AND the god of the dead Anubis, or the girl you like being made of clay and not knowing you when the real one wakes up?), the Kanes prepare themselves for the epic battle of a lifetime as the House of Life stands divided among those misguided by Apophis and the rest remaining under the new Chief Lector, Amos Kane. But the Kanes are nothing if not persistent, and with Zia hosting a reborn Ra, they march to battle Apophis and finally manage to form a sense of unity among the bickering gods, reawaken some old ones, rescue Bes, and in the end (after some sun-swallowing) save the day.
But is that the end of the Kanes?
Not quite.
See, they have their own House to run now, their own romances to pursue, maybe some peace and quiet to be had now that the gods have had to pull back after the defeat of Chaos, not to mention the number of initiates pursuing the Path of the Gods is rising.
Khufu also wants to play hoops, because, come on, saving the world interferes with his basketball practice!
And of course, this is only the Brooklyn side of New York. Across the river in Manhattan, the Kanes think they're imagining things when flying horses storm about the skies or the Empire State Building rumbles. But their mother, a diviner (and a ghost, but who cares since she can be with Julius/Osiris) has already mentioned there are other gods on the loose which they might encounter ...
plus they kind of lost a really important prisoner for their dad.
Oops?
Stay tuned for more about the Kanes!
xx
*images not mine
No comments:
Post a Comment