#CBR10 Book 5: "Heart on Fire" by Amanda Bouchet

Page count: 448 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Spoiler warning! This is the third and final book in the trilogy, and will without a doubt contain spoilers for the earlier books in the series. Don't read this review if you want to remain unspoiled and aren't caught up with the previous two books. If you want to start at the beginning, book 1 (by far the best book in the series) is A Promise of Fire.

Cat and her warlord husband Griffin have defeated the rulers of tyrannical Tarva and united two thirds of the ancient realm of Thalyria. Their biggest challenge is still before them, however, with Cat's absolutely ruthless and megalomaniac mother ruling the third realm of Fisa with an iron fist. She's the only thing Cat truly fears and she's not about to let her long estranged daughter and the mortal Cat's chosen to share her life with topple her from her throne and remove her from power.

Before they can get far enough to mount an offencive against Fisa, it turns out that Cat and Griffin have challenges closer to home. Griffin's brother is none too happy about how his family's life has changed since Cat came into their lives and takes drastic steps to try to have her neutralised. It really doesn't go as he expects, but Griffin is left badly shaken by his betrayal (not to mention the revelation of some of the very, well divine, protectors Cat has had watching over her throughout her life).

Defeating the Queen of Fisa will take everything Cat and Griffin has, and it seems impossible that they are going to manage without losses along the way. It's quite clear that Cat has gifts from the gods much more powerful and unpredictable than she had been made aware of, but even they won't be much help if she doesn't learn to control them properly and get over her childhood terrors and survivor's guilt once and for all.

While I really enjoyed A Promise of Fire despite the rather problematic premise of Griffin kidnapping Cat and keeping her as his prisoner for much of the book, and Breath of Fire ended up being entertaining, again despite some problematic elements, and a rather unsatisfying beginning, sadly, I think this, the final book in the trilogy, is the weakest book in the series. The structure of the book is disjointed and after a lot of conflict of various kinds throughout the narrative, the final show-down ends up feeling rather anti-climactic and a bit too easy.

I've seen at least one other reviewer being annoyed at Cat and everyone around her refer to Cat's unborn (and yet creepily sentient) child as "Little Bean", which seems strange in a fantasy society with strong elements of Greek mythology. Pretty sure they had no idea what unborn children look like in the early stages of pregnancy. It felt very anachronistic.

I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting from the conclusion of this trilogy, but it seems to me that both Cat and Griffin should maybe have spent less time being conflicted about their relationship at this stage and there's a few decisions they make that border on TSTL, where they are lucky to get out alive, and their various supporters should have kicked their asses for going off into dangerous situations on their own. There's an extended section where Cat is separated from everyone else she cares about for overreaching her new god-given powers which, while interesting, I felt went on for too long.

I also wish we'd gotten a little bit more resolution on the lives on some of the supporting cast, as I'm pretty sure (based on the preview of at the end of the book of what appears to be a new science fiction series) that this is Bouchet's last entry into this world. I'd have liked to have some hint as to what was in store for Griffin's various brothers and sisters, who have been important supporting characters throughout the series, but alas, that was not to be.

Judging a book by its cover: While it's nice to see a muscular and powerful looking woman with a sword on a cover for a fantasy romance, I'm not sure what's up with the flaming sword (with pregnancy brain, I'm pretty forgetful, but I'm 98% sure Cat doesn't have a flaming sword at any point in the book) or all the pastel coloured...smoke? The pink and turquoise doesn't really fit in with the warm red and orange tones of the rest of the cover.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Books 147-148: "Wonder Woman: Guts" and "Wonder Woman: Iron" by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang

Page count: 144 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

Wonder Woman's friend Zola is pregnant with a child of Zeus, and has been taken by Hades into the Underworld. Diana is determined to do whatever it takes to get her back, and since Hades is none too pleased about the way Wonder Woman and her friends tricked her and Poseidon, she may have to pay a heavy and lasting price in order to secure her friend's safety. She enlists the help of the divine smith, Hephaestus, for suitable arms and in the process discovers yet another family secret. While Diana tries to escape the bonds of matrimony with the ruler of Hell, there is another power struggle for the throne of Olympus. Apollo wants his father's throne and has his sister Artemis to help him. Hera is convinced that Zeus will return to protect what is his, but may be in for a nasty surprise.

Page count: 176 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Time passes differently in the Underworld, and by the time Diana makes it to Zola, she's already nearly full term in her pregnancy. Almost immediately after birth, Diana and Zola experience a terrible betrayal, as the baby is stolen away. To locate the child, it's clear that Diana will need the aid of several of her demigod siblings. Zeus' continued disappearance and the shift in power on Olympus means the reawakenings of old forces and the birth of Zola's child could have an impact on more than our world. Orion, one of the New Gods arrives to help her in her search for the baby, but clearly has his own agenda, and it's unclear whether he wants to help or harm the child. In Wonder Woman: Iron we also get a look at Diana's early years. The god of war, Ares, wants to train her into a perfect warrior, but gives her up in disgust when she eventually refuses to finish off an opponent after a battle, showing mercy instead.

I must confess, that as I read these on the same day, the plots do blend together a bit in my mind, and I'm not entirely sure what happened in each of the trade volumes. Common for both, however, is an action-packed plot full of adventure, twists and turns. Things are very rarely as they appear on a first glance or sometimes even on a second. Everyone is ready to scheme and double cross everyone else. Cliff Chiang is an excellent artist and mostly I really like his style, in both the action scenes and the more quiet moments. One exception is his depiction of Hades, as a petulant child with a sort of melty candle head. It really doesn't work for me. It's a minor niggle, however.

A bigger niggle is the introduction of Orion in the third volume. While my husband is a huge fan of Jack Kirby's New Gods and pretty much every iteration of them, I find them incredibly annoying and the only time I've not pretty much hated all of them is when Gail Simone had Big Barda in some guest appearances in Birds of Prey. So the prospect of more of them turning up in later issues is not a happy one for me. I really liked every single issue of Guts, but in Iron, there are several story lines being introduced (not just the Orion thing) that I'm not too keen on. Azzarello's portrayal of Wonder Woman, and his general take on the gods and demigods of Greek mythology is so creative and fun that I'll keep reading for at least a while longer.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 51: "The Lost Hero" by Rick Riordan

Page count: 577 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Jason has amnesia. He wakes up on a school bus on the way to the Grand Canyon with what appears to be his very confused girlfriend (Piper) and a bemused, slightly disbelieving best friend (Leo) who both seem very surprised that he can't remember spending the last few months together at the "Wilderness School", a boarding school for juvenile delinquents. Not that the field trip to the Canyon makes things better. One of the other school kids sprouts wings, and tries to kill Jason and his friends. The coach turns out to be some sort of half-goat-man and to top it all off, Jason appears to be able to fly, as he discovers when he has to hurtle down into the Grand Canyon to save, Piper, his supposed girlfriend.

By the end of their VERY eventful day, Piper, Leo and Jason find themselves in upstate New York at Camp Half-Blood being told that they are demi-gods and the reason that Piper and Leo can remember a whole semester with Jason is because the magical mist that clouds the minds of mere mortals from the existence of the supernatural basically rewrote their memories when Jason appeared out of nowhere. In short order, Leo Valdez, whose been an orphan since his mother died in a mysterious fire in her mechanical workshop, discovers that he's a son of Hephaestus, the Greek god of fire, whilst Piper McLean, a tomboy if ever there was one, discover that her long lost mother is Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love, and that the cabin she belongs seems to consist mainly of Barbie and Ken-doll-alikes. Jason's parentage takes longer to be revealed, but a lot of people get very flustered by his arrival at Camp Half-Blood and this is clearly connected with his sudden amnesia.

Camp Half-Blood's most famous demi-god, Percy Jackson, is missing without a trace, and his girlfriend Annabeth is not happy. When there is a prophecy revealing that Hera, wife to Zeus and queen of the Greek pantheon has been kidnapped and that she needs to be rescued before the Winter Solstice or all hell will pretty much break loose (someone is opening the doors to Tartarus, the Greek underworld), it seems impossible that the two events are not connected and that Jason's amnesia and sudden appearance on the school bus with Piper and Leo is not coincidental either. Piper and Leo get called to go on the quest with Jason, whose father is revealed to be none other than Zeus himself.

Leo realises from a vision of Hera that she's been appearing to him since he was a child, and that his half-blood heritage is the reason his mother died. Piper goes along on the quest, even though she believes herself doomed to betray her friends, as she's keeping a secret from them. Her father, a famous movie star, has been kidnapped as well, and is being held hostage. If Piper doesn't trick Leo and Jason to their deaths, her father will be killed instead.

While Jason's friendship with Piper and Leo may have been a mist-conjured illusion, as they fight a number of mythological challenges on their way to complete their quest, they learn to trust each other and work as a team very fast indeed. Will they manage to save Hera before it's too late? Will Jason recover his memories and figure out why to him it seems more appropriate to refer to the gods by their Roman names?

Oh Rick Riordan, not content with one series of books where you utilise absolutely everything relating to Greek myth, followed by one where you do the same with the Egyptian pantheon, now apparently you're introducing the Roman pantheon, while deviously explaining why it's close to, but not quite the same as the Greek. There's a formula here, and it may not work for everyone, but I find that it does for me. More like the Kane Chronicles with the alternating POVs than Percy Jackson's first person narration, this book switches between Jason, Piper and Leo, usually giving them a couple of chapters in a row before switching to one of the others. It allows us to get to know all three characters better.

Because of his amnesia, Jason is absolutely the character that's the hardest to get a handle on. We don't really know who he is, any more than he does. He's clearly had rigorous training his entire life though, and seems very skilled with a number of weapons. Being the son of Zeus, or Jupiter, he seems to have the ability both to fly and call down lightning. This comes in handy when fighting vengeful mythological giants determined to incite some sort of massive-scale conflict with the Greek pantheon. It becomes clear that his amnesia is caused by Hera stealing his memories and she claims to have a very good reason for it. He's also most likely grown up in a place not dissimilar to Camp Half-Blood, if a lot harsher on its recruits.

Piper McLean was at the Wilderness School because she asked a car dealer for a BMW and he agreed. She's always had the power to get people to give her things and persuade them into doing what she wants, and discovers at Camp Half-Blood that this is called "charm speaking", a gift from her mother. Unfortunately, once the people who've given stuff away wake up from their compulsion and contact the police, Piper would end up in trouble. Piper has Native American heritage on her dad's side, although her father seems to try to distance himself completely from it. She desperately wants to be home schooled, so she can spend time with her famous dad, but he mostly seems far too busy for her. Nonetheless, she's desperate to save him, even though doing so may put her friends in terrible danger instead.

Leo Valdez was diagnosed with ADHD at an early age and has always had a knack for fixing things. Fiddling and constructing things when he's nervous, even before he discovered that he was a demi-god, he knew he wasn't like other kids. Jason not only appears to be completely fire-proof (the clothes he wears as well, conveniently), but can actually summon fire if he concentrates. Hera, who he thinks of as a sort of demented grandma, kept appearing to him as he was growing up, making portentous comments about his future, but he always just thought she was a nut. Now he discovers that not only is he the son of a god, but that there's clearly some sort of grand destiny in store for him.

The first book in a series of five, it's clear that these books are going to reunite readers with some of their favourite demi-gods from the Percy Jackson books (because I have no doubt that while he's missing in this book, he'll turn up before too long), while introducing a bunch of new demi-god teens to root for, some of whom appear to have parents from the Roman pantheon as well. It seems that the Roman gods are more warlike, serious and business-like than their raucous Greek aspects. I like a good YA adventure, and will probably blaze through the rest of these over the summer.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

CBR2 Book 95: "The Titan's Curse" by Rick Riordan

Publisher: Hyperion
Page count: 336 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Date begun: October 18th, 2010
Date finished: October 19th, 2010

WARNING! CONTAINS A SPOILER FOR THE SEA OF MONSTERS, THE PREVIOUS BOOK IN THE SERIES!

Another year, another adventure for Percy Jackson, demi-god son of Poseidon. He, his friend Annabeth (daughter of Athena) and recently turned back from a tree, Thalia (daughter of Zeus) are at a military academy on the lookout for two half-mortal kids they believe may be in danger. Shortly after finding the two half-bloods, Bianca and Nico, things go horribly wrong. A giant manticore tries to kill them, the goddess Artemis intervenes, and Annabeth falls off a cliff while fighting the manticore.

Artemis travels with a team of eternally adolescent young girls, who have all gained immortality in return for staying chaste and loyal to the goddess of the Hunt forever. Her second in command is a very hostile girl who Thalia calls Zoe Nightshade. Zoe and the rest of the hunters are ordered to go with Thalia, Percy, Bianca and Nico to Camp Half-Blood, while Artemis hunts a legendary monster that may bring about the end of the Gods. But before she leaves, Bianca joins her little crew of adolescent huntresses. Nico is too busy collecting Greek myth trading cards to really care.

The group have not been back at camp long before it becomes obvious that Annabeth is not the only half-blood to have disappeared recently. Percy is convinced she is still alive, as he keeps having dreams where he sees her in danger, just like he saw Grover in danger in the last book. After a few days back, they receive news that Artemis has been captured, and a quest has to be launched to save her. Zoe refuses to have any men with them, but the Oracle claims they have to bring both half-bloods and hunters, or the quest will fail. When at the last minute, one of the hunters can't come, Percy sneaks after the group wearing Annabeth's cap of invisibility. He knows that she is in the same place as Artemis, as he has seen them together in his portentous dreams.

The series really holds up, and is a lot of fun to read. It is clear that if Aphrodite gets her way, Percy and Annabeth are on their way to one heck of a tragic romance, not entirely sure if they want to play into her hands, although Percy is getting more and more taken with his friend. He is certainly very worried when he found out that she was considering joining Artemis' huntresses, thereby swearing off boys forever.

Even more Greek mythology is explored. As well as the manticore, there are pegasi, cow serpents, zombies made from dragon's (well, technically dinosaur) teeth, we find out more about Artemis and Apollo, the Hesperides, their father, and yet again Percy and his friends have to work to save the Greek pantheon and the world from destruction. The books follow a formula, but are enjoyable nonetheless.

CBR2 Book 65: "The Sea of Monsters" by Rick Riordan

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Page count: 304 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Date begun: June 30th, 2010
Date finished: July 1st, 2010

CONTAINS MILD SPOILERS!

In The Sea of Monsters, Percy Jackson has almost managed to survive an entire school year without getting expelled. On the last day before the summer holidays, however, all hell breaks loose, and the gym ends up burning down because giant monsters are trying to kill him with fireballs. Maybe he can blame it on asbestos, as Buffy Summers tried to do when she arrived at Sunnydale High?

His mother doesn't want him returning to Camp Half-Blood, but he goes anyway, and takes Tyson, a mysterious homeless kid with him. At the camp, he discovers that Chiron has been sent away, and the tree that keeps the camp safe is dying, so everyone there is in danger. It's also revealed that Tyson is not only a mythological being, a cyclops, but that he shares a father with Percy. Percy keeps having dreams where his best friend, the satyr Grover, who went off on a quest at the end of the last book, is in grave danger, and he will die if Percy doesn't come save him. When it turns out that by saving Grover, Percy can also fetch the one thing that will help save the camp, the Golden Fleece, he takes Annabeth and Tyson with him, despite being told he will be risks being banned from the camp forever.

The Sea of Monsters is another fun adventure tale, featuring vicious chariot races, cyclopes, sirens, the Bermuda Triangle, the return of Percy's nemesis Luke, Circe the sorceress and Grover in a wedding dress. It was yet another fun read, and I am looking forward to the next one in the series.

CBR2 Book 17: "The Lightning Thief" by Rick Riordan

Publisher: Hyperion
Page count: 400 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Date begun: December 26th, 2009
Date finished: December 27th, 2009

Percy Jackson has been expelled from a number of schools. He is known as a troublemaker, dyslexic, diagnosed with ADHD, and hates his slob of a stepfather, but adores his mother. His father left his mother before he was born. On a school trip to the Met, his maths teacher suddenly turns into a clawed, winged monster and tries to attack him. He manages to vaporize her, and as they are going back to school, it appears that they have had a different pre-algebra teacher all year. Was it all a hallucination?

Percy and his mother go to Montauk when he returns for the summer, that was where his mother and father met. During a sudden, mysterious storm, his best friend from school shows up saying Percy is in danger, and his Mum pushes them into the car to get them to a safe place. When their car is attacked by a giant bullheaded man, who Percy correctly identifies as the Minotaur, Percy realizes that there is a good reason why he always felt different. He is.

When Percy arrives at a special summer camp, it turns out the wheelchairbound history teacher from his most recent school is a kentaur, the camp is run by Dionysus, and all the kids there have one mortal and one divine parent. Percy's father is Poseidon, one of the major Greek gods, and Percy is in great danger, as Zeus thinks Poseidon sent him to steal his lightning bolt. If the bolt is not returned before the summer solstice (in about two weeks' time), Zeus will declare war. Percy has to go on a quest to find the bolt, to prove his innocence and prevent the war.

The Lightning Thief is the first in the series Percy Jackson and the Olympians, which looks like it's one of the many fantasy/adventure series that Hollywood hopes will succeed Harry Potter as a lucrative adaptation project. The first book has already been turned into a film, and there are five books in the series (so far). It's a perfectly entertaining adventure book geared at teenagers, with clever twists on Greek mythology. I am looking forward to checking out the other books in the series.