Riordan Retrospective: The Throne of Fire

Welcome back to the Riordan Retrospective.  For those of you just joining the fun, this is my look back at the works of Rick Riordan.  That means we're taking a look at Percy Jackson, its sequel series and its spin-off series. This is less of a formal review, and more of a look back, along with my thoughts and observations.  Last the we began our look back at The Heroes of Olympus with a look back at The Lost Hero.  This time we're returning to The Kane Chronicles.  We're taking a look back at The Throne of Fire, The Kane Chronicles book 2.  Let's kick things off with a brief summary.

Carter and Sadie Kane have had their hands full over the past few months.  They converted Brooklyn House into a training facility for magicians who want to learn how to channel the gods and use their magic.  Things only get more stressful when they learn that Apophis, the serpent of chaos, is going to be loose in only a few days.  To stop Apophis they'll need to find the god Ra, but there's just one problem: nobody has seen Ra in centuries.  To find Ra they'll have to find all three section of the Book of Ra and learn how to correctly chant its spells.  Along the way they'll have to survive devious gods and scheming magicians from the House of Life.

Okay, as per usual there will be a lot of spoilers from this point forwards.  Turn back now if you don't like that sort of thing.

Okay, people who don't like spoilers gone?  Now let's dive into the discussion of The Throne of Fire.

It's often said that the middle book of a trilogy is always the best book in that series.  I don't know if that's always true, but it's certainly the case for The Kane Chronicles.  Red Pyramid had the task of introducing the characters and setting up the world.  Serpent's Shadow had to wrap everything up and tie-up the loose ends.  Thrones of Fire, however, gets to really explore the characters and their world without having the pressure of having to open or close the story. 

Let's talk about the new characters, starting with Zia.  The Zia we met in the previous book turned out to have been a shabti.  She was timid and demure, but what about the real Zia?  Turns out she's the exact opposite.  She's fiery, passionate, snarky and a bit of a live wire.  Her fiery personality is rather fitting, given that she specializes in fire magic.  I did get some shades of Thalia Grace with Zia's characterization.  I also noticed that she and Sadie had fairly similar temperaments; could explain why they hit it off so well.  Another thing I liked is that Zia is a well-written Arab character who is not a Muslim.  Remember this, it will be important when we get to Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard.

There's something to consider about Carter's relationship with Zia, or rather, her shabti counterpart: just how much did he really love her?  Carter clearly saw something of himself in Zia, they'd both be raised as almost the only kids in places dominated by adults.  However, because of his upbringing of archeological digs and home schooling with his dad, Carter never really got much interaction with people his own age.  Does he truly understand what it is to be in love?  Where his feeling merely infatuation?  Carter spends some time sorting things out for himself.  

Now let's talk about Walt Stone.  He is the head sau, which means charm maker, at Brooklyn House and is also one of Sadie's love interests.  He's descended from the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten, and as a result, is cursed to die young.  It is explained that this was the reason Tutankhamun, who was Akhenaten's son, died young.  This might have a kernel of truth to it.  Art during Egypt's Amarna period, named after the city Akhenaten moved Egypt's capital to, depicts Akhenaten and his children noticeably different than pervious art styles.  Scholars have debated if this really was how he looked, and thus indicative of disease, or if it was merely an artistic choice. 

Anyway, this revelation about Walt heritage also leads to Riordan dancing around some of the religious implications a bit.  He really does a pretty bad job explaining the religious changes Akhenaten made, while also trying to reconcile that with a world where gods are a concrete fact.  Basically, Akhenaten thought that the priest of Amun-Ra were getting a bit too powerful for his taste.  In order to knock them down a peg, he created a new religion based around the worship of the sun, known as Aten, and thus (arguably) founding the first monotheistic religion in the world.  However, the new religion was extremely unpopular with the Egyptian people, and the worship of the traditional gods of Egypt was restored by Tutankhamun (with help from the priests of Amun-Ra) shortly after Akhenaten's death.

This brings me to something I brought up back when we were looking at Percy Jackson and the Olympians: doesn't it bother the gods that hardly anyone worships or believes in them?  The Egyptian gods are a bit of a different case than the Greek gods, since they've been imprisoned for all those year, except those times they managed to escape or be set free.  Still, none of them are bothered that they've been supplanted by some punk from Judea and another punk from Arabia?  I mean, they seem to be sustained more by people remembering their stories, rather than genuine belief, but don't they long for sacrificial smokes and all that?  Well, we'll get more into that when we get to Magnus Chase...in case it wasn't abundantly clear, the retrospectives for Hammer of Thor and Ship of the Dead (to a lesser extent) are going to be bloodbaths.

On that note, we get some insight into the interaction between the different pantheons.  Sadie and Walt visit the Valley of the Golden Mummies, where they met some Romans who were unable to move onto the Egyptian afterlife because they were improperly mummified.  They're clearly devoted to the Roman gods, but wound up defaulting to the Egyptian afterlife because of how they were buried.  Keep that in mind, it will have significant when we get to The Serpent's Shadow.  I enjoyed how they acted a bit like stuffy tourists.  Egypt was already ancient by Roman times, and was a pretty popular vacation destination for Romans.  Of course, they're fate is also pretty terrifying when you think about it.  They'd been stuck in the tomb for nearly two millennia before Sadie and Walt sent them on their way.  

Sadie's other love interest, the god Anubis, bares more than a passing resemblance to Nico di Angelo. Given certain revelations about Nico, which we'll discuss in The House of Hades, this is somewhat amusing in hindsight.  Sadie and Anubis' relationship is also notable in that it is the first time a character, other than a parent, romanced one of the gods.  I kind of figured how the Anubis-Sadie-Walt love triangle was going to be resolved, but let's save that for when we get to Serpent's Shadow.  

There's a scene towards the beginning where Carter mentions that he once saw a pegasus flying over Manhattan, but dismisses it was just seeing things. An obvious nod to how The Kane Chronicles takes place in the same universe as Percy Jackson and the Olympians.  Still, given that he'd just found out that Egyptian Mythology is real not all that long ago, you'd think Carter would be more open-minded. 

I thought that Set's characterization was well done.  He's chaotic and unpredictable, god of chaos and all that, but he's clearly on the side of the good guys.  Also, I loved just how crazy awesome he was. Overall, the Egyptian gods came across as much nicer and more helpful than their Greek counterparts.  Though, personally, I thought that Isis and Horus were a bit snootier than they should have been.  I really appreciated the theme of gods and humans working together.  The gods have power, but they're creatures of habit, and tend to be set in their ways.  They need the creativity of humans to bring about change.  

That's another thing that makes The Kane Chronicles distinct from Percy Jackson.  Percy Jackson had a big theme about history and myths repeating.  This makes a certain amount of sense; the Ancient Greeks were big on the concept of cyclical time.  The Kane Chronicles, while certainly the myths, goes in its own direction.  In fact, back in The Red Pyramid, Thoth only offered to help Carter and Sadie if they promised they weren't going to just repeat the old stories.  Also, going back to what I said last time, The Throne of Fire continues the globe trekking feel of The Kane Chronicles.  We get scenes set in London, St. Petersburg, several places in Egypt, and of course the Duat.  In fact, the scenes at Brooklyn House and thereabout are the only scenes set in America.    

Speaking of the Duat, we find out what happens to Egyptian gods who are forgotten.  Given that there were over 3000 Egyptian gods, there's a lot of those.  They apparently wind up at a magical retirement home, which is where Ra, who has become a senile old man, was this whole time.  Let us all take a moment to appreciate how, by distracting Apophis, Ra was able to save the world from certain destruction with the power of weasel cookies. 

I enjoyed getting to meet all of the new members of Brooklyn House.  One of the downsides of The Kane Chronicles only being three books long is that the minor characters didn't have as much time to shine, like the minor characters in Percy Jackson and the Olympians did.  Of course, Rick really used most of the Egyptian myths in the three books we got, so there was a bit of a limit on how long the series could go for.  I loved Felix and his obsession with penguins.  Cleo from Rio is somewhat amusing in light of how Rick Riordan's books have taken off in Brazil.  In fact, the Brazilian fandom is almost as huge of the American fandom.  Fun fact, the Brazilian fans are why we call him Uncle Rick; it started when they took to calling him Tio Rick.

Jaz seemed like she was going to play a bigger role, which isn't to say she did nothing.  She provided support, in spirit form, to Carter and Sadie.  Still though, I can't help but feel that she was underutilized.  As stated, I kind of feel that way about all of the new recruits. 

There also don't seem to be quite as many monsters, but that's understandable.  Egyptian Mythology doesn't have quite as big of a bestiary as Greek Mythology does.  To make up for it, with get plenty of varieties of demons, and we do get some cool creatures.  Case in point, Freak the Egyptian Griffin, and back in The Red Pyramid we got the serpopards. 

Now let us analyze the covers.  The original cover features Carter and Sadie hanging onto Ra's solar barge, which is old and tattered from lack of use.  The titular Throne of Fire blaze bright as they ride down sand dunes covered in scarab beetles.  There is a purple hue to the background evoking myth, mystery and adventure.  All in all, an excellent cover.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the new cover.  They're standing on the top of...Brooklyn House, I guess.  There's the Throne of Fire in the background, and there's purple light, but it just doesn't evoke the same feeling as the original cover.  In fact, it looks a bit like a bad comic book cover. 

To prevent us from going out on too much of a negative note, I'm going to take this opportunity to plug the excellent audiobook version of The Throne of Fire.

I think that should do it for now.  We're returning to The Heroes of Olympus next time for a look back at The Son of Neptune.  I will see you all then.