Welcome once again to my Riordan Retrospective.
For those just joining the fun, this is my look back at Percy Jackson,
its sequels and spin-off. It's less of a formal review and more casual. Last
time, we took a look at The Burning Maze. This time we're finishing our
look back at Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard. We're taking a look at 9 From the Nine Worlds.
This is a short story collection. Magnus is off
visiting with Annabeth, but his friends are all still having adventures.
Each story takes place in one of the nine worlds, and follows one of
Magnus' friends. The common theme is Thor jogging through the nine worlds
to train with his Fitbit.
Well, this book was exactly what I expected. I
expected it to be terrible, and it was. The main problem was that all of
the stories were way too short. Most of the other short story collections
had three or four stories. This book, by contrast, has nine. Each
of them are roughly half the length of one of the stories from the other
collections. This isn't nearly enough time to properly develop the
stories or characters. As a result, the stories are little more than
glorified action scenes. The choice to have all of the stories be told in
first-person didn't help matters. All of the narrations were generic,
interchangeable, and lacked distinct personality and voice.
Speaking of narration, we're going to shake things up
by jumping right into the audiobook. Almost all of the narrators were
horribly miscast. The one exception was Paul Boehmer as Odin. Now,
most audiobooks about teenagers and kids will be narrated by adults, but the
narrators will usually sound at least ballpark correct. Well, they will
if the people in charge of the production are competent. That's not the
case here, as the narrators are all quite obviously adults. Moreover,
they don't even sound remotely like how their characters ought to. Each
story has its own narrator. I'll get into specifics as we dissect each
story.
The first story begins in Asgard, and sees Odin
looking for a new captain of the Valkyries. Overall, I'd say this was my
favorite story of the collection, not that it means much. What I loved
about this story was the way it re-railed Odin's personality, and brought it
more in line with the original mythology. Odin could be pretty grouchy
and nasty in the original myths. He was also just as devious and prone to
trickery as Loki was. The two really weren't as different as you might
think.
One of the candidates is Boudicca; the Celtic queen
from England who lead a failed resistance campaign against the Romans.
Okay, what's a Celtic queen doing in the Norse afterlife? From The
Trials of Apollo, we know that Chinese, Aztec, Mesopotamian, Thai, Hindu and
Yoruba Mythology are all real in the Riordanverse. It stands to reason
that Celtic Mythology would be real as well. So that irked me.
Then, of course, we got an appearance by Heimdall's lobotomized twin
brother. Oh, dear sweet Heimdall, noble guardian of the rainbow
bridge, what has that madman done to you? Look at how he massacred our
boy! We also get mentally scared by the image of Thor in tight leather
shorts.
Like I said, this is the high point of the book.
It's all downhill from here.
We're off to Midgard, where Amir is being fitted for
some new pants. Ah, but these aren't ordinary pants. They're magic
pants that will squeeze him to death, for they are made from the skin of his
ancestors. Seriously, this guy got his own story? Annabeth has yet
to get a first-person narration, but this guy gets a story? It was a
dreadfully dull story, and the narration certainly didn't help. Besides
being dull, the narrator had a deep voice, which made it even creepier than
Amir mentions that's he's going to marry his cousin Sam. As if that
wasn't disturbing in and of itself!
Next we head to Nidavellir, where Blitz is on the run.
You see, he's run afoul of Alviss, the dwarf of tried to marry one of
Thor's daughters. There really isn't much to this one. It's just
Blitz trying to evade Alviss' goons, and then stopping them with that portable
sun thing he built for Hearth. I found the narrator's voice was a bit too
deep for Blitz. Anyway, moving on.
We then move to Alfheim, where Hearth is returning to
his family's former estate to deal with a troublesome troll. Okay, this
story was just plain surreal. The narrator actually sounded pretty close
to how I imagine Hearth sounding, but the fact that Hearth is deaf makes the
whole thing downright bizarre. It's gets even worse when you remember
that's Hearth is also mute, and if you listen to the audiobook, you run the
risk of losing your sanity.
So, we're treated to another glorified action scene,
and are left with a feeling of incompleteness. Get use to it, gang, it
only gets worse from here. Granted, I am glad that Hearth reunites with
Inge, and there are hints of a budding romance between the two of them.
Still, this story was seriously lacking in substance.
Next we head to Jotunheim. Sam has been tasked
by Odin to retrieve an egg that will hatch into a rooster that will signal the
beginning of Ragnarok. Well, Sam made it throughout this story without
mentioning that she's a Muslim every twelve seconds, beyond one mention of
hijab. I guess you have to be thankful for the small things. Then
again, this story was yet another glorified action scene. The narrator
sounded a bit too old, as with most of the other narrators. Moving right
along.
We're off to Helheim, where TJ is roped into doing
Hel's dirty work. Oh great, more demonization of Hel so that Riordan can
have villain not named Loki. Damn it Rick, you know better than to warp
the mythology! Well, we do get to see Balder, which was kind of interesting.
I wondered if he was going to eventually show up. Of course, this
story is so short we hardly get to appreciate that. I've said that the
narrators were miscast, and boy does it show here. The narrator does not
sound remotely like a teenage. He sounds like a grown-ass man! To
make matters even worse, TJ describes his deceased mother in almost sexual
terms, which the narrator makes sound downright creepy. As though there
wasn't enough incest in this series as it was.
Moving right along, Malory has unexpectedly found
herself in the land of Niflheim. Worse she's facing Nidhogg, the dragon
who gnaws at the roots of Yggdrasil. She's going to have to teach him
some new insult to hurl at Ratatosk.
Rick Riordan has always prided himself on being a
relatively family-friendly writer. There's certainly nothing wrong with
that, I don't think it hurts the books, for the most part. Unfortunately,
that family-friendly image came to bite him in the ass here. He couldn't
have Malory say anything too edgy, so she winds up teaching Nidhogg the sort of
things you might hear on an elementary school playground. Really?
That's the best you got? It just seems odd that Nidhogg wouldn't
have heard those along time ago. Also, wow, the narrator has to have one
of the worse Irish accents I've ever heard. Next!
The penultimate story follows Halfborn as he good
looking for Malory. He takes a wrong door and winds up in Vanaheim.
Not that the narrators has been all that good, but the one for this story
was especially bad. You'd expect Halfborn's narrator to be deep and
husky, or boisterous. Not the case here. When I listen to the
narration, I envision a dude wearing khaki pants and a polo shirt at some tech
start-up. In other words, not a dude who grew-up during the Viking Age!
There's a scene where Halfborn makes fun of the residents of Folkvangr
for being peaceful. Wow, when did Halfborn become such an asshole?
He's been accidentally insensitive, but never outright a dick.
Our final story follows Alex and Jack as they are sent
on a secret mission to Muspelheim. This story was longer than the others,
and almost felt like an actual complete story. Almost, but not quite.
Well, in other small things to be thankful for, Alex wasn't too annoying,
and the narrator almost wasn't half-bad. Almost because she gave Jack an
annoying Mexican accent. Jack is not Mexican! He's like those white
people who throw random Spanish words into their sentences to sound cool.
Now, remember when I said that Surt would have made a
better villain than Loki? Remember how I said that it would have been
more interesting if he'd tried to rally the minor gods like Kronos did?
Guess who the villain of the story is? Better yet, guess what his
evil scheme is? Riordan knew, he frinkin knew man! He knew, and yet
he chose otherwise, because clearly he wasn't interested in making Magnus Chase
the best it could be. I was very tempted to scream with frustration when
I read this story. There's a brief epilogue scene where Thor discovers
that he forgot to turn on his Fitbit.
Now let's take a look at the cover. We see
Yggdrasil floating in the cosmos with the nine worlds tucked in its branches.
Well, it has a nice cover, that's one thing I'm willing to give to this
book.
And with that we've covered 9 From the Nine Worlds.
It was just as awful as I expected. The narrators were miscast, the
stories too short for their own good, and I get the feeling that Riordan bit
off more than he could chew. With that, our look back at Magnus Chase and
the Gods of Asgard has concluded.
Now, we would be returning to The Trials of Apollo
next, but I think we need something to wash out the taste 9 From the Nine
Worlds left in my mouth. I bit the bullet and bought the Demigods and
Magicians audiobooks from iTunes, and I loved them. So that's going to be
our next port of call.
Join me again next time when we take a look back at
the Percy Jackson/Kane Chronicles crossover extravaganza Demigods and
Magicians. I will see you guys next time.
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