Odd and the Frost Giants- Neil Gaiman

Fresh of his Newbery Award winning performance in The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman returns with the delightful and slightly more suitable for my current reading audience Odd and the Frost Giants.

Playing to one of his many and considerable strengths, Gaiman sets this story within the world of Norse mythology. Odd is a young boy living in a Viking village in Norway. His father perished on a raiding expedition, and his mother (a captive from Scotland) has remarried Fat Elfred, the village oaf. To make matters worse, a tree fell on his leg when he was younger, crushing his bones, and leaving him with a debilitating limp. To Vikings, a boy who can not handle himself physically, does not have much worth at all.

One day, Odd decides to run away from home. (Given his home life, we can imagine how he might long for something different.) While walking in the woods, Odd encounters three very special animals: an eagle, a bear, and a fox. He comes to recognize that they are in fact Odin, Thor, and Loki, three of the mightiest gods from the Norse Pantheon.

They have been banished from Asgard, the city of the gods, by a particularly surly Frost Giant thanks to the arrogance of Loki. In being banished, they have lost their human forms and been trapped as considerably less powerful (although not powerless) animals. Their banishment has lead to an extra long and brutal winter in Midgard, the realm of humans.

It seems that only Odd can help the gods regain their rightful place, and end the horrible winter. Although physically impaired, Odd is cheerful, clever, and, perhaps most importantly of all, infuriating. Will he have what it takes to defeat the mightiest of all the Frost Giants? Will he succeed where the the steely will of Odin, the unfathomable might of Thor, and the devious machinations of Loki have all failed? What does he possibly have to offer that these gods do not?

Odd and the Frost Giants is a slim volume, coming in at just over 100 pages including wonderful illustrations by award-winning artist Brett Helquist, and it's over almost before it's begun. I guess Gaiman is abiding by the old show business maxim: always leave your audience wanting more. In his author biography, Gaiman says that there are more Odd stories he'd like to tell, and I for one would be happy to read them.

Neil Gaiman's most excellent website for young people:

Mr. Bobo's Remarkable Mouse Circus

The Last Olynpian- Rick Riordan

With The Last Olympian, Rick Riordan completes his thrilling and exciting "Percy and the Olympians" saga. Over the course of four previous volumes, (The Lightning Thief, Sea of Monsters, The Titan's Curse, and the Battle of the Labyrinth) Riordan has introduced readers to a fully realized world that seamlessly incorporates Greek mythology with modern adolescence.

Percy Jackson, the son of Poseidon, is a "half-blood," an individual with one mortal and one immortal parent. Appropriately enough, since the age of 12, he has been trained in the ways of hero-ing at Camp Half Blood. His instructor is the legendary centaur Chiron, instructor to less a hero than the legendary Achilles of "The Iliad" and Trojan War fame. Together with his friend Annabeth (a daughter of Athena), and the Satyr Grover, Percy has worked to stop the return of Kronos, lord of the Titans, father of the Olympic Gods, and disembodied and imprisoned in Tartarus since the dawn of time.

In The Last Olympian, Percy must unravel one last prophecy (the mummified, disembodied spirit of the Oracle of Delphi reveals a prophecy to one half-blood in each volume of the series.) in order to confront Kronos who by now has obtained a physical form by possessing another half blood.

A half-blood of the eldest gods-

shall reach sixteen against all odds

And see the world in endless sleep

The hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap

A single choice shall end his days

Olympus to preserve or raze

Along the way to the final showdown with Kronos and his army of titans, traitor half-bloods, and monsters, Percy travels to the underworld, takes a dip in the river Styx (ask Achilles how well that one works out), practices his driving, his his first (sort of) kiss, visits his father's palace at the bottom of the ocean, learns the intricacies of the prophecy, and confronts his final destiny.

The battle of New York (Mt. Olympus is located on the 600th floor of the Empire State Building as it has migrated following the focal point of western civilization over the years) is well paced, exciting, and dangerous. The threats are very real, and there are casualties on both sides. Riordan knows how to raise the stakes for this last volume of the series. Statues come alive, time gets stopped, bridges and tunnels are destroyed, and both the East and Hudson rivers team up to defend the island of Manhattan.

Overall, I was sad to see Percy's adventures come to an end, although fans take heart, the book ends with a new prophecy, and his afterword, Riordan refers to the end of the current series, thus hinting that further advantures (if not of Percy, then at least set in the Camp Half Blood universe) might lie in store. I was very pleased with Riordan's interpretation of Greek mythology throughout the series, and if the cool-yet-considerably-shorter-than-me people that I hang out with on a regular basis are any indication, then the author has spurred interest in these gods, monsters, and heroes for an entire new generation.

My one dislike about this volume is the depiction of the Titan Prometheus. His story (stole fire to give to humans, and was punished by Zeuss for all eternity as a consequence) is one of my personal favorites, and I didn't appreciate him being portrayed as a slimy, smarmy wheeler-dealer wearing a tuxedo and sunglasses. Can't win them all, though...

The Battle of the Labyrinth- Rick Riordan

The Battle of the Labyrinth is the fourth book in Rick Riordan's five volume "Percy and the Olympians" series. For those of you unfamiliar with the underlying premise: here's a quick recap: everything from Greek mythology is real. Gods, monsters, demons, and heroes exist both beyond and along the realms of mortal comprehension (Riordan describes them as being obscured by a magical mist). Among these mythological beings there exist "half-bloods," children born of one mortal and one immortal parent. Hercules (son of Zeus and a mortal mother is one famous example) and they are trained for various heroic quests at the appropriately-named "Camp Half Blood."

The series follows the adventures of Percy Jackson, the son of Poseidon and a mortal mother as he struggles to learn his place in the worlds of the everyday and the mythological. Over time, Mount Olympus has followed the center of western civilization and currently resides on the 600th floor of the Empire State Building. In fact, one of the most enjoyable things about the series is seeing how Riordan is able to update various mythological elements for the modern world, and how he is able to explain their presence.

As it turns out, Kronos (leader of the Titans, the original group of Greek gods and father to Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. Zeus eventually lead an uprising against his father and the other Titans, and cast him forever into the pit of Tartarus.) is reforming and hoping to wage war on the Olympian gods. He is pure evil and driven by his urge for revenge. The mythological world is fast being divided among the two (Titan and Olympian) camps. Percy and his fellow campers (Annabeth, a daughter of Athena, Grover, a satyr, among others) must go an varying quests in order to foil Kronos's plans.

Book 4, The Battle of the Labyrinth, involves Kronos' plot to invade Camp Half Blood by circumventing the magical defenses by sneaking in through the mythical labyrinth of Crete. That's right, that maze, created by Deadelus, home of the Minotaur, still exists and has been evolving and growing in the centuries since its inception centuries ago. It is filled with monsters, dead ends, traps, riddles, and other obstacles designed to kill, bewilder, or entrap all who enter it. There are entrances and exits all over the world, including one within the borders of Camp Half Blood.

The forces of Kronos are lead by Luke Castellan, a half-blood son of Hermes, who has betrayed the Olympians (he hates his father) for the Titan's cause. Percy, Annabeth, Grover and his half-brother Tyson, (a kindly, clever cyclops) must enter the Labyrinth themselves in order to find the workshop of Daedalus. They must reach him before Luke and his forces do, or else the route through the labyrinth and the key to the invasion of Camp Half Blood will be revealed.

Along the way they must deal with Kampe, a monster from the first Titan-Olympian war, the forges of Hephaestus (located beneath Mt. Saint Helens), Janus (the two faced god of doorways, beginnings and endings), the fields of Geryon, the disappearance of Pan, hellhounds, and a burgeoning love triangle in between Percy, Annabeth, and a mortal girl named Rachel who is capable of seeing through the mists and is instrumental to the successful navigation of the labyrinth.

The eventual battle itself is somewhat anticlimactic, once it finally occurs, but that is a minor quibble in this thrilling volume of one of my favorite ongoing series.

Book 5, The Last Olympian, is out now and concludes Percy's saga. I might have to break my paperbacks-only rule and pick up a copy to see how the story ends. Will Kronos finally triumph? If he is defeated (and let's face it, he probably will be), then what will be the cost? Who will survive the final confrontation between the Titans and the Olympians.

"Percy and the Olympians" official site.