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A review by duffypratt
The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan
1.0
Enough is enough. The kids are alternatively characterless or annoying. They make stupid decision after stupid decision, and then when things look hopeless, they get bailed out by another Egyptian god who appears out of nowhere. Then, after they have been bailed out and rescued, again and again, everyone bows down to these two idiots for the wonderful things that they've done.
Here, once again Riordan's hero kids are faced with the end of the world coming in five days. So what does the girl do? She says: The end of the world can wait. I'm going to London to celebrate my birthday. Of course, in London a trap awaits her. She can't get out of it herself, but a new god appears and saves her by putting on a speedo and crying "Boo!"
Her brother chastises her for her stupidity. Then with three days left, he finds out the location of the girl he loves (even though he has never met her), and he immediately decides to put saving the world on hold, so he can go rescue her. Of course, its a trap, and...
Later on, the girl finds out that there might be some hope that she might be able to save Walt, the guy she has the hots for, from his curse. That's when she decides that the quest she's on might be worthwhile. Because saving the world from complete destruction just isn't enough to make things interesting. That part actually reminded me of a really funny Woody Allen story where he plays gin rummy with Death. If he loses Death is going to take his soul. As they start dealing, Allen says, "What do you think? A nickel a point?" Death: "What?" Allen: "To make it interesting." Death: "You don't think it's interesting already?"
On top of all this, I can't make any sense out of this world. At the beginning, its clear that five Egyptians got released from the Du'at and they have possessed mortals. That's the only way they can appear in our world: by having a host of some sort. Another example, from several years before, was Muffin/Bast, who is Sadie's guardian and the god of cats. She tried to take Sadie's mom as a host, but settled for a cat instead. Somehow, never explained, she then appears to the Kane's in her own form, without any host at all. How possible? It's never explained. And then, Gods without hosts start appearing all over the place. So what are we supposed to make of this idea of Isis, Osiris, Set, Nepthys and Horus all needing hosts.
What does it matter? Pack in enough fake action and maybe no-one will notice that none of this makes a lick of sense. Finally, the high moment of drama in this book came in a very tense game of Parcheesi. At every moment, when I thought Riordan couldn't possibly make things more stupid and silly, he outdoes himself. It's almost as if he set himself a task to see how lame he could make these books and still draw legions of fans. But, as P.T. Barnum said "Nobody ever lost a dollar by underestimating the taste of the American public."
Here, once again Riordan's hero kids are faced with the end of the world coming in five days. So what does the girl do? She says: The end of the world can wait. I'm going to London to celebrate my birthday. Of course, in London a trap awaits her. She can't get out of it herself, but a new god appears and saves her by putting on a speedo and crying "Boo!"
Her brother chastises her for her stupidity. Then with three days left, he finds out the location of the girl he loves (even though he has never met her), and he immediately decides to put saving the world on hold, so he can go rescue her. Of course, its a trap, and...
Later on, the girl finds out that there might be some hope that she might be able to save Walt, the guy she has the hots for, from his curse. That's when she decides that the quest she's on might be worthwhile. Because saving the world from complete destruction just isn't enough to make things interesting. That part actually reminded me of a really funny Woody Allen story where he plays gin rummy with Death. If he loses Death is going to take his soul. As they start dealing, Allen says, "What do you think? A nickel a point?" Death: "What?" Allen: "To make it interesting." Death: "You don't think it's interesting already?"
On top of all this, I can't make any sense out of this world. At the beginning, its clear that five Egyptians got released from the Du'at and they have possessed mortals. That's the only way they can appear in our world: by having a host of some sort. Another example, from several years before, was Muffin/Bast, who is Sadie's guardian and the god of cats. She tried to take Sadie's mom as a host, but settled for a cat instead. Somehow, never explained, she then appears to the Kane's in her own form, without any host at all. How possible? It's never explained. And then, Gods without hosts start appearing all over the place. So what are we supposed to make of this idea of Isis, Osiris, Set, Nepthys and Horus all needing hosts.
What does it matter? Pack in enough fake action and maybe no-one will notice that none of this makes a lick of sense. Finally, the high moment of drama in this book came in a very tense game of Parcheesi. At every moment, when I thought Riordan couldn't possibly make things more stupid and silly, he outdoes himself. It's almost as if he set himself a task to see how lame he could make these books and still draw legions of fans. But, as P.T. Barnum said "Nobody ever lost a dollar by underestimating the taste of the American public."