Continuing in his world of Greek mythology, The Hidden Oracle marks the first book in Riordan's new series "The Trials of Apollo". The blame for all the Gaea related troubles and the near war between the Greek and Roman demigods falls to Apollo at the end of the previous series. Six months pass and finally Apollo turns up on earth as a human with no memory of what has happened during the lapsed time. He quickly becomes a servant of Meg, a demigod daughter of Demeter, until such time as he performs tasks sufficient to hopefully earn his place in Olympus once again. Step one, get Meg and himself safely to Camp Half Blood without his powers. Happily Percy Jackson is willing to provide a ride, and Meg is surprisingly effective in a fight.
Once there, Apollo learns that the source of prophecy is still blocked creating a catch 88. (All quests need a prophecy to begin.) In addition, campers are disappearing, communications are down, and all the funding for the weapons and goods used against the camp in the previous two series has been traced back to a shadow corporation run by a group of three men whose identities are unknown, although one seems to go by the nickname of the Beast. With his memory shaky and his abilities hit or miss, Apollo must overcome his ego, his fears of mortality, and unknown opponents to restore and save the oldest source of prophecy, the Grove of Dodona, if the Olympians are to have any chance against their new foes.
Apollo is whiny, easily distracted, extremely frustrated with his current limitations, and frequently downright annoying at the start of the book. Thankfully his character does quite a bit of growing during the course of events, or I might have given up on him. Packed with plenty of action, mixed with humor, interspersed with appearances of multiple characters from previous books, and topped with a few surprising plot twists, I give this book a solid 4 stars as look forward to the next installment.
No comments:
Post a Comment