The Throne of Fire

Rick Riordan

“Look, we don’t have time for long introductions. I need to tell this story quickly, or we’re all going to die.”

With this sentence, a story is told by siblings Carter and Sadie Kane, who were born of the powerful Kane family. They work to save the world from Apophis, the Egyptian God of Chaos. In order to do this, they seek to restore Ra, the pharaoh of the Gods, to his rightful place as Sun King. In order to do this, they travel across 3 continents, the Duat, the land between worlds. They battle gods, magicians, demons, and even Katrina the camel, who is a natural disaster. They struggle to come to grips with themselves, the gods, other magicians, their question, and relationships.

I’ve been amazed at the sarcasm, the snide remarks of a brother/sister, and the numerous hilarious references put in place. If you like the quote at the beginning of the  article, you are sure to find more to entertain you. I won’t ruin the book by giving you too many more, but the humor of the book certainly helped to lift up some of the darker moments in the book.

This book is a nice, easy read, comparable in complexity to books like the early Harry Potter books. It is equally suitable for adults. It is a very gripping tale, which I am slowly coming to regard as one of my favorite series, even topping the Percy Jackson series previously published.

This book is also somewhat educational, as all artifacts and places are real, and all myths, gods, and related stories are solidly based in Egyptian lore. It has helped me to learn much about the Egyptian gods, from learning more about Ra, to learning of the existence of Gods like Bast and Des.

I do recommend that one first reads The Red Pyramid, as it covers much back story that one would miss if they jumped directly to this book. I recommend it to anyone who is a fan of fiction which takes the ancient world and plays with it today, and in general, for anyone who wishes to find a good book to read.