“The Tower of Nero” by Rick Riordan

This is the final installment of “The Trials of Apollo” series from Rick Riordan and this was honestly such a satisfying conclusion to the whole thing (see my previous posts on the series here, here, here, and here). Maybe it’s because this is my first time reading it, but I really enjoyed this series and its arcs and the different format.

The book starts with Apollo and Meg making their way back east to Camp Half Blood. They get surprised by Nero’s forces along the way but end up escaping with the help of Meg’s old trainer. They get to New York, fake a fight with the trainer to split up, and then get to camp. There, Apollo greets Dionysus who makes fun of him a lot, and they make plans for the group of Apollo, Meg, Will, and Nico to head to Nero’s tower. Nero has issued an ultimatum: either Apollo gives himself up or he blows up New York. The plan is for Will and Nico to get the help of some beings that live underground to sabotage the explosives while Meg and Apollo distract Nero with a surrender. But first, they go get their oracle Rachel. The whole group then go underground together and meet the trogs, a like race of gnomes that can run and dig very fast.

Meg and Apollo then head to the tower to give themselves up. Nero catches on though that Meg’s trainer betrayed him, and he has her hands cut off. Apollo ends up in a cell with her and cares for her while they make a plan to bust out. Once out, Apollo meets up with Camp Half Blood and Will and Nico. He then heads to get Meg who’s imprisoned. There he fights Nero until Nico, Rachel, Meg’s trainer, and the trog leader shows up with the symbol of Nero’s power. Apollo gets in a stand off with Nero and regains some godly strength to pull it apart. Nero crumbles to dust.

That just leaves Apollo to fight his nemesis Python who leant his strength to the emperors and therefore is the true Big Bad. Apollo heads off on his own, and ends up annoying Python so much that the snake picks him up, giving Apollo an opening to stab him in the eye. The two then wrestle down to Tartarus, where Apollo finally flings Python into Chaos, the primordial soup that all things came from. He passes out, and wakes up on Mount Olympus as a god, victorious. He does a victory lap of checking in on all of his friends before the story closes.

The main thing that made this such a great ending was Apollo’s arc. I kept saying throughout this that Apollo can’t change that drastically or his narration will be much less interesting, but there was an excellent balance throughout of being witty and sarcastic with caring about the other characters. His main change is that he learns to value mortal lives and by the end he clearly cares about everyone he is fighting with, while still keeping the witty remarks and self-deprecating jokes.

This book also brings in things like disability rights and rights of children but really subtly. When Meg’s trainer has her hands cut off, Apollo keeps reminding himself to let her ask for help before he gives any. And to give her space to adjust to her new body. It doesn’t get in your face about it, but I bet a lot of kids learn from those interactions. Then there is the way he interacts with Meg and her siblings while arguing with Nero. You can see the argument go sideways when he pities the kids instead of treating them as agents with their own strengths.

Somehow the ending battle still felt so intense, despite the fact that the stakes were more-or-less the same as every other book (New York City gets destroyed) and no main characters died. I think it might have been the new allies of the trogs keeping things interesting, combined with how this book grays the area between good and evil with Meg’s trainer and siblings being good and worthy of rescuing, despite their loyalty to Nero. You don’t want to see anyone get hurt which makes it still very anxiety-provoking despite the fact that there are minimal consequences.

So that’s the end of the Greek gods series that Riordan has out so far! I think I’ll start his series on the Egyptian gods next, I read the first few but never finished it. It should be a lot of fun!