“The Sword of Summer” by Rick Riordan

I am finally continuing my journey through Riordan’s works and have finally arrived at his books about Norse mythology! Honestly I’ve been looking forward to this one for ages, I can’t believe I didn’t get to it earlier.

The story is about Magnus Chase, a homeless teen in Boston. He’s running from his uncle and cousin (Annabeth) and ends up in the house of his other uncle, Randolph. Randolph takes him to a bridge to find a sword, which Magnus ends up pulling from the water. Then a god appears and they fight, Magnus goes over the bridge into the water and then finds himself in Valhalla. Meaning that he is now dead.

Story doesn’t end there, Magnus makes some friends and realizes that his old homeless buddies are a dwarf (Blitz) and an elf (Hearth). His Valkyrie (Sam) is also a daughter of Loki. Hearth and Blitz come to Valhalla for Magnus and they escape together. Sam eventually finds them and all together they go looking for the sword. They get it back from an ocean goddess, and then learn from another god (a severed head) that they have to rebind Fenris Wolf, because if the wolf comes loose that brings about Ragnarok, or Norse doomsday. In the end though, of course they are successful and rebind the wolf and return to Valhalla as heroes!

There’s a lot of things I skipped over, but that’s the gist of it. Now a really interesting choice on Riordan’s part is to include Annabeth Chase (from the Percy Jackson series) as a prominent character from the beginning. So we know from the start that these aren’t the only gods at play here. I’m not sure if he’s building to a more dramatic crossover in this series or in a future one, but that’s definitely going to eventually manifest.

Then there’s the treatment of objects. Magnus learns about this from the dwarves who introduce each other to the objects around them as though they’re individuals. And of course that carries over into other objects too. Most obvious is Jack, Magnus’ sword. Jack talks, has a personality, and flies around on his own. He hates Magnus’ dad for giving him away, but is loyal to Magnus. It’s an interesting choice because I’m not sure how prominent this was in Norse culture and mythology. Is this something Riordan took and is running with? Not sure.

By far my favorite aspect of the Norse myths though is the fact that they are circular. Ragnarok supposedly happens again and again, and everyone is fated to do the same things, commit the same betrayals, until the world starts over. But the challenge then becomes crafting interesting characters that make choices in the face of destiny. Riordan takes this head on, early into the story Loki says that the details are how they undermine fate. The overall picture stays the same but the little things can still change. So you are able to still see Magnus take control of his destiny and make choices. I’ll be excited to see how this changes as the story progresses.

The ending of the book was very upbeat, everyone gets rewarded and goes home happy. Which is an interesting choice for the first installment of a series, it wrapped everything up. But there is an epilogue making it clear that Loki is still up to no good. Onwards to the next one!