The Burning Maze
2018
- serie:the_trials_of_apollo
- children's fiction
- fantasy fiction
- gods, fiction
- adventure and adventurers, fiction
- greek mythology
- greek gods
- fiction
- oracles
- juvenile fiction
The story
The formerly glorious god Apollo, cast down to earth in punishment by Zeus, is now an awkward mortal teenager named Lester Papadopoulos. In order to regain his place on Mount Olympus, Lester must restore five Oracles that have gone dark. But he has to achieve this impossible task without having any godly powers and while being duty-bound to a confounding young daughter of Demeter named Meg. Thanks a lot, Dad. With the help of some demigod friends, Lester managed to survive his first two trials, one at Camp Half-Blood, and one in Indianapolis, where Meg received the Dark Prophecy. The words she uttered while seated on the Throne of Memory revealed that an evil triumvirate of Roman emperors plans to attack Camp Jupiter. While Leo flies ahead on Festus to warn the Roman camp, Lester and Meg must go through the Labyrinth to find the third emperor--and an Oracle who speaks in word puzzles--somewhere in the American Southwest. There is one glimmer of hope in the gloom-filled prophecy: The cloven guide alone the way does know. They will have a satyr companion, and Meg knows just who to call upon. . . .
What it’s like
Wry, fast first-person prose with a sardonic teenage narrator who keeps undercutting his own grandeur, so the page reads like a running joke told by someone who is still getting used to being mortal. The sensory world moves from cramped, dim underground passages and tunnel mazes to sun-bleached Southwestern desert, where heat shimmers, dust clings, and canyon light turns hard and orange by evening. Scenes are short and kinetic, with banter between chapters and sudden bursts of monster action that feel more slapstick than grim. Violence is frequent but cartoonish and largely bloodless, with creatures and fights handled briskly, and there is no sexual content. The emotional register is light and warm underneath the sarcasm, with a slow, affectionate thread about an unlikely pair learning to trust each other. It suits a lazy weekend afternoon, a long road trip, or a bedtime read for a confident young reader, and it is a good fit for fans of myth retellings who want humour, momentum, and an easygoing mood rather than dread.
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