The Dark Prophecy
2017
- serie:the_trials_of_apollo
- fiction
- teen & young adult
- greek & roman myths & legends
- children's fiction
- fantasy fiction
- gods, fiction
- adventure and adventurers, fiction
- nyt:childrens-middle-grade-hardcover=2017-05-21
- percy jackson
The story
Go west. Capture Apollo before he can find the next oracle. If you cannot bring him to me alive, kill him. Those were the orders my old enemy Nero had given to Meg McCaffrey. But why would an ancient Roman emperor zero in on Indianapolis? And now that I have made it here (still in the embarrassing form of Lester Papadopoulos), where is Meg? Meg, my demigod master, is a cantankerous street urchin. She betrayed me to Nero back at Camp Half-Blood. And while I'm mortal, she can order me to do anything . . . even kill myself. Despite all this, if I have a chance of prying her away from her villainous stepfather, I have to try. But I'm new at this heroic-quest business, and my father, Zeus, stripped me of all my godly powers. Oh, the indignities and pain I have already suffered! Untold humiliation, impossible time limits, life-threatening danger . . . Shouldn't there be a reward at the end of each completed task? Not just more deadly quests? I vow that if I ever regain my godhood, I will never again send a poor mortal on a quest. Unless it is really important. And unless I am sure the mortal can handle it. And unless I am pressed for time . . . or I really just don't feel like doing it myself. I will be much kinder and more generous than everyone is being to me—especially that sorceress Calypso. What does Leo see in her, anyway?
What it’s like
Brisk, funny first-person voice that never stops moving: a wisecracking, self-pitying narrator who reads like a sardonic friend narrating a bad week, with a bouncy, Greek-myth-flavoured energy under the jokes. The sensory world is a sun-baked American road trip sketched in quick strokes, dusty Midwestern towns, cheap diners, city streets and the mythic bleed of gods and monsters into ordinary places, rendered more through banter and asides than through lush description. Its vibe is breezy, mischievous and warm, the kind of book that suits a lazy afternoon, a long car ride, or a comfort reread when you want to laugh at a cranky immortal learning humility. Pacing is quick, chapter-by-chapter, with frequent jokes, short scenes and a steady stream of threat that stays cartoonish rather than frightening. Violence is present and action-driven (monsters, fights, peril) but comic and bloodless, with no gore, and the romance is only a faint, teasing thread. The emotional arc follows a proud, careless god slowly learning empathy for the mortals he has been ordering around, with real affection threaded beneath the sarcasm. It is for middle-grade and young teen readers, and for adults who enjoy witty, accessible fantasy with a generous heart.
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