Hearth and Pages: The Sword of Summer (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard #1)

“It was an annoying name to have. People tended to spell in Mangus, rhymes with Angus. I always corrected them: No, it’s Magnus, rhymes with swagness.”

Do you feel the sass already? Because I do. God, I can’t even write this without at least chuckling. So, The Sword of Summer is the first installment in Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard series, Rick Riordan’s fourth mythology-based children fantasy book series. After two book series revolve around Greek mythology, and one book series revolves around Egyptian mythology, Uncle Rick finally write something about my second favorite mythology, Norse.

If there is one thing that make me stand by Riordan’s story is that he get the mythology part right. As a huge mythology enthusiast, the portrayal of mythology characters in mainstream media usually irks me to no end. But not with Rick Riordan’s books. So far he had stay true to the original personal traits of myth characters, and he did so with this book. The portrayal of the Norse gods are spot on. The portrayal of viking heroes’ nature and norms is amazing. The way he described mythical creatures behaviors and how weirdly some of them were made is also wonderful. I love it. Kudos to Uncle Rick for this, his mythology research is as incredible as usual.

If I have to be honest, no matter how much I love Rick Riordan, and no matter how much I love Norse mythology, I was skeptical when I heard the news about this book. It’s just, I feel like Uncle Rick’s repetitiveness with his books might finally annoyed me, and boy how wrong was I.

If you have read other Riordan’s book before, and you want something totally new and original, this book might not be your cup of tea. The plot is quite similar with his other books, there is a kid, turns out he is the ‘chosen one’, he gets into a trouble he didn’t even ask for, people are after him, and so on. But, there is something about Uncle Rick’s writing that is fun, unique, eloquence, and intriguing that make this repetitiveness doesn’t even matter to me. Not to mention the story is exciting, the mystery surrounding it is fascinating, and because the mythology aspect is spot on it adds another thrill to it because you know what happen but you don’t really know because there is going to be a twist. Also what I like is, unlike his previous books, Rick Riordan didn’t took the most famous deity as the main character’s patron. Since Percy Jackson is Poseidon’s son, and Kane siblings has Horus and Isis on their side, I was actually imagine Magnus to be related to Thor or Odin or Loki, but no. He’s not, and that was a breath of fresh air.

Now, let’s talk about the character. I feel like it’s impossible to read Rick Riordan book and not compare the main character to Percy Jackson. And as you read this book, you may think that Magnus is basically just Percy 2.0 because they both can throw sarcasm/sass to no end. I have to disagree with that. I think whenever Percy said something sassy, he did it in a good-nature, whereas Magnus, when he did sass, he just straight up throwing shades unapologetically. AND I LOVE HIM FOR THAT.

Another thing that makes me like Magnus is that he’s smart, and he’s also a smartass. With other Riordan’s character we often see that they got into trouble because they’re clueless and even know nothing (especially Percy, I love this kid to death, but he’s the Jon Snow of his own series). Not with Magnus though, when he realized who he is and what might happen later he gathers every info inside his head. So, later on when something or someone approach him, he doesn’t even that shock, he even can draw conclusion by himself without everyone giving him clue. Though I supposed I shouldn’t even surprised by that, he’s a Chase after all. Now, I know I described Magnus as if he is some salty guy, but he’s not. He is one of the most chillest Riordan’s character I have ever encountered. I just love this kid, and honestly all of those things I mentioned above is just tiny bit reasons why I love Magnus Chase character. You ought to read the book yourself to see how wonderful he is.

Beside Magnus, there are three other protagonists that accompany him. And I honestly so proud of Rick Riordan for this, because once again he nailed it in diversity department. First, we have an Arab descend hijabi valkyrie named Samirah ‘Sam’ al-Abbas. She wears hijab, she explained that wearing hijab is a choice and it’s not a form of oppression. She is fierce and loyal to boot, she’s smart, she can match Magnus’ sarcasm and be as smartass as he is. More importantly, and what makes me really happy is, for once there’s no romantic subplot between Sam and Magnus. It’s so refreshing!

The Second character that accompany Magnus is Blitz, a black dwarf demigod, who’s passion is in fashion. The third character, and my personal ray of sunshine is Hearth, an elf who is happened to be deaf and communicating using ASL (Alf Sign Language). So, in this book not only we got POC representation, we got religion representation, and disable characters representation as well. And what I love most about this is that Uncle Rick put real problems that POC, devout people and disabled people face in real life and basically give a chance for us to understand the issues around them. For example Sam’s hijab as I have mentioned before.

This is a very good thing, because no matter how many grown ups like me who read Riordan’s book, his book was meant for children first. Now, imagine minority kids like Samirah and Blitz, or deaf kids like Hearth reading this book and they can relate to these characters. They will learned that no matter what race you are, what religion you believe in or what kind of disability you have, that kind of things doesn’t define you and you could grow up to be an awesome person who kick ass. That kind of things melt my cold dead heart. Thank you, Uncle Rick, thank you.

Another things that I like about this book is of course the wonderful humor. This is one of so many reason why I will always bought Uncle Rick books. His humor is always spot on. First, there are these amazing title chapters:

And if you notice on the last chapter title, Rick Riordan has managed to throw shades on one of his main character from his other book series. You think Jason Grace will be the only one who Riordan has succesfuly and gracefully thrown shades at? Nah, there’s also another characters, but I won’t tell you who. Shades aside, other jokes in this book is also wonderful. For example, my favorite:

If there’s ever a chance that Rick Riordan collaborating with Dan Brown and make a middle-grade Da Vinci’s Code-ish book series, you bet your ass I will throw my money at them.

In conclusion, this book is wonderful. The characters are great, the mythology aspect is as spot on as always, the humor is wonderful, the plot and mystery surrounding it is exciting. This is definitely a solid first book of a series, and I can’t wait to read Hammer of Thor, the second installment in this series, which comes out today!