The Serpent's Shadow: A Fun Conclusion To The Kane Chronicles

I’ve been a bit busy and hadn’t had much time to read lately. So it took me a good while before I could get the third book in the Rick Riordan Kane Chronicles Trilogy. This one is called The Serpent’s Shadow.

So what is it about? Well first of all, the Kane Chronicles does the same with Egyptian mythology that Percy Jackson does with Greek mythology. It blends the Egyptian gods and magic with modern day world. The books leading up to this focused on two siblings Carter and Sadie Kane who have pharaoh’s blood and therefore can channel the powers of the gods of Horus and Isis. In the first book trouble came with the god Set and the threat of Apophis who intends to swallow the sun ( he is a great snake.) In the second book, Sadie and Carter find Ra to stop this, only to find out he is insane and has no clue of what is happening. And book three, this book, picks up from there.

The book starts only days away from the apocalypse. Sadie and Carter are desperately searching for a way to kill the giant snake. Their followers (Sadie and Carter run a school for magicians as well as have followers throughout world since the red pyramid incident) are being attacked by both Apophsis’ demons as well as a number of rebels who believe that Sadie and Carter are corrupted by the gods sending them all to chaos. Not only that, they have not the slightest idea of what do with Ra as he cannot face the snake in his current condition. Then there is a shadow spell they could try on the monster that might could maybe sort of work. And their good friend Walt is cursed, (He is the only one who knows shadow spells), but is going to die in two days. So with nowhere else to turn, they venture out to find the great snakes shadow hoping it will work.

The good? The characters are fun. I love both Carter and Snake. And I really did care about them because they are just so likable. Also the battle scene at the end was pretty darn amazing. The ending tied up well and I felt it didn’t leave the reader hanging like the Percy Jackson series did to some extent.

The bad? The mythology for the novels is very convoluted. It was a good while sense. I read the first two so. It took some time to understand how everything works. But of course the convoluted mythology has been a problem with these books since the beginning. So if you completely loved Red Pyramid and Throne of Fire, then that won’t be a problem. Another thing I would mention this is remarkably similar to Riordan other novels for young adults following the same beats. Not so much of a complaint I would say, but I just worked my way through Percy Jackson series and now the Kane Chronicles. It just is becoming a bit old hat. I like it, but I just found it hard to finish because Riordan is doing nothing new here. It is just too similar to what he has done before.

Overall. It’s a fine book and a grand conclusion to the Kane Chronicles. I recommend it to anyone who is a fan of the series. For the rest of us, I would recommend to start at book one (Red Pyramid) rather than diving in at the end here. You would be very confused with what the world offers. Other that that though, it’s great.

3 smoothies out of four

Overall Rating : A Fun Conclusion To The Kane Chronicles