Thor’s Serpents by K.L. Armstrong & M.A. Marr

Series: The Blackwell Pages (bk. 2)

Genera(s): Paranormal/Fantasy/Adventure

Subjects: gods, magic, mythology, Norse mythology, supernatural, werewolves

Setting: South Dakota

POV/Tense: 3rd person POV, past tense, rotating between Matt, Fen, Laurie and Owen

Age/Grade Level: Middle Grade, 11+

Length: 361 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $17.00

Publisher: Hachette: Little, Brown

Summary/ product description: “For fans of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the thrilling conclusion to The Blackwell Pages, written by New York Times bestselling YA authors, K.L. Armstrong and M.A. Marr.

Thirteen-year-olds Matt, Laurie, and Fen have beaten near-impossible odds to assemble their fellow descendants of the Norse Gods and complete epic quests. Their biggest challenge lies ahead: battling the fierce monsters working to bring about the apocalypse.

But when they learn that Matt must fight the Midgard Serpent alone and Fen and Laurie are pulled in other directions, the friends realize they can't take every step of this journey together. Matt, Laurie, and Fen will each have to fight their own battles to survive, to be true to themselves, and to one another - with nothing less than the fate of the world hanging in the balance.”

My Review:  Thor’s Serpents is the finale to the Blackwell Pages by Kelley Armstrong and Melissa Marr. It’s pretty epic and great for fans of Rick Riordan’s books. It’s may be a Middle Grade series, but it can be enjoyed by all ages. The main characters are 12, 13 or 14 years-old. The writing is clean, and written from the 3^rd person perspective. There’s lots of magic, mayhem and monsters. It’s fun and exciting.

Ragnarok is coming and Matt, Fen and Laurie have no idea how to stop it. It’s their fate as the god’s champions, but they want to stop it. Fen’s trapped with being the alpha of the Raiders wolf pack. Laurie is Loki’s Champion, and Matt is Thor’s. The power goes out in Rapid City and Mara descend on its citizens. Flaming giants attack in Mitchell, and another rooster crows. Stuff’s going down.

The characters are interesting and unique from each other. Since it’s 3^rd person, we don’t get much incite into them, but we know Matt’s an athlete/geek, Fen’s a troublemaker, and Laurie’s smart. The character that I found the most interesting in personality was Reyna. She’s hilarious and her and Matt like each other. She’s acts all tough and sassy. Baldwin’s also cool. He also apparently watches Myth Busters, which I found awesome. Owen’s strange, but he’s got an eye patch. 

The best part of this book was that it’s was set in South Dakota. Most of the places mentioned I’ve been too or past. I never heard of the Journey Museum, or been in the Corn Palace, but I’m very familiar with the Badlands. I’ve been there three times (twice in one trip). I’ve been to Rapid city and the Black Hills (camped in Custer State Park). I’ve been to Deadwood, Mt. Rushmore, and Reptile Gardens. This series is set in summertime and it showcases tourist attractions as setting. Blackwell may not be a real town, but more other places mentioned are real. The authors must have vacationed there and decided to set the series there.

If you’re a fan of mythology, Rick Riordan’s book or the Thor Marvel movies, then check out this series. It’s great for middle schoolers, maybe 5^th graders too. Don’t feel ashamed if you’re a high schooler, collage student or adult. Read this series and enjoy it!

Cover Art Review: Lovely illustrations from a skilled artist. I think it’s a digital painting.

Odin’s Ravens by K.L. Armstrong & M.A. Marr

Series: The Blackwell Pages (bk. 2)

Genera(s): Paranormal/Fantasy/Adventure

Subjects: gods, magic, mythology, Norse mythology, supernatural, werewolves

Setting: The underworld (Hel) and the Black Hills of South Dakota

POV/Tense: 3^rd person POV, past tense, rotating between Matt, Fen, Laurie and Owen

Age/Grade Level: Middle Grade, 11+

Length: 342 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $17.00

Publisher: Hachette: Little, Brown

Summary/ product description: “Seven kids, Thor's hammer, and a whole lot of Valkyries are the only things standing against the end of the world.

When thirteen-year-old Matt Thorsen, a modern day descendant of the Norse god Thor, was chosen to represent Thor in an epic battle to prevent the apocalypse he thought he knew how things would play out. Gather the descendants standing in for gods like Loki and Odin, defeat a giant serpent, and save the world. No problem, right?

But the descendants' journey grinds to a halt when their friend and descendant Baldwin is poisoned and killed and Matt, Fen, and Laurie must travel to the Underworld in the hopes of saving him. But that's only their first stop on their journey to reunite the challengers, find Thor's hammer, and stop the apocalypse--a journey filled with enough tooth-and-nail battles and larger-than-life monsters to make Matt a legend in his own right.

Authors K.L. Armstrong and M.A. Marr return to Blackwell in the epic sequel to Loki's Wolves with more explosive action, adventure and larger-than-life Norse legends.”

My Review:  Odin’s Ravens is an interesting sequel to one of the few middle grade books I’ve read since becoming an adult. I usually read only YA books, but like the Percy Jackson series, The Blackwell Pages has appeal that all ages will enjoy. I only know four other books or series with Norse mythology, and loved how it was used throughout the book. It’s not copying Percy Jackson. It has humor and mythology like Rick Riodan’s books, and descendants of the goods, but this series is about Ragnarok, the end of the world and an eternal winter.

The characters don’t have a lot of depth to them, or maybe it’s just that it’s 3^rd person POV. Matt is kind of a nerd, but he wrestles in school and is Thor’s champion and descendant. Fen and Laurie are descendants of Loki. Fen is very protective of his cousin Laurie, and he can turn into a wolf. Laurie can open portals. She also smart and likes that guy named Owen who’s the descendant of Odin and can see the future. The most humorous character is Baldwin, descendant of Balder. He died in Loki’s Wolves and is in Hel. Baldwin’s like to joke and he’s not smart, but everyone likes him. Ray and Rayna don’t appear again till later in the book, and they like to dress goth-style. All the characters seem to be around age 13.

As a fan of Thor and the Avengers movies, I kind of kept on picturing the actors from the movies. Sadly, there are no gods in this book, except Helen who rules over Hel. Instead, the characters represent the god and are supposed to play out the myth at Ragnarok. Matt’s abilities are growing. He has a Hammer punch and can control ice and lightning. He’s becoming the new Thor. All he has to do is retrieve the Hammer, Mjolnir.

There’s adventure and action. There’s illustrations to backup the story. It’s really fun and there’s some hilarious scenes. There are giants, Valkyries, zombies, magic goats, and crows. There’s eve a bison stampede, which I can relate to. We actually got stuck in a bison herd traffic jam in Custer State Park when we camped in South Dakota. We don’t get as many places in South Dakota as the previous book. I never visited the host spring water park mentioned in the book. I enjoyed it all the same.

I’m not sure if this is a trilogy, but the next book is Thor’s Serpents. I can’t wait to see how it all plays out. Kelley Armstrong and Melissa Marr make a great team. I’m not a fan of Melissa’s Wicked Lovely books, but I love Kelley’s Darkest Powers series. Kelley writes Matt’s POV and Melissa writes Fen and Lauries’s POV. I notice Melissa over uses the word “sorts” and Kelley never used it at all, so they do write a bit differently. I recommend this series to fans of Rick Riodan and other MG and YA mythology related books.

Cover Art Review: I love the digitally painted illustration on the cover and inside the book. They are amazingly well done. The cover is colorful. The other illustrations are very graphic novel/comic book like.

The Severed Tower by J. Barton Mitchell

Series: The Conquered Earth Trilogy (bk. 2)

Genera(s): Dystopian Sci-fi/Fantasy

Subjects: survival, adventure, post-apocalyptic, aliens

Setting: Near-future, along the Missouri River and in the Strange Lands, in South Dakota near the Black Hills, and North Dakota

POV/Tense: 3^rd person POV from Mira, Holt, Zoey and various other POVs.

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 388 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $18.99

Publisher: Macmillan: St. Martin’s Griffin

Summary/ product description: “Holt, Mira, and Max have fled Midnight City with Zoey after watching her repel an entire Assembly army. Zoey's powers are unlocked, but who and what she is remains a mystery. All she knows is that she must reach the Severed Tower, an infamous location in the middle of the world's most dangerous landscape: The Strange Lands, a place where the laws of physics have completely broken down. But the closer they get to the Tower, the more precarious things become. The Assembly has pursued Zoey into the Strange Lands. Among them is a new group, their walkers and machines strangely bereft of any color, stripped to bare metal, and whose agenda seems to differ from the rest. To make matters worse, the group hunting Holt are here, too, led by a dangerous and beautiful pirate named Ravan. So is Mira's first love, Benjamin Aubertine, whose singular ambition to reach the Tower threatens to get them all killed.

Then there's the Strange Lands themselves. They have inexplicably begun to grow, spreading outwards, becoming more powerful. Somehow, it all seems tied to Zoey herself, and the closer she gets to the Tower, the weaker she becomes.”

My Review: As a sequel, this book wasn’t as exciting as I hoped. I wanted to like it, but it was just okay, and sometimes not that engaging. The book is full of interesting things, but the writing style itself is not that easy to read. The typography is so small that it’s hard not to skim the book. I really wish I could read them as an e-book instead, but then I read the e-novella Winterbay and I still didn’t enjoy it that much. 3^rd person POV with to many perspectives is not my thing.

I do like the world building. It’s unique. It’s not the Alien stuff I expected, but it’s cool. I read the first book last year and felt the same way. It’s a lot more paranormal than sci-fi, but there are some scientific theories behind why the Strange Land exist. The aliens them selves are kind of like War of the Worlds tripod, and Transformers. I think the aliens are a race of energy beings that can take over machines and they have robot bodies. It’s an odd idea. The idea of artifacts that have properties like they’re magic or something is pretty odd in a sci-fi series too.

The characters aren’t that bad. I still wish it was in first person POV. Mira’s pretty unique and she’s a freebooter and knows how to use artifacts and make combinations. It’s kind of like being a witch, but she doesn’t have any powers. Holt seems tough, but also loyal and cares for others. Zoey is sweet and too smart for her age and she has powers. Max is a dog, and Zoey calls him The Max. Ben is like a psychopath with no guilt or strong feelings, but he a math genius and sees the world analytically and mathematically. Ravan was always acting tough and still liked Holt. We also got to meet the White Helixes, who are kind of like ninjas/samaris that live in the Strange Lands.

There’s definitely a lot of adventure. It’s kind of like a video game, travel through the Strange Lands. There’re different rings, which are like level. There’s different Anomalies in each ring, but now apparently these anomalies are not where they’re supposed to be. All kinds of weird weather that effects people on a molecular level and dark matter and all kind of things that can disintegrate you with contact. It reminded me of Under The Never Sky with the aether storms.

The Strange Lands are in South Dakota, North Dakota and Montana, supposedly 200 sq miles. One place mentioned in the book is an Air Force base in South Dakota. I’ve been to SD twice, and on my 2008 trip I visited Ellison Air Force Base and it’s museum. We even got to see inside the decommissioned missile silo that is mentioned in the book. Apparently there was dark matter there because there used to be radiation there before the Strange Lands were created. It was a cool museum, and it’s great that the book mentioned it.

The ending of this book was probably more interesting than most of the book. I liked the parts of the story told from Zoey perspective. She’s only 9, but she’s pretty smart. She has abilities and apparently came from the Strange Lands, and the Tower affected her. We get to learn more about what she is. The third book, Valley of Fires, could be really interesting. I’m hoping this series could end in epic proportions and make up for the fact that the first two books I mostly skimmed. When interesting stuff happened, I had no trouble reading it. I’ll see this series through till the end.

I recommend this series if you liked; Under The Never Sky by Veronica Rossi, Icons by Margaret Stohl, These Broken Stars, The 5^th Wave, and Defiance by C.J. Redwine.

Cover Art Review: I like the landscape and silhouettes and the type and helix symbol. It’s a very dystopian-esq cover.