This review contains MAJOR spoilers.
It was a long wait for The House of Hades, fourth in The Heroes of Olympus, the sequel series to Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan. The third book, The Mark of Athena, left our heroes literally plunging to a fate worse than death, and it didn’t seem likely that a rescue was possible without death or the sacrifice of someone to that worse than death fate.
Given all that, I was pleasantly surprised by the comparatively happy ending of The House of Hades.
Frank’s and Jason’s characters are greatly built up in this latest novel, as is Percy’s. Riordan questions as he never has before the morality of the demigods’ way of life, killing to survive and drawing black-and-white battle lines, where all monsters are bad (Percy Jackson and the Olympians has previously questioned if all demigods are good). Tartarus’ description never failed to be appropriately terrifying and disgusting. Leo’s story is given a sharp plot twist, that I think has all of us cheering for him.
[The major spoilers begin here.] The big story around The House of Hades is likely to be Nico’s revealed sexual orientation. Riordan has said that Nico’s non-heterosexual orientation arose organically, that the character told him rather than Riordan telling Nico—and that’s as it should be; I’m pleased to hear it. Though I recognize that Rowling revealed Dumbledore’s sexual orientation because she was prompted by a fan’s question and because to do so showed her support for LGBT community and because it did not effect her plot, doing so did not effect the plot or explain any actions that otherwise seemed out-of-character (I would have believed—and do believe—that Dumbledore’s instinct would not have been to kill Grindelwald, even if he and Grindelwald had never loved one another, and I did not question why it took so long for Dumbledore to confront Grindelwald because it didn’t effect the present plotline). Revealing Nico’s sexual preference within the contexts of the plot, I am more open to hearing about it. It reveals more about Nico’s prickly hesitation to try to belong or to become close to anyone.
But Riordan did not continue (or has not yet continued) along the plot trail as far as I wanted him to do (for the sake of good storytelling not because it is pleasant).
I have a greater understanding of the term “head canon” than I perhaps ever had before. Nico’s distrust because of his sexual orientation and his fear that he will be rejected for it ought to be worse for him than for any other character who could reveal himself to be of a LGBT orientation because he is a child of World War II Europe. Had it been any other character with the exception of Hazel, they would have been children of the 1990s. Growing up and coming to realize that they were attracted to the same gendered characters, they might have feared bullying and social isolation, but in the 1930s and 1940s, had Nico not been whisked away to America and to the Lotus Hotel, he would have had to fear being dragged from his house and thrust into a crowded railcar. He’d have had to fear forced labor, unethical scientific experimentation, gas chambers…. And this is why Nico’s painful confession, dragged out of him against his will through taunting, necessity, magic, and a beating, hurt me so much.
In my head canon, Hades, being a god, knew and took Nico away from Europe and away from his half-brother, Adolf Hitler, because he couldn’t bear to have one son kill another and wanted to protect Nico—because Hades really has seemed to be a surprisingly compassionate and present parent.
Many people have also been lauding the burgeoning of new powers in Hazel and Piper, both sorcerous. While interested in the power to bend the Mist, I actually felt that very little was done with their characters this book. I think partially because Piper’s and Hazel’s new powers are of a similar vein, I had a difficult time keeping the two of them distinct from one another. Also, sorcery has often been viewed negatively in Greek mythology and within Percy Jackson and the Olympians and The Heroes of Olympus, and while I don’t think it is Riordan’s intention to any way create negative associations for Piper or Hazel, I worry that I could academically argue that he has done so by making them both sorceresses in the vein of Circe, Medea, Pasiphaë (all villains in both Riordan’s series and most of mythological stories), and even Hecate, a minor goddess who had previously sided with the Titans.
I’m also very interested in the revelation that Greek and Roman may not be determined by birth, that a side can be chosen. I think that that will have a major effect on the whole of the plot—and probably Jason ought to have revealed what he has learned about the definition of Greek and Roman to Reyna before they parted ways again so that she could reveal it to the Greeks and Romans in America—though I totally understand why he did not. How does one casually tell a friend that one has decided to disown one’s race to identify with another race with which one’s birth race is currently at war? Will deciding to identify as a child of Greece rather Rome affect Jason’s powers or personality? I think not.
Peppered with the usual Riordan humor and plenty of “Perceabeth” moments, this was a well-paced novel, still not as breakneck as The Percy Jackson series, but more quickly paced than The Mark of Athena.
****1/4
Riordan, Rick. The Heroes of Olympus, Book Four: The House of Hades. New York: Hyperion-Disney, 2013.
This review is not endorsed by Hyperion Books, Disney Book Group, or Rick Riordan. It is an independent, honest review by a reader.
Dragon Bite Books 