A New Series from Rick Riordan: The Trials of Apollo

Things get even harsher when two thugs show up and attack him. An unlikely savior comes to his aid—a street-savvy girl named Meg, who has a preternatural ability to use rotten fruit to her advantage. Almost certainly she is a demigod herself, and, having saved Apollo, he is now bound to her service for a year. But he realizes that hanging around Manhattan isn’t a great idea. A defenseless god is easy prey in the city that never sleeps (even with someone like Meg on his side). So Apollo and Meg set off to find the one possible person in the city who might help them reach the safety of Camp Half-Blood, where Apollo plans to wait out the days until Zeus restores him and he’s free from this mortal coil (and Meg). That person is Percy Jackson, except Percy really does not want to be dragged into another conflict. For one thing, Annabeth would be annoyed…
But Percy does agree to give Apollo and Meg a ride. And almost immediately, it becomes clear that things have once again gone off kilter. Poor Percy gets more adventure than he’d wanted, even on that little road trip.
Once Apollo arrives, it becomes clear that Camp Half-Blood itself has fallen on hard times. The Oracle of Delphi has gone silent, and with no prophecies, there’s no direction to shape the paths of the few young demigods in residence. No other known oracle is working either. Communication with the Roman camp has been cut off. To make morale even worse, campers are disappearing, drawn into the woods surrounding the camp and not returning…
Of course, Apollo isn’t going to get a chance to just sit back and and enjoy marshmallow roasts and sing-alongs with the other campers until Zeus restores him. Clearly he has a job to do—he was the one responsible for Oracle of Delphi in the first place, and he’s the only god around—albeit one with a faulty memory and a distinct lack of full godly powers. So Apollo and Meg set off to find the fifth oracle, the oldest and most secret of them all…and discover, in the process, that they are up against a surprising new enemy; one who’s been planning the downfall of the Olympians for millennia, and who is a convincingly powerful combination of divine power and worldly wealth and connections. They also find plenty of monstrous adversaries and unexpected allies, in true Rick Riordan style.
Apollo, in his forced entrapment in a human body, is forced to confront not just external threats but hard truths about himself. He starts the book as an insufferable egotist, utterly unlikeable, but by the end he has a much clearer appreciation of his strengths and weaknesses, and is able to accept responsibility for his mistakes. He’s also able to appreciate Meg, prickly as she is, as an ally and true friend, and by the end of the book the reader can, too.
There is so much here to enjoy. I hadn’t expected to have the chance to spend such a nice long time at Camp Half-Blood, and even though it is off-season, with fewer campers, it was lovely to see it again (there’s a map included in the book to make it even more real!) and it’s especially fun to spend time with old friends. (Will and Nico, for instance, are both in residence). Though a large part of the book is the internal workings of Apollo’s mind, with lots of pats on the back for his own wonderfulness, there’s still plenty of action and adventure, building to a full on battle at the end which will delight fans of Riordan’s knack for writing edge-of-your-seat fight scenes. There are also plenty of mechanical things going boom from the Hephaestus kids, musical manipulation and hotshot archery from Apollo and his gang, and plain old fierceness from the Ares cabin. The Hidden Oracle is funny, too, with lots of zingy one-liners sprinkled throughout (my own personal favorite—“The trees were using their inside voices.”)
I can’t wait for the next four books!
The Hidden Oracle is in stores today.