#1: Rick Riordan, The Ship of the Dead (Magnus Chase #3)

[kareila]

When we last saw the Norse crew, Loki had just been freed from his bonds to escape to the frozen seas of the North and get to work on starting Ragnarok. Obviously the good guys want to stop him, but Magnus doesn't know anything about sailing and one of the sea gods is pissed at him, so in the first few pages, we see Percy Jackson trying to help Magnus learn some basic seafaring skills. Percy doesn't hang around for long, though, since he's also helping out with the Trials of Apollo and even demigods can't be in two places at once.

We don't meet any new heroes on this quest, but we do get to spend more time with Magnus' other Valhalla friends, Mallory, TJ, and Halfborn, who were entirely absent from the second book and get some sorely needed development here. There are many clever confrontations, culminating in... not a dance fight, but perhaps the second most ludicrous possible climax, a duel of cutting words.

Riordan seems to prefer working in series of five, but at the end of this book, there aren't many loose ends left, so I don't know if he plans on writing more adventures for Magnus Chase and his friends in the near future. I certainly hope he does, though. They're a very entertaining group.