Ursu, Anne. 2009. The Immortal Fire. Simon and Schuster. 510 pages.
Phil is back, and he's got his sights on the Big Guy--Zeus, himself. The Immortal Fire is the third book in Anne Ursu's Cronus Chronicles. (The first being, The Shadow Thieves, and the second being, The Siren Song. In the first one, Phil has set his sights on Hades; in the second, he has set his sights on Poseidon.) In each novel, we've got two heroes: Charlotte and her British cousin Zachary (or "Zee" or "Zero") who are thrown into the action and adventure. Phil really, really comes to hate them--especially Charlotte.
At the cradle of civilization, close to the belly button of the world, there is a sea like no other on Earth.
The world needs Charlotte and Zee. Desperately. Since Poseidon lost his battle with Phil--lost his trident--the sea and all its creatures (monsters) have unleashed chaos on the mortal world. Phil loves it. Seeing all these "freakish" acts of "nature" destroy humanity and civilization. Only Charlotte and Zee know the real truth. And with a little help from their former teacher, Mr. Metos, these two want to help restore the world to order, to stop Phil's evil plan--of course they don't know what his plan is exactly--but they know him, and they know he's up to something! But this is their biggest challenge--most dangerous adventure--yet. To save the world might require the biggest sacrifice of all.
What did I like about this one? More gods and goddesses than ever before. I liked getting to know these new characters. And it was great to see one character return and play a big role in this one.
I also enjoyed the humor and style of this one. (It was very similar to the first two in that way. Conversational. Light. Fun.)
While I enjoyed this one, I had some problems with the pacing. But overall, I enjoyed it.
For much of the last year, Charlotte felt like she had been living in a book--one of those where ordinary kids are unwittingly plunged into an extraordinary world where they must struggle against unimaginable evil to save the world, not to mention themselves, except usually in those books the kids discovered they had super-special top secret powers perfectly suited to thwart that particular evil. Or at the very least the kids had been Chosen somehow, they're fated to save the world. Charlotte had no powers of any kind and was not fated to do anything except, perhaps, get a C in math. (190)
© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
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