Title: Hotel Valhalla: Guide to the Norse Worlds
Author: Rick Riordan
Series: Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard Companion
Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!)
My Bookshelves: Easy reading, Norse mythology, Urban fantasy
Dates read: 17th – 18th May 2019
Pace: Slow
Format: Collection
Publisher: Puffin
Year: 2016
5th sentence, 74th page: Having his hand eaten by Fenris Wolf while the other gods bound the beast with the rope Gleipnir

Dear Magnus Chase,
Welcome to Hotel Valhalla!
We hope you enjoy your eternal stay with us in the afterlife.

This is a guide to the gods, mythical beings and fantastic creatures of the nine Norse worlds – now your fellow guests.

There are stats, interviews, stories and anecdotes to help you avoid those awkward first introductions and make sure you never confuse a dwarf and an elf ever again.

Your story is just beginning, Magnus Chase. We hope you find this guide an entertaining companion on your adventures.

Hotel Valhalla is a great way to fill in the gaps that the storylines of the Magnus Chase novels just can’t fill. After all, they’re stories which follow a specific storyline. This hotel guide on the other hand isn’t a story, but a way to constantly give a background that you really don’t know you need until you read this collection.

Written with the typical Riordan humour, Hotel Valhalla really brings some of the more distant characters of Norse mythology to life in a very satirical and dry way. It helps to pull you further and further into the storyline of the Magnus Chase world and, because of this, the moment I finished the last page I was sorely tempted to get out of my couch next and grab Magnus Chase and the Ship of the Dead. I didn’t because I had two dogs happily asleep on my lap, but believe me, it was a fight of temptation.

My main complaint about this book is that it wasn’t longer. I would have loved a lot more insight into the characters which make up this aspect of Riordan’s world. But it still worked beautifully…

Image source: BookDepository

Title: The Hammer of Thor
Author: Rick Riordan
Series: Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard #2
Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!)
My Bookshelves: Easy reading, Norse mythology, Urban fantasy
Dates read: 12th April – 16th May 2019
Pace: Slow
Format: Novel
Publisher: Puffin
Year: 2016
5th sentence, 74th page: The nightly numbers ranged from zero to twelve.

My name is Magnus Chase. Two months ago I died fighting a fire giant and woke up in Hotel Valhalla as one of Odin’s warriors. Time of a rest? I wish.

When I meet Otis, an informant with a lead on Thor’s missing hammer, all I get is the name ‘Provincetown’ before a wolf-masked assassin takes him out and warns me to stay away.

Someone really doesn’t want me to find the hammer, and even if I could it’s rumoured to be underground, guarded by powerful magic.

But the giant armies are on the move, preparing to invade. If I don’t find it, they’ll ravage the Nine Worlds, starting with the streets of Boston.

There’s just one person who could help. Someone who demands a very high price: the gods’ worst enemy, Loki.

It took me forever to pick this up after finishing Magnus Chase and the Sword of Summer. And now that I’ve finished this… I’m really not sure why. Or why it took me so long to get through the first half of this book. This tale has everything that I loved in the Percy Jackson books, but with Vikings. Which, as much as I love Greek mythology, there is something about Vikings and the Norse mythos that is… better.

For the first part of this book, I kept on thinking of Thor like he is in the Marvel movies… gorgeous, powerful and just plain “good”. The Thor in this story is nothing like that. Actually, he’s kind of a bumbling moron. And he farts a lot. And you know, he’s the reason that the whole mess in this story even happens. Because he’s a moron. Which adds a great level of humour throughout the whole novel. One that makes me grateful for Riordan’s writings. And makes me think that I need to keep adding some of his books (the few I don’t have) to my bookshelves.

There are hints from the very beginning of this tale that it isn’t all about Thor’s hammer. But, since I was so caught up in the action and what was happening to Magnus and his friends, I didn’t really pick up on them. It was only in hindsight that I managed to understand all the little clues that Riordan was sliding out for my slow little brain to grasp. Which is kind of great in a book that is aimed at a younger cohort. It makes me excited to reread this book at some point in the future. Read and reread and reread over the years to come, being able to find other “duh” moments throughout this story.

I was so impressed with Riordan’s use of a Muslim lead character in Magnus Chase and the Sword of Summer. I was even more head over heels in love, completely impressed, making this man my idol when I realised that he has a trans-person as a secondary lead in this story. Talk about helping to raise a generation on acceptance and love. Alex is feisty and fun, if not a little angry and damaged at times. Also a little too obsessed with taking off people’s heads with a wire… but I digress. Having two people from minorities that are being ostracised today means that I can’t wait until they feature even more strongly in the next Magnus Chase story! Now where did I put that book…??

Image source: Amazon