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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Rick Riordan
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June 4 - June 9, 2025
Good Morning! You’re Going to Die
My name is Magnus Chase. I’m sixteen years old. This is the story of how my life went downhill after I got myself killed.
“You missed a pedestrian,” I said. “You want to go back and hit her?”
“The statue of Leif Erikson…Does that mean the Vikings—er, the Norse—discovered Boston? I thought the Pilgrims did that.” “I could give you a three-hour lecture on that topic alone.” “Please don’t.” “Suffice it to say, the Norse explored North America and even built settlements around the year 1000, almost five hundred years before Christopher Columbus. Scholars agree on that.” “That’s a relief. I hate it when scholars disagree.”
Randolph gave me a sort of a pitying look. “Myths are simply stories about truths we’ve forgotten.”
“YOU CAN’T DROP a bombshell like that and walk away!” I yelled as Randolph walked away.
“Yo!” I caught the sleeve of his cashmere coat. “Rewind to the part about a Norse god being my pappy.”
Make Way for Ducklings, or They Will Smack You Upside the Head I’D SEEN SOME WEIRD STUFF IN MY LIFE. I once watched a crowd of people wearing nothing but Speedos and Santa hats jog down Boylston in the middle of winter. I met a guy who could play the harmonica with his nose, a drum set with his feet, a guitar with his hands, and a xylophone with his butt all at the same time. I knew a woman who’d adopted a grocery cart and named it Clarence. Then there was the dude who claimed to be from Alpha Centauri and had philosophical conversations with Canada geese. So a well-dressed Satanic male model
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“Cool down, man. I have a corroded piece of metal and I’m not afraid to use it.”
Weakly, I raised my free hand. I flipped him a gesture that he wouldn’t need to know sign language to understand.
Stupid magical hotel wouldn’t even allow me to properly vandalize things.
WHEN SOMEONE SAYS, It’s the Squirrel, you don’t ask questions. You run. The barking alone was enough to scare the mead out of me.
“Squirrel,” T.J. explained. Halfborn’s shaggy eyebrows achieved orbit. “Squirrel as in squirrel squirrel?” “Squirrel squirrel,” Mallory agreed. “And I’m surrounded by moron morons.”
Die painfully. Go to Valhalla. Gain the ability to drag rancid, colossal severed heads across a dock. Hooray.
My Years of Playing Bassmasters 2000 Really Pay Off
I’d seen some strange things recently, but an eagle eating an apple atop the poopy head of Art was definitely in the top twenty.
He will cheat. Hearth made a sign like a hook swinging into a latch. Spite. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll keep Blitz safe.” Still not enough. Hearth peered at Sam. Only way to win—mess with Junior. When I told Sam what he’d signed, she turned as gray as a dwarf in sunlight. “No.” She wagged her finger at Hearth. “No, absolutely not. I told you.” Blitz will die, Hearth signed. You did it before. “What’s he talking about?” I asked. “What did you do before?” She got to her feet. The tension in the room was suddenly at DEFCON Two.
“So, in the first round,” Nabbi summed up, “we have an expandable duck versus a useless metal cylinder. Our contestants are running very close indeed.
Junior huffed. “The point is, this rope is even better! I call it Andskoti, the Adversary. It is woven with the most powerful paradoxes in the Nine Worlds—Wi-Fi with no lag, a politician’s sincerity, a printer that prints, healthy deep-fried food, and an interesting grammar lecture!” “Okay, yeah,” I admitted. “Those things don’t exist.”
Hearth signed, Is it talking? I don’t read sword lips. “What is he saying?” Jack asked. “I don’t read elf hands.”
Hearthstone Passes Out Even More than Jason Grace (Though I Have No Idea Who That Is)
“See that house?” Jack said. “Let’s not go there.”
“This is the help you found?” Marvin fixed his yellow eyes on me. “Two scrawny humans and a dead elf?” “He’s not dead!” I yelled. “Where is Thor?”
I COULDN’T HELP IT. When I heard the name Thor, I thought about the guy from the movies and comics—a big superhero from outer space, with bright Spandex tights, a red cape, goldilocks hair, and maybe a helmet with fluffy little dove wings. In real life, Thor was scarier. And redder. And grungier. Also, he could cuss like a drunken, creative sailor. “Mother-grubbing scum bucket!” he yelled. (Or something along those lines. My brain may have filtered the actual language, as it would’ve made my ears bleed.) “Where is my backup?”
Everything the thunder god did, he did with gusto. He loved cooking his goats. He loved eating and drinking mead. He loved telling stories. And he loved farting. Boy, did he love farting. When he got excited, sparks of electricity flew from his hands, his ears, and…well, I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.
“Exactly!” said Jack, humming with excitement. “Let’s do it, whatever it is!” I had a sudden desire to hide behind the goat carcasses. Anything the god of thunder and the Sword of Summer agreed on, I didn’t want to be part of.
THERE’S NEVER A GREAT TIME for Daddy Giant to come home. But when you’re sitting in his dining room with your leg broken, the corpses of two of his daughters sprawled nearby…that’s an especially bad time. Sam and I stared at each other as the giant’s footsteps echoed louder and louder in the next chamber.
Sam pinched her nose. “You’ve had an emergency parachute this entire time?” “Don’t be silly,” Blitzen said. “Dwarves always carry emergency parachutes. Don’t you?”
A Lovely Homicidal Sunset Cruise
We Are Subjected to the PowerPoint of Doom
