Jayson’s Reviews > The Ship of the Dead > Status Update

So, there's this kiss that happens. I know it's supposed to be a big deal, but I don't really care. Nothing's making me root for these two to get together, and there's been a glaring absence of boy-girl relationship drama in this series. Too much and the book can get cloying, yes, but you need drama if you're going to pay it off this way. Perhaps if characters had deeper personalities this could work, but they don't.

One thing that sticks out about this series is how emotional the characters are... well, the male characters at least: Alex and Samirah seem invariably in control and unflappable. Magnus, on the other hand, always goes on about how he feels like crying and how emotional things make him. Ditto for Blitzen and Hearthstone. All the time I'm thinking, Percy was never like this. It all feels, I don't know, very un-Viking.

A few things:
(1) Alex: She just glared at me. "You would know what I’m doing if you’d taken Pottery 101 in Valhalla with me like I asked you."
Magnus: "I—I had a scheduling conflict."
- Sounds a lot like Alex asked Magnus on a date and he desperately proffered some lame excuse to wriggle out of it.
(2) Alex, when female, gets pretty flirty with Magnus.
(3) Not even 200 pages in, and already a second Trump reference.

A few things:
(1) Nothing against Boston, but I'm glad the series has moved past it. Not that I find American colonial architecture, landmarks, and local history boring, though I do, but one of the hallmarks of a Riordan series is the educational travelogue aspect. I welcome its return.
(2) Magnus witnesses past events in dreams now? Not just meeting gods and seeing the present? How very Dumbledore's Pensieve of him.

Thoughts:
(1) “‘The mead thief.’ That sounded like the title of a really bad novel to me.”
- Nice "The Lightning Thief" reference.
(2) Judging by the publication date, I'm guessing this book was written during the 2016 US election campaign. Benign as it is, I could do without the Trump reference.
(3) Halfborn and Mallory have a breakup, which might have been interesting if they'd been a couple for more than a second.

Magnus insists he's an atheist. I'm not sure he understands what that means. He's the son of a deity! He questions whether there's an afterlife, yet he lives in one. His friend does rune magic, so he can't be a scientific skeptic. I guess he subscribes to Samirah's belief that Norse gods are merely supernatural beings subaltern to the God of Abrahamic scriptures. But even that belief presupposes the existence of God.

I've been slow to start, but what little I've read has me thinking this will be the best of the series. It reminds me of "The Last Olympian," which likewise broke with formula to start with a surprising pairing in an action scene before the protagonist's called to immediate adventure. There it was Percy on a date with Rachel driving a sports car on the beach. Here it's Percy giving Magnus diving lessons on a warship.

Having Percy and Annabeth in this book is a double-edged sword. On one hand, I love that it doubles down on there being a shared book universe. Also, such familiar and fleshed-out characters are always welcome and a joy to revisit. On the other hand, it really exposes how bereft of personality the current crop of characters are. Magnus and Alex are blank slates comparatively. The contrast is actually quite startling.

A few things:
(1) Owing to his haircut in the last book, Magnus looks less the spitting image of Kurt Cobain on the cover art, and more so akin to Justin Bieber.
(2) Not really a spoiler, but the last book ended with Samirah saying that she'll retire as a Valkyrie after one last mission. That has me worried (no spoilers please) because it's such a cliché line for cops to say before they're killed in the line of duty.