The Serpent's Shadow

The final book in Rick Riordan's Kane Chronicles trilogy is The Serpent's Shadow, and this book, like the last, also takes place about three months after the close of the previous book.

Everything is finally coming to its climax in this book. All the scenes Riordan set up in the first two books come to a point where they need an answer, a solution, and fast, or everything else in the worlds of the mortals and of the gods will break apart and Chaos will reign.

First and foremost, the snake Apophis needs to be destroyed. Problem is, everyone agrees that destroying him will take an insane amount of skill; and even if someone were to get that skilled, the penalty would be death for them in the end anyways. Carter and Sadie's only hope is an old dead guy who is probably lying to them about another way, but what choice do they have?

Second, Sadie would insist that her love problems rank right up there with beating Apophis. Frankly, I find Riordan's solution to Sadie's problem to be cheating, but I guess if Sadie accepts it...

It wouldn't be fair to mention Sadie's love issues again without going back to Carter's. His situation seemed a lot more natural, and his love interest might actually be my favorite character in the entire series.

And of course, there's the entire little situation I forgot to mention before: Carter and Sadie and their entire group of trainees are sort of considered to be outcasts and even traitors to the main magicians in Egypt. Also, Carter and Sadie's uncle has been communing with the Chaos god Seth, which really doesn't help matters. At all.

So, allow me to reiterate: Everything that has been mentioned in the last two books works up to a boil in this book. It's now all or nothing.

Overall, I'd say this series is pretty good. Not great, but not bad. And I might just be saying that because Riordan tried to mush together his books with the Bible, and that's just not going to end well ever, I don't care how great an author you are.

Also, I think I mentioned this before, but I may as well say it again: the Egyptian gods are minutely less bratty and spoiled than the Greek gods. Bonus points go to the Egyptians for being more willing to listen to the input of humans.

So, yeah, pretty good series.