''The Kane Chronicles'' is a fictional trilogy by Rick Riordan about adventures undertaken by Carter and Sadie Kane, the two main characters, for their quest to awaken the Pharaoh of the gods. It is set in the modern United States, in the same sort of universe as ''Percy Jackson and the Olympians'' and ''The Heroes of Olympus''. The books are predominantly based on Egyptian mythology. The first book was released on May 4, 2010. The second book followed on May 3, 2011. The third book is tentatively scheduled for release in May 2012.

The protagonists are Carter and Sadie Kane who discover that they are descendants of two Pharaohs, Narmer and Ramesses the Great. They learn that the legendary beings of Egyptian mythology still exist and have always existed, including shabti, Egyptian magicians, the House of Life, otherwise known as the ''Per Ankh'', and the Egyptian gods and goddesses. Rick Riordan explained where the idea came from in an interview:

“In my classroom, there was only one thing that was more popular than Ancient Greece, and that was Ancient Egypt,” said Riordan, who taught middle-school Social Studies and English for 15 years. “This was a matter of listening to a lot of fans, and a lot of young readers.”

Novels

The Red Pyramid

''The Red Pyramid'' is the first book in the series and was released on May 4, 2010. The book is written as an audio recording made by the Kane siblings. The story begins with Carter and his father arriving in England on Christmas Eve for Visitation day with Sadie, who lives with her maternal grandparents in London. Julius, their father, has custody of Carter and takes him on his travels as an archaeologist. Their mother is dead, and their grandparents think that it's their father's fault, but Sadie and Carter do not know what happened. Their father refuses to tell them. Their father releases the Ancient Egyptian gods Set, Osiris, Isis, Horus,and Nephthys, but got trapped and captured by Set. They believe that restoring the gods and goddesses is the only way to save the world when Apophis, a giant snake and the gods' main enemy, breaks out of his prison and destroys the world, despite the fact that hosting and unleashing gods meant a death sentence in the House of Life.

Set wants to rule over the modern world and turn it into desert. Sadie and Carter, the strongest magicians born of all time, must find a way to defeat him before it is too late. Carter hosts the god Horus, (which makes him supposedly destined to rule the gods). Sadie hosts the goddess Isis. Amos is hosting Set unwillingly, and Julius Kane is hosting the god Osiris. Soon, they go on a daring journey with their chaperone and friend, the cat goddess Bast. It turns out that their mother was hosting Isis, and Bast was in Apophis's prison, fighting Apophis. Bast was losing the fight, and the prison was weakening, so their mother freed Bast and re-sealed the prison, using so much magic that she burned up. Along the way, they meet Zia Rashid, a fire elementalist in the House of Life, but chooses to rebel with Sadie and Carter, who Carter immediately takes a liking to. Also, the two siblings learn the true secrets of their family history.

Eventually, Carter and Sadie meet Set and fight him together with the powers of Horus and Isis. Carter and Horus fight using a super-powerful combat avatar and Sadie uses the power of Isis, a goddess of magic, to create a portal even though it's during the Demon Days. The portal teleports the pyramid and everything directly around it to Washington, D.C. Set is stopped from destroying the world, but Sadie does not complete the ritual that will completely destroy Set because she realized that the actual perpetrator of the Chaotic events was the serpent Apophis, not Set. Aphophis intended to use the pyramid's Chaos power to make his way into the mortal world.

Sadie and Carter witness Zia die, but it turns out that "Zia" was a shabti, a magic statue, made to protect the actual Zia, who was hosting Isis's sister, Nephthys. The siblings go back to their Brooklyn mansion hauling a sick Amos. They receive an amulet from their father, who has now merged with Osiris and is living in the Underworld. They lock the amulet in a locker of a school which Sadie saw in a dream. This is the item which is stored in the locker that Carter mentioned in the beginning. Carter is tempted to wear his amulet, which gave him the power of Horus, but he locks his and Sadie's up so they do not wear and consume the power of the gods all over again. The book ends with Carter cautioning anyone who finds the locker with Osiris's amulet in it to be careful and come to Brooklyn for training.

The Throne of Fire

Ever since the gods of Ancient Egypt were unleashed in the modern world, Carter Kane and his sister Sadie have been in trouble. As descendants of the House of Life, the Kanes have some powers at their command, but the devious gods have not given them much time to master their skills at Brooklyn House, which has become a training ground for young magicians. The other branches of the House of Life are hunting him down once they left the safety of their branch, the Brooklyn House. And now their most threatening enemy yet—the chaos snake Apophis—is rising. If they do not prevent him from breaking free in a few days' time, the world will come to an end.

The story begins with Carter and Sadie breaking in to the Brooklyn Museum during a wedding to search for the Book of Ra, which will allow them to speak with Ra to help them imprison or kill Apophis, the lord of chaos. Along with them are Khufu the baboon, and their new trainees, Jaz and Walt. Instead, they find a papyrus scroll that is booby trapped with a series of fire traps. As Carter and Walt distract the demons that are apart of the booby trap, Jaz perform a spell that banishes the demons back to the Duat, but Jaz ends up falling into a coma. Before she does, she manages to hand Sadie a wax statue to heal Carter.

Carter escapes from the museum with the griffin before the police arrive. When they arrive back in the mansion, Carter explains to the new trainees that they must find Ra, the sun god, before Apophis wakes in four days and swallows the sun as well as all of existence. They also find out that to do this, they must find the three scrolls that control the embodiments of Ra, one of them being the scroll that Sadie found in the museum. However, new enemies await, such as Vladimir (Menshikov) who serves Apophis and holds one of the key scrolls in freeing Ra.

Sadie returns to London to celebrate her 13th birthday, but when she arrived, her grandparents were forced to host Nekhbet, the vulture goddess, and Babi, the baboon god, and hunting down Sadie, and her friends, Liz and Emma. They get rescued by the dwarf god Bes, who was able to use his extreme ugliness as a weapon. They met up with Carter and Walt along the way. When Bes opens a portal, he insists for Walt to get out for reasons Sadie and Carter does not know. They teleported to Russia, Menshikov's Nome. They get inside Menshikov's headquarters, and found out that he was summoning Set. They get the scroll but was attacked by Menshikov's two-headed snake. Sadie manages to destroy the snake, but not before it bites Carter. Set tells them the location of the last scroll: The Valley of the Golden Mummies, and also the location of the real Zia. After Sadie heals Carter with the statue, Sadie calls on Walt to help her with the scroll, while Bes and Carters goes to find Zia.

Carter and Bes finds some nomads to take them to The Place of Red Sands, Zia's birthplace and where she was hid. Nephthys, who was using Zia as a host, gets out of Zia, but Mehsikov and Desjarins arrive. Carter finds the weapons of Ra, the crook and flail, and uses it to defeat Menshikov, but Menshikov curses him, turning him to a snake. Bes got trapped in a cage. Meanwhile, Sadie and Walt arrives at the Valley of the Golden Mummies, meeting a ghost called Mad Claude, who wants them to get the mummies' spirit to the Afterlife, as the rites were not done properly. When they cannot, Mad Claude got really angry and called on the other mummies to kill them. Sadie manages to find the last scroll, but they got trapped by mummies. Ptah, a god, sends rats to help them and creates a portal to Carter and Bes. The portal destroys Bes' cage, and he scared them away. It turns out Walt is cursed and will die young, which was why Bes sent him away. Menshikov is preparing an army to attack the Brooklyn House, so Walt and Zia goes back to protect it, while Sadie, Bes, and Carter goes into the Duat to free Ra and defeat Apophis.

There were 12 Houses, each representing an hour of the night. At the Gates of the Fourth House (Can only be entered before 4 O'Clock), they find Khnum, the first part of Ra, who forgot what his secret name is. Using the Book of Ra, Sadie read out his secret name, returning his essence to the scroll. They enter the Fourth House, and it took them four hours to find Ra, who was really senile. The Eighth House can only be entered before 8 O'Clock. The travel to the Seventh House, where Osiris, a.k.a, their dad, and the ghost of their mom, awaits them. They invite Khonsu, the moon god, who can add more time into the night, but you have to gamble for it. If they lose a round, their identity will be destroyed. They will no memories. They have to win 3 rounds. In the end, the won the first round, but lost the second, causing Bes' identity to be lost. They won the last two, and given the extra time, the get into the Gates of the Eighth House and traveling towards the Twelfth House. Menshikov was there, possessed by Apophis. They get let Ra merge with his last aspect, Khepri the scarab god, but freed Apophis (they must in order to get Khepri). It turns out Desjarins witnessed it, and helped them banish Apophis, but got burned up using too much magic. He warned that Apophis will return in time.

They get back to the Brooklyn house, found out that because of the power of Ra, they were able to hold the enemies and win the fight. But the gods were not happy with them, especially Horus and Isis, since bringing back Ra made Horus lose his throne. Walt is dying in a year unless they can find a cure, which was lost, since Menshikov was the last person to know it. Bes was sitting in the Fourth House, not having any memories, not knowing who and where he is. Apophis will return, and Ra is in no shape to fight him.The House of Life is still trying to crush them, as they think that Desjarins died by the hands of the Kanes, and Amos is the new Chief Lector.

The title, ''The Throne of Fire'', was announced in a blog post by Riordan on January 13, 2011. The book became available worldwide on May 3, 2011. Rick announced on his website that the third book of the series will be coming in spring 2012.

Characters

Main characters

Other characters

References

External links

Category:The Kane Chronicles Category:Fantasy novel series Category:Novel series Category:Ancient Egypt in fiction Category:Trilogies Category:Egyptian mythology in popular culture

Biography

As a novelist, Riordan has created many successful series. The multi-award-winning Tres Navarre mystery series, intended for adults, follows the fast-paced adventures of an erudite Texan private eye. Riordan also helped create the children's book series ''The 39 Clues''; he authored several of its books, including ''The Maze of Bones'', which topped the New York Times Best Seller list on September 28, 2008. His ''Percy Jackson and the Olympians'' series features a twelve-year-old boy who discovers he is the modern-day son of an ancient Greek god. Twentieth Century Fox purchased the film rights and released a feature film on February 12, 2010. Following the success of ''Percy Jackson'', Rick Riordan created ''The Kane Chronicles'', which features a modern-day Egyptian pantheon and two new sibling protagonists. Its first book, ''The Red Pyramid'', was released on May 4, 2010; the sequel was released on May 3, 2011. Riordan also created a sequel series to the Percy Jackson books, ''The Heroes of Olympus''. Its first book, ''The Lost Hero'', was released in the U.S. on October 12, 2010; the sequel, ''The Son of Neptune'', is expected to be released on October 4, 2011. Riordan plans to expand both series simultaneously. "The Heroes of Olympus" will have five books and "The Kane Chronicles" with three books.

The San Diego Comic-Con International 2010 featured Riordan as a guest. Rick Riordan lives in San Antonio with his wife and their two sons, one of whom is the inspiration for his original character, Percy Jackson.

Published books

''Percy Jackson and the Olympians''

''The Heroes of Olympus''

''The 39 Clues'' series

''Tres Navarre'' Series

''The Kane Chronicles''

Awards

Further reading

References

External links

Category:1964 births Category:Alamo Heights High School alumni Category:American writers Category:Living people Category:People from San Antonio, Texas Category:University of Texas at Austin alumni Category:Rick Riordan