[For an updated response from when I re-read the book in 2016, click here.]
The Warlock is the fifth book (plus a short story) in The Secrets of the Immortal Nicolas Flamel series, and what a series it is. I thought I reviewed at least two of the books earlier in the series, but I’m now assuming my logic was that I would want to re-read them prior to each new novel’s release (and I should have).
It took a few chapters before I remembered enough details from the previous four novels to figure out what was happening, but I quickly jumped back in to the historical characters alive and still meddling in the affairs of the world.
Although the series is about Nicholas Flamel, it actually centers around Sophie and Josh a set of legendary twins who in the first book are awakened a world of Immortals, like Niccolo Machiavelli, Billy the Kid, Virginia Dare, Shakespeare and Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel, Next Generation and the Gods and Goddesses (I think there is another name but I can’t remember them) of Danu Talis.
In this final installment of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, the battle truly rages for New York, for Mount Olympus, and for the world. Titans are now fully reforming and the demigods/Heroes/half-bloods must fight to save everything. It is incredibly difficult as the gods of Olympus are facing attacks on multiple fronts from the Titans Oceanus and Typhon.
In the fourth Percy Jackson and the Olympians book we encounter what is perhaps one of the most well known stories of Greek mythology, the Labyrinth. In an interesting twist, as if the entire series wasn’t interesting enough, we find that the Labyrinth still exists and has taken on a life of its own. The creator Deaedalus is ‘alive’ and as long as he lives the Labyrinth has continued to morph and expand.
In book three of the Percy Jackson and the Olypmians series, everything starts out as quickly as in the other novels. Grover has been following up on a couple of potential half-bloods at a military academy and needs Percy and Thalia’s help. He also brings along Thalia, the daughter of Zeus, who sacrificed herself to make sure Luke and Annabeth could get to camp, but was rescued from the tree by the Golden Fleece.
This is the second novel in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series and was just as exciting and as quick a read as the first book. With the beginning of this book the reader finds Grover on his search to find the legendary Pan, god of the wild, and Percy trying to survive yet another school year in the mortal world. Giants attack Percy and he discovers that his friend over this past year is a cyclops named Tyson, whom we later find out is his half brother when Poseidon claims him similar to the way he claimed Percy.