Weirdness
The most important thing to understand about the use of figurative language in this book is that it is a book filled with magic. Therefore, many strange and apparitional-type things occur which often require the comparative powers of the simile to precisely describe:
“Also, there were many, many raw chicken limbs in her hairball. She looked like a Christmas tree decorated with poultry-part ornaments.”
Action, Jackson!
These are not contemplative stories of the type where nothing really happens and the true meaning only hits you over the head with an epiphany weeks later. What you see is what you expected: wild and crazy stories about wild and crazy people in wild and crazy action sequences:
“Just as we approached the door to the commandant’s office, it exploded outward as though a giant had punched it.”
Darkness
Darkness is the definitive literary metaphor of our age. Go ahead and start specifically looking for it in whatever you are reading over the next few weeks. A few months from now you won’t have to look for it because you’ll have begun seeing it almost literally everywhere:
“The ring was pulsing like the heart of a sun. Great beams of golden light cut through the surrounding darkness, momentarily revealing the other Anunna, all getting closer. I clambered over the mutating slug, slipping along its bloated, slimy body… Then the darkness engulfed me.”
Witch Hunt
The term “witch hunt” gets thrown around a lot of these days, usually in relation to things that are not even metaphorically appropriate. A real hunt for witches is nothing to take lightly. It is a matter of life and death:
“The witch community upholds its purity and secrecy above all else, and I am a threat to all that. Being a wallflower is in my best interest.”
Life in a Multiverse
The book is sold as a collection of stories that take place in the “Rick Riordan Multiverse.” This is a big misleading since one of the expectations of a multiverse is characters crossing over from their own universe to interact with those from another one which isn’t actually the concept of this book. Nevertheless, the multiverse concept is front and center in a few of the narratives, including one that provides an example of what living in such a thing might be like:
“I had the weirdest dream, yo!” he answered. “It was like there were a million of me. And they all were different, but, like, the same. Like, still me. But not me.”
