The Crown of Ptolemy

The Crown of Ptolemy

Front cover
Author	Rick Riordan
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Fantasy novels
Publisher	Disney Hyperion and Puffin Books
Publication date	March 31, 2015
Media type	E-book, audio book, paperback
Preceded by	The Staff of Serapis
Followed by	The Hidden Oracle

The Crown of Ptolemy is the third and last book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians and The Kane Chronicles crossover series. It was released in the back of the paperback version of The House of Hades on March 31, 2015, and later as an ebook and audiobook. The ebook edition was released May 12, 2015.^[1]

Development

On January 15, 2015, Rick Riordan announced a third crossover story titled The Crown of Ptolemy on his Twitter account.^[2][3] His announcement included the fact that the short story would be first published in the paperback version of The House of Hades on March 31, 2015, along with a short story titled Percy Jackson and the Sword of Hades, which had previously appeared in The Demigod Files. On March 3, 2015, he previewed the cover on Hypable, along with the information that the story would be for Percy Jackson's point of view.^[4] On April 27, he announced that the story would be released again on May 12 as an ebook or audiobook and would contain the first chapter of The Sword of Summer.^[5]

On October 5, 2015, during his book tour for The Sword of Summer, Rick Riordan announced a compilation of all the crossover stories titled Demigods and Magicians, released on April 5, 2016.

Plot

Annabeth Chase dreams of her mother, Athena, telling her that there is trouble brewing. Annabeth goes to Percy Jackson's apartment and they take a ferry to Governors Island in New York Harbor. A sudden freak hurricane then prompts an evacuation of the island. While they are trapped on the island surrounded by snakes, they attempt to contact Carter Kane and Sadie Kane but fail. Annabeth and Percy decide to face Setne, who is reading from the Book of Thoth, by themselves. They plan to use Annabeth's invisibility cap to sneak up on Setne, while Percy distracts him. While Percy is sneaking up on Setne, he trips and falls down which causes the magician to notice him. Setne realizes that Annabeth is using her invisibility cap and captures her. Setne then uses a magic spell that keeps Percy on the ground. Setne reveals that he was watching Annabeth and Sadie while they were battling Serapis (in The Staff of Serapis) and that it was an experiment to see what powers Annabeth and Sadie possessed.

Setne summons the Egyptian cobra goddess Wadjet in order to consume her essence and take the Crown of Lower Egypt from her. Before he devours her, he takes a selfie with her to commemorate the moment, and then disappears.

Finally, Carter and Sadie arrive in the form of falcons, apologizing for the delay. They set about determining Setne's intentions and locating him. Annabeth concludes that once he puts the two crowns of Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt together, forming the double crown of unified Egypt, the Crown of Ptolemy, he will have attained godhood, and will destroy the world. The four find Setne and he claims he learned that a "little" demigod blood is good for starting a war, but Percy stops him by stabbing him with Riptide. With Riptide protruding from him, he absorbs the sword's essence and learns about all of Annabeth and Percy's adventures. Suddenly, Sadie and Carter attack Setne with a camel, but he escapes.

The four teens head to the south end of Governors Island, which is where they have deduced that Setne will go, as south is the direction of Upper Egypt. Carter and Annabeth decide that they need to combine attacks to defeat Setne. Carter gives Percy his wand, which turns into a kopis, or Hellenized Egyptian sword, and Sadie teaches Annabeth the Egyptian word for explode. In exchange, Annabeth teaches Sadie the Greek word for explode and gives her invisibility cap to Carter. When the quartet relocate Setne, he is trying to summon the vulture goddess Nekhbet, guardian of the crown of Upper Egypt. They all charge, but fail at attacking Setne. Nekhbet is successfully summoned and tries to attack Setne, but Percy and Annabeth pull her away since Setne is trying to consume her essence. Setne drops the Book of Thoth when Carter yells "stahp", and then he disappears with Nekhbet's Crown of Upper Egypt.

Nekhbet decides to stay with the four teenagers to get her crown back and help destroy Setne. She suggests that she merge with Percy since mixing Egyptian and Greek powers worked earlier. Percy reluctantly agrees to it, but only because it is the only way to defeat Setne. After Percy merges with the goddess, they go off to find Setne again. After finding him, the four teens and Nekhbet go after the crown. Setne talks about Carter's dad, and Carter takes off his hat of invisibility and attacks Setne in his avatar form, but Setne blasts Carter to the ground. Setne then talks about why he wants to be immortal, including having souvenirs such as snow globes made of him. After Carter gets blasted, Percy uses Nekhbet's vulture avatar form, and Sadie whispers something into Annabeth's ear. Percy grabs Setne and flies with him into the air. While in the air, Setne tells Percy he was a fool for giving up immortality. Nekhbet agrees with Setne that Percy was foolish to turn down immortality, but Percy fights back. He then plummets towards the ocean to regain his strength. Once in the ocean, Percy recovers, drops his avatar form, grabs Setne by the throat, and drags him to the island. A newly bandaged Carter greets Percy, along with Annabeth and Sadie, who have drawn a circle on the ground. Percy decides to make Setne suffer for eternity instead of destroying him. While sealing Setne, Carter thinks of Setne's snow globe idea and traps him in a snow globe. Sadie reveals that she told Annabeth her secret name earlier, but Annabeth states she's already forgetting all the magic she learned. Percy and Annabeth decide to not tell Camp Half-Blood about their adventure, fearing the consequences of mixing Greek and Egyptian magic. The four determine that they will remain in contact. Sadie and Carter fly off, and Percy and Annabeth go off on a date.

Main Characters

• Annabeth Chase - One of the four protagonists. She is the daughter of the Greek goddess Athena and a mortal history professor. She appears as a protagonist in both Percy Jackson and the Olympians in The Heroes of Olympus series. She appeared earlier in The Staff of Serapis.
• Percy Jackson - Another of the book's protagonists. He is the son of the Greek god Poseidon and Annabeth's boyfriend. He is the narrator of Percy Jackson and the Olympians and one of the protagonists of The Heroes of Olympus. He appeared earlier in The Son of Sobek. He and Annabeth Chase are dating.
• Carter Kane - The book's other male protagonist; an Egyptian magician and member of the House of Life. He is one of two narrators in The Kane Chronicles and appears in The Son of Sobek as one of the protagonists.
• Sadie Kane - The second female protagonist; an Egyptian magician and member of the House of Life. She is the other protagonist in The Kane Chronicles and is a main character in The Staff of Serapis. She is Carter Kane's little sister.
• Setne - The story's antagonist. Setne, born in ancient Egypt, is an evil magician who seeks to become a god. He was previously seen in The Serpent's Shadow.
• Nekhbet and Wadjet - The Egyptian goddesses of vultures and cobras, respectively. The pair were known as the "Two Ladies", and were the patrons of the united kingdom of Egypt. Nekhbet was patron of Upper Egypt; Wadjet the patron of Lower Egypt.

Reception

Hypable highly praised the short story, writing "While previous installations, like “The Son of Sobek” and “The Staff of Serapis,” have given us one small pairing at a time, “The Crown of Ptolemy” unites all four of our heroes, and it’s brilliant. Sadie and Percy bond over their shared impatience, while Carter and Annabeth practically roll their eyes in synchronization. It’s nice to see such a myriad of heroes joining together with little resistance, more than happy to work in conjunction in order to defeat the bad guy."^[6]

After the release of The Crown of Ptolemy, the Percy Jackson and Kane Chronicles crossover series was on the New York Times Best Seller List for the weeks of May 31 and June 7, 2015.^[7] The Crown of Ptolemy itself was on the bestseller lists for USA Today (general list).^[8]

References