User blog comment:SayuriDarling/The Staff of Serapis Official Discussion/@comment-3146930-20140414224934

Ok, so I read this story today and while I still remember everything, I will talk about them in:

The Dark Review

Patent Pending

Timeline
Obviously this is a big deal as this answers a lot of things people kept questioning in the last crossover (not me, I knew when it took place). Anyway, Annabeth says she is 17, which happened the Summer of The Heroes of Olympus, and because they aren't at Camp Half-Blood during the events of the series, both stories have to take place after HoO. Now that that is out of the way...

Characters
This to me felt very lopsided. I know that Annabeth's ability is her smarts, but Sadie appears to really control this story. I mean sure, the story starts with Annabeth, but once Sadie comes in it is all about her. She heals Annabeth first, fires off a bunch of cool powers, and makes Annabeth distract the Flower-pot god while she makes a seal.

Annabeth on the other hand feels like a spectator. Yes she served to distract the big bad and even landed the finishing blow, but most of her observations seemed like filler. A good example is when they find the god and she notices he is building something; Sadie doesn't see anything but Annabeth does. Ok, but then the god goes on to explain his big plan and what he is building later when all Annabeth did was ask what his plan was.

It could just be me, but the Percy-Carter story seemed to give them equal time and show what they could do. In this one, Annabeth doesn't even have a weapon to defend herself for most of the book and gets sidelined a lot in my opinion.

Story
Story itself was pretty good I think. Rick Riordan is really reaching into some obscure territory and seems to be blending the two series together well, which is even more impressive when you consider that these are just a bunch of short stories so the fact that he is trying so hard is impressive.

Anyway I have never read the Kane series past the first book (I didn't like it), but I like how easily I can understand how things work, like Sadie's spells and such. The story itself is pretty short so I can't really say much more beyond that it was entertaining. Also I was sort of hoping that the bad guy in this side-series would be some third party, maybe leading up to the Norse series, but oh well.

Overall
Not bad for a short story. As I said, I felt like one of the two main heroins were heavily pushed aside, but then again Annabeth doesn't really have any powers. I like that we are given a better placement in the timeline for these series (most likely happening in August, maybe early September). About a 7 out of 11.