Flight of the Fire Thief (Fire Thief Series #2)

Prometheus is again on the run, and he flees in and out of time before landing in gritty, ramshackle 1795 Eden City. Enter our narrator: Nell, a young girl and aspiring novelist—she and her crafty pa travel the city with their stage show, trying to get their audiences to open up their pockets and purses. As always, Prometheus has a soft spot for humans in need, but using his powers to get his new friends out of trouble will betray his hiding place to the gods! Terry Deary masterfully interweaves two plots, with the action jumping at a whirlwind pace from Mount Olympus to the back alleys of dingy Tudor City.

VOYA

In this sequel to The Fire Thief (Kingfisher/Houghton Mifflin, 2005/VOYA October 2005), Prometheus (nicknamed Theus) continues his quest to find a human hero in order to win Zeus's forgiveness. The tale alternates between scenes set in ancient Greece during the ending stages of the Trojan War and episodes set in the frontier town of Eden City in 1795. It is the same Eden City that Theus visited in the previous volume, but because the limitations of chronology do not apply to gods, Theus has transported himself into an earlier future than he visited before. This time, the Avenger, a fury seeking Theus's recapture, has waylaid several heroes enroute to Hades following their deaths in Troy, specifically Paris and Achilles, as well as a fifty-headed monster called Hecatonshires to aid him. Nell, the twelve-year-old daughter of a scurrilous traveling carnival owner, provides the retrospective narration for this volume, and her witty but cynical tone makes her sound older than her years. The author's delight in con artists, complicated schemes, and death-defying escapes is just as evident in this volume as in the last. Nell spends a great deal of her time being shot from cannons and dashing about in disguise. The novel's weakest aspect is the inclusion of "the Wild People," a thinly veiled euphemism for Indians. Although the Wild People turn out to be more humane than the people of Eden City, Deary's use of offensive stereotypes, even satirically, seems misguided. Fans of Theus will enjoy this new episode in his still unresolved quest.

Terry Deary is the author of over 160 books. He writes both fiction and nonfiction to much acclaim and has a hand in the television, theater, and radio worlds as well. His Horrible History series has sold twenty million copies worldwide, and his books have been translated into twenty-eight languages. Deary has won numerous awards, including Blue Peter's Best Nonfiction Author of the Century in the United Kingdom. He was named a Doctor of Education by Sunderland University. For more information please visit www.terry-deary.net.