Rick Riordan has always been one of the best authors when it comes to fantasy models that are for younger audiences. He rose to prominence with his Percy Jackson book series but has since written other novel series that are just as great and as popular. One of the most popular novels in his library is the Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard books which are comparatively new and are also very intriguing. So, with that said, let’s look at all of the Magnus Chase books in order.
Magnus Chase Reading Order At A Glance
One of the best things about Rick Riordan’s novels is that they tend to be straightforward in the sense that the stories follow a flow that’s based on their release dates. That means that the proper order of reading the Magnus Chase books is by following the order of their release dates. Here is the proper reading order of the Magnus Chase trilogy:
- The Sword of Summer (2015)
- The Hammer of Thor (2016)
- The Ship of the Dead (2017)
Magnus Chase Books In Order
As mentioned, the reading order of the Magnus Chase trilogy follows the order of their release dates. And it would be easier for you to understand the reading order if you knew what each book is all about.
The Sword of Summer (2015)
The Sword of Summer is the first entry in the Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard trilogy. This novel was released on October 6, 2015, and is narrated from the point of view of the main character named Magnus Chase, who is a homeless Bostonian orphan that ends up learning that he was actually the son of a Norse god. On the same day that he learns about his origins, he ends up getting confronted by the fire giant named Surt, who wants to claim the sword called Sumarbrander.
However, in this fight, Magnus was killed and brought to the afterlife by a Valkyrie named Samirah al-Abbas. This allows Magnus to go on a quest that eventually leads him to make friendships with different people, such as a dwarf named Blitz and an elf named Hearth. He, Sam, Blitz, and Hearth embark on an adventure to prevent Surt from freeing Fenris and hasten the end of the world through Ragnarok.
The Hammer of Thor (2016)
The Hammer of Thor is the second book in the Magnus Chase trilogy and was released almost a year after the first book. In the second part of the trilogy, Magnus receives a quest from Thor’s goat named Otis and discovers that Mjolnir, the very same weapon that the god of thunder uses, has gone missing. This puts him on a quest together with his friends and with the addition of Alex Fierro, the son of Loki, to find the hammer.
However, Utgard-Loki reveals that the giant named Thrym has the hammer and tells Magnus and his friends to retrieve a sword called the Skofnung. Meanwhile, Loki ends up arranging a marriage between Sam and Thrym so that he can free himself using the sword. However, during the wedding, Alex was able to take Sam’s place so that he could try to stop Magnus’s uncle from freeing the god of mischief using the sword. Nevertheless, despite recovering Thor’s hammer, the group failed to prevent Loki’s release as they were given the mission to prevent him from bringing about Ragnarok.
The Ship of the Dead (2017)
The Ship of the Dead is the final book of the Magnus Chase trilogy and was released a year after the second book. In this story, Magnus and his friends have to sail to Jotunheim and Niflheim in an attempt to prevent Loki from bringing about Ragnarok. Their goal was to beat him in a flyting with Kvasri’s Mead and then capture him in a nutshell.
As the crew succeeded in their mission of stopping the Ship of the Dead and ultimately Loki, Magnus and Alex took Randolf’s old mansion and decided to turn it into a home for homeless children because they understood what it was like to have no home.
Supplementary Works And Stories
On top of the fact that there are three books in the Magnus Chase novel series, there are also supplementary works and stories that you may want to read so that you can get a better understanding of the world that has been established in this novel series.
Hotel Valhalla: Guide to the Norse Worlds
Hotel Valhalla: Guide to the Norse Worlds is a book that contains background information regarding the gods, monsters, dwarves, and elves that are all featured in the main trilogy. In that regard, the book allows you to understand more about the other characters and creatures that you can read about in the main storyline. The book was meant to allow new readers to understand more about the world of the Norse gods, especially if they don’t know anything about Norse mythology.
9 From the Nine Worlds
9 From the Nine Worlds is another supplementary story that was written as a companion to the main Magnus Chase trilogy books. This work contains nine short stories that are all told from the point of view of nine different characters. All of these stories take place in a different Norse realm from one another, as readers get to understand more about the realms of the Norse world that have been established in Rick Riordan’s Magnus Chase trilogy.
The stories in this book are all written from the perspective of different characters that you can also read in the main books. In that regard, they are not written from Magnus’s point of view, as you get to see how the other characters view the world from their own points of view. This supplementary work was published on October 2, 2018, which is about a year after the final book of the main trilogy was released.