The House of Hades

The Heroes of Olympus, Book 4

By: Rick Riordan

Narrated by: Nick Chamian

Length: 17 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

At the conclusion of The Mark of Athena, Annabeth and Percy tumble into a pit leading straight to the Underworld. The other five demigods have to put aside their grief and follow Percy's instructions to find the mortal side of the Doors of Death. If they can fight their way through the Gaea's forces, and Percy and Annabeth can survive the House of Hades, then the Seven will be able to seal the Doors from both sides and prevent the giants from raising Gaea. But, Leo wonders, if the Doors are sealed, how will Percy and Annabeth be able to escape?

They have no choice. If the demigods don't succeed, Gaea's armies will never die. They have no time. In about a month, the Romans will march on Camp Half-Blood. The stakes are higher than ever in this adventure that dives into the depths of Tartarus.

©2013 Rick Riordan (P)2013 Listening Library

great story

I have read and listened to this book many times. very enjoyable. my only complaint is the narrator. changing the voice after so many books, it changed the feel of the characters. Piper now sounds like a dittzy valley girl.

Why do they switch narrators ?

Just keep the same narrator for the love of everything that is good not saying the new one is bad but you have to keep the flow you know.... other than that still an amazing book to listen too:)

Performance -helpful tip play at 1.2x

Like others have commented, I was disappointed in the reader, Nick Chamian. However, I found that if you play the book speed at 1.2x or 1.3x it’s not as painful; he isn’t a dead fish as one reviewer stated.

Other narrator was better

I loved these stories by Rick Riordon and the narrator for the first two was better. I hate it when narrators switch and especially when it changes to a bad one. I was almost hesitant to finish the book if it wasn’t for the story. I just wish that one narrator can read an entire series. I haven’t found a sorties like this yet, but I am trying.

Love the book and series, the narrator, not so much

I really enjoy the humor and reflection of the myths surrounding obscure and well known gods and goddesses of Rome and Greece. I think Riordan navigates many types of social and societal settings very well. I wondered how he would do with increasing the number of “players” from the base three per quest to 7, really 9 or more, in this and the final book of the series. I was pleasantly surprised to find he does a pretty good job all in all even though he leaves some intentional loose ends to incorporate in other books outside the series and pulls in content from prior series or one off books as well. Overall, I really like this series in some ways more and some ways less than the original Percy Jackson books.

I really only have two complaints, one is minor and the other is more impactful. I strongly prefer the section titles from the original Percy Jackson books compared to just the characters’ names. I assume he either couldn’t really make them work with this series given so many main characters are involved, or that approach was geared for the younger characters when discovering their nature and dealing with so many “firsts”. I thought they were clever and fit well with the books’ style.

My bigger complaint is having so many narrators, including switching in the middle of this series. You shouldn’t change narrators if at all possible when dealing with the same characters, because they do their voices differently per book, and that takes you out of relating to the characters as well. It’s also confusing since they pronounce some of the names differently. Two examples would be Hazel’s voice is much different between this narrator and the one for the first few books of the same series, and the pronunciation of Gaea is different between the two series (Giya vs Geeya). These inconsistencies are annoying when listening. An additional problem with this specific narrator is he was sloppy with his voices, persisting Nico’s voice when it was supposed to be Hazel’s or Percy’s when it was supposed to be Annabeth’s, for example.

Overall I loved the book, and this series.

Pretty Cool

When I listen to it my brain exploded because of how the story was told! When I heard it my life change I honest to god loved it!

WOW! It's Amazing

It is a great book. it has mystery and the voice reading it helps you fall asleep easily.

Horrible Narrator

Amazing story. Not going to lie all the reviews are correct this guy is horrible. He is someone that should just read a story where you don’t have to talk for the characters. This guy can’t do character voices and can’t even pronounce Gaea. This guy keeps saying Gia!! It is a hard listen but manageable. Sadly they have the same guy narrate the next book :-(. With all the comments I’m so surprised that with all the comments that the performance is at a 4.6.

Amazing story held back by narration.

The story is great! Characters are very well done. Unfortunately the narrator holds everything back. Skipped words, double words, using the wrong character’s voice, inconsistent pronunciation of words and names all happen way too frequently.

The narrator was the best

I loved the narrator. I could tell who was talking pretty much it and the story was really good. I love all the books.