Divide and Conquer, book 2 in the Inifinity Ring series, starts off talking about Paris which was actually where the last game ended and not where book 1 ended. It was a cool way to tie the online games in with the books. You don’t have to play the games to understand the books, but I think they are fun and the maps that go with the games inside the books make it feel like you are a part of the quest.This particular period in Viking history was a perfect one to appeal to kids. There’s a king named Charles the Fat (seriously – that’s his REAL name!) and an epic battle rivaling Helm’s Deep from Lord of the Rings with the Vikings outnumbering the Parisians 30,000 to 200. It’s funny how real history can be more extreme than fiction (Helm’s Deep was 10,000 to 2,000).While I was reading, I looked up all this Viking history that I didn’t know before. I learned something new! The main characters “fix” history pretty fast so we get to read about what really happened instead of a fake past like the last book.The writing was pretty good and I thought it was a lot of fun. I did find it confusing that as the story goes on, they try to fix two breaks instead of just one. The events are related and it was cool to see where history went from that event, but I did feel lost for a little bit.Game ReviewThe game that comes after this is not terribly hard or challenging. There were two mini-games that involved pushing arrows on your computer at the right time. I hate those kind of games. The rest of the game went very fast, but it was pretty fun. There is a forum now so you can complete all the side quests and get all the points if you so desire.Overall, it was fun historical fiction about Vikings and epic battles that will teach you something you probably didn’t know about history in a way that will really appeal to kids, too.This book is also reviewed on my blog Books: A true story
