The Last Olympian

The Last Olympian

© 2009 Rick Riordian

394 pages

During the late winter or early spring (depending on when you call which which), I began reading the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series on the recommendation of a friend. The recommendation stemmed from (I assume) my interest in Greek mythology, as the setting for this series is an Earth in which the Greek gods exist -- and true to the old Greek myths, they spend much of their time feuding with one another and romancing mortals. The conclusion of the first book hinted that a battle between the Olympians and the Titans -- the Olympians' predecessors, who have been stuffed into volcanoes and such for many thousands of years and who are quite grumpy about it - is brewing. An ancient prophecy hints that Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, will play a key role in the final battle: the fate of the universe hangs on his decision.

This is quite a load for a lad of fifteen, and when The Last Olympian begins, he is with his mortal semi-girlfriend, resting up after five books' worth of fighting monsters and going on quests that feed into Kronos' steady rise, while dreading his sixteenth birthday. According to the prophecy, he will make this choice upon reaching sixteen. This respite ends when a Pegasus lands on his stepfather's car and informs him that the Titan army is on the move: the final battle is at hand.

There are no quests to go on, no magic relics to fetch, no magic landscapes to invade: this book is about the Battle for Olympus. As the titan Typhon makes his way from his former home (Mount St. Helens) to New York, destroying everything he can in his wake (an unnecessary expenditure of energy, I would think) while nearly all of the Olympians struggle to stop him, Poseidon is fighting a losing battle with the titan Oceanus and Mount Olympus itself is guarded only by Hestia. Percy is informed that it is up to him and his fellow demigods to protect Olympus (which is, by the way, at the of the Empire State Building: Manhattan is thus Percy's battleground). To make matters worse, the children of Ares are refusing to fight (their honor having been besmirched by the children of Apollo) and Hades and his army are refusing to cooperate. Hades has never been popular among the rest of the Olympians, and he has decided to return spite for spite.

Percy, Annabeth, Nico, Thalia, and the other demigods have their work cut out for them. More interesting than the battles themselves (at least to me) is the interpersonal drama and the prophecy-driven plot. What kind of choice will Percy be forced to make? What will happen? Who will die? The series and book end well, I think. In his afterword, Riordian referred to the series as the "first" Camp Half-Blood series, hinting that perhaps he will return to them. I hope so. Although this was a series written for kids, I enjoyed it and I think Riordian distinguishes himself in at least one particular way: unlike other authors, he doesn't have his main character(s) do all of the work. Based on the interstory quests they've gone on and the work they do in the novels, it seems at least two of the supporting characters could have their own book series.

The Battle of the Labyrinth

The Battle of the Labyrinth
© 2008 Rick Riordian
361 pages

Continuing in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series this week, I read the last book that Riordian has published. The next book will not be released until May. The book begins, characteristically, with Percy arriving at a new school, encountering a monster, and then making a dramatic escape that lessens the school's structural integrity. When Percy arrives at Camp Half-Blood, he learns that the camp may be in more danger than he and his fellow Olympians feared: the Labyrinth, the ancient structure that once held the Minotaur, may offer the armies of the Titans a direct path to the camp. Annabeth -- the series' Hermione -- is tasked with finding Daedalus, the architect of the maze, and convincing him to deny use of the Labyrinth. At the same time, Percy is continually visited by dark dreams. In the book, the adventurers attempt to make their way through the Labyrinth, which now spans most of the United States at least, all the while encountering monsters, other demi-gods, gods, and plot twists. This book seems to be longer than the previous books and is more engaging than the others.

Unlike other series I've read, the events in this book don't completely revolve around the central character. Other characters are off doing things between books that add to the plot. On a side note, the author explains how Athena -- a virgin god -- has kids. As it turns out, they sprout off of her head, which is what I suspected. That's the way Athena was born. This book is definitely a step up from the others, at least from my view. I enjoyed reading it and look forward to The Last Olympian.

The Titan's Curse

The Titan's Curse
© 2008 Rick Riordian

This week I read book three in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, and I must say that this was an improvement over The Sea of Monsters, at least in my estimation. The book gets off to a rough start: the author doesn't introduce the situation very well, establishing no ties to the ending of the last book so the readers don't really know what's going on. The last book saw Zeus' daughter Thalia rescued from her fate of being a tree. She joins Percy in this newest adventure, which immediately begins by their having to rescue two half-bloods from a school after being attacked by a monster of sorts. If that seems familiar, it's how the last two books began as well.

Despite this rocky start, the book soon picks up. Trouble is (as usual) brewing. Kronos' revival seems to be going well as his armies are growing larger and more dangerous. We're introduced to several more gods in this book: Artemis, Apollo, and Athena all make extended appearances. (Apollo defends his role as the sun-god while dismissing astronomy as boring. ) Percy, Grover, and Thalia -- along with Artemis' hunters -- are tasked with rescuing Artemis from the clutches of Kronos before the Winter Solstice. (Solstice deadlines are also a familiar element of this series.) The story's plot is also personal for the readers, as one of the other familar characters is placed in jeopardy. The quest takes them to San Francisco, where the citadel of the Titans is being rebuilt. The story is both fun and darkly serious at times. A lot of the drama is self-conflict, as the characters try to deal with the monsters within them.

The book ends with a temporary resolution: the ultimate conflict is still (they think) at least two years away, in which time they will double their training efforts while blocking the Titans' ascent at every turn. I will be continuing the series.

The Sea of Monsters

The Sea of Monsters
© 2006 Rick Riordian
279 pages

I continued in the "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" series this week with book #2, The Sea of Monsters. Percy Jackson is now in seventh grade, but is troubled by bad dreams. After he and a new friend (Tyson) are attacked by pyromanic cannibals and rescued by Annabeth, they head for Camp Half-Blood. Sadly, it seems to be be in trouble: the magic protecting it from being attacked by all sorts of monsters is fading. Percy's bad dreams -- involving his satyr friend Grover being in trouble -- continue. Once at camp, and after Percy and company dispatch a few monsters, Hermes pays a visit to Percy and tells him that he has to help Grover. The attack on the camp's magic and Grover's predicament -- which involves a wedding, for some reason -- seem to be connected, and soon we find that Percy must journey to the Sea of Monsters to rescue Grover and find the solution to their problem. While I won't reveal what the solution is, let's just say that Percy's full name -- Perseus -- is appropriate.

The solution to both lays in the Sea of Monsters, which is the sea that Odysseus spent so much time marooned on. It, like Olympus and Hades, moves with western civilization, and now lies in the Bermuda Triangle. To find Grover, they have to get past some of the same obstacles Odysseus faced, including Circe, who takes "Men are pigs" far too literally. They're also being accompanied by one of Ares' daughters, Clarisse, who is a bit ill-tempered. She actually takes the same journey on a Confederate ironclad, manned by dead Confederate soldiers. This is possibly the weirdest plot development I've ever seen. At journey's end, Percy encounters Polyphemus, the cyclopes who Odysseus fooled. Riordian references this repeatedly, with amusing results.

The second book in the series was another fun little book. The story wasn't as engaging as the first, but the characterization and so forth were done better. I intentionally didn't mention major parts of the book, because one of my readers is actually reading the series, and so I wanted to avoid spoilers. I will continue in the series. On one minor note, on one occasion two characters needed to find an awful noise to scare away a monster. They settled on Dean Martin, which amused me given how much I like Dean Martin. I wonder if the author is a fan, and if he included that part as a bit of self-depreciation -- or maybe he just wants to poison an entire generation of children against Italian crooners.

The Lightning Thief

The Lightning Thief
© 2005 Rick Riordan
375 pages

I began this week with Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief, a recommendation from a friend. The Lightening Thief is work of fantasy-fiction, set in a world where the Greek gods are real and ruling over the affairs of mortals -- and, like in the days of Heracles and Perseus, are ever-busy chasing mortal skirts and siring half-god half-mortal offspring, called (appropriately enough) half-bloods. The book is the first in a series of books for children and young adults called Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Percy Jackson -- Perseus Jackson in full -- is our hero (a term that originally applied to the mortal sons of the gods like Heracles), and when the book begins he has no idea who he is. He will soon find out, though, as he flees from Furies and Minotaurs who want to destroy him. Forced by circumstances beyond their control, the young Percy's protectors are forced to bring him to Camp Half-Blood so that he may learn who he is -- and his destiny.

Young Percy has entered an extraordinary world, but like Harry Potter as entered it at a rather inconvenient time: darkness is stirring, and an epic battle between good -- or at least, not evil -- and evil is about to begin. As Percy learns about his identity as a demigod and his new role in relation to the world, he will be caught up in this struggle, beginning with being tasked with returning Zeus' thunderbolt to him, which someone else has stolen. Percy will engage in his adventure accompanied by Annabeth, a daughter of Athena, and a satyr named Grover. Once they set off, it's hard not to compare the book to Harry Potter: here we have a young protagonist who is constantly in trouble with the "real world" because of his abilities, who is whisked away to his kind's hideaway to learn about his "heritage", who is forced to take an active role in the growing battle because of who his parents were, who is aided by an intellectual girl and an endearing if somewhat clumsy sidekick.

The story was published by a company that does books for older children, although I was told it was a Young Adult book. It's a fun story to read, if not as "sophisticated" as the Harry Potter books. I enjoyed the story, but unlike the Harry Potter books, it did remind me of the books I read as a child. Beyond that, my only real trouble with the book was the idea that all of the gods were involved in accidentally impregnating mortals -- including gods like Athena, who are supposedly virginal. Athena's virginity isn't up for discussion, either: the Greeks built a temple to her and called it the Parthenon (from the Greek word for "virgin") in her honor. Interestingly, the author paints the Greek gods as being deeply involved in western civilization, so much to the point that they move Olympus and Hades every time the heart of western civilization moves. One character says that Olympus has been in Germany, France, Spain (for a time), England (for a long while), and is now in the United States. Despite this, the Pantheon maintains its Greek origins: demigods are dyslexic in all languages but ancient Greek and understand Greek automatically. The currency of choice is Drachmas.

One of the more entertaining aspects of the book is how the gods have changed as western civilization has changed. Zeus dresses in a business suit, Ares as a biker. The gods constantly comment on humans and their relationship to them. One repeated commented is that humans have a spectacular talent for interpreting what happens to them according to what they already believe. There's also a slight environmental message in the book: Grover constantly laments about the way humans are treating the wilderness, and says that these abuses will only cease when Pan (protector of wilderness) is found by the satyrs and wakened from his lengthy sleep.

All in all, a fun little story. I enjoyed it and look forward to reading other books in the series.