QUICKIE: “The Heroes of Olympus” series by Rick Riordan
I loved Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series and I was so sad when the final book “The Last Olympian” was released. Did that mean that it was goodbye to Percy Jackson and the demigod world forever? But what exactly can you do when you’ve exhausted this half-blood’s story line after five books?
The logical answer is to look for other cultures with a rich mythological background to build on. I stayed away from his other series that dealt with Egyptian mythology since it was so far from the series that I have come to love. (A friend said it was not very good.) I also did not read this new venture, Heroes of Olympus, until after I caught wind of “Percy Jackson” uttered from my friends’ Twitter feeds shortly after “The Son of Neptune” came out. I had borrowed “The Lost Hero” from my girlfriend’s brother and sped-read it so I could get finally get to meet Percy Jackson again.
¹ An overhaul in the sense that it adds another layer of complexity to the already rich story, not in the sense that it negates everything that happened before.
This is one series that did not disappoint. As much as I loved Camp Half-Blood, it wore on me. What has resulted is an amalgamation of two related mythoi—the Greek and the Roman—and such a large sideways-overhaul¹ of everything that have transpired in the last five books. In the first book of the series, “The Lost Hero,” we meet Jason, who is surrounded by a girlfriend named Piper and someone who claims to be his best friend, Leo. The thing is, he has no recollection or memory of ever meeting them. He doesn’t even know who he is. Their main mission is to free a goddess, and while their motivations might be different (Jason just wants his memories back), everyone sees it through.
There is trouble stirring between the world of gods and the world of men, and somehow it is up to Jason and his friends to help stop this tragedy, without his memories. As with stories that deal with memory loss and forgetting, it is a very thrilling adventure, when you start uncovering little parts of the story as you read along. Sometimes, you even get to guess the outcome and turn of events. The purpose of this memory loss gets pretty thinly veiled as you read, but it makes everything else no less exciting.
The next book, “The Son of Neptune,” is equally exciting because the amnesiac in question is the one and only Percy Jackson. Here, we are introduced to two new main characters, Frank and Hazel, who are both on the same quest as Percy. They are on a mission to retrieve and free something up to the most Northern part of the world—a place where gods are supposedly powerless.
Essentially, The Heroes of Olympus is a story that explores a prophecy about seven demigods destined to defeat a terrible force. I like it because Riordan found a way to freshen up the world of Percy Jackson just by adding what was already there, adding the complexity and depth of our existing mythological history—at least, in the Greek and Roman arenas. He injects a lot of historical aspects in the story, which really drew me in.
Also, Camp Jupiter is really something else. I really can’t wait for the next installment, which involves Annabeth. It’s called “The Mark of Athena,” however we will be in for a long wait as it comes out Fall 2012.
