Books

Book 25: The Last Olympian – Rick Riordan

In this final installment of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, the battle truly rages for New York, for Mount Olympus, and for the world. Titans are now fully reforming and the demigods/Heroes/half-bloods must fight to save everything. It is incredibly difficult as the gods of Olympus are facing attacks on multiple fronts from the Titans Oceanus and Typhon.

The book starts out with a covert attack on Luke and Kronos’ supposed command ship Princess Andromeda. This ends with Percy marooned on Calypso’s magical island Ogygia in order to recuperate. When he returns to camp, all hell breaks loose as they are facing a spy, an increasing number of opponents, and greater losses of life. Nico, son of Hades, made a suggestion to Percy of taking on Achilles curse, dipped in the River Styx and becoming invincible, to which Percy finally agrees.

Click here to continue reading.

Books

Book 24: The Battle of the Labyrinth – Rick Riordan

In the fourth Percy Jackson and the Olympians book we encounter what is perhaps one of the most well known stories of Greek mythology, the Labyrinth. In an interesting twist, as if the entire series wasn’t interesting enough, we find that the Labyrinth still exists and has taken on a life of its own. The creator Deaedalus is ‘alive’ and as long as he lives the Labyrinth has continued to morph and expand.

Luke, the half-blood traitor, has discovered that there is an entrance directly from the Labyrinth into Camp Half-Blood and plans on using the entrance to bypass the magical boundaries and destroy the camp from the inside. This plan succeeds, as in it gets the enemy into the camp, but it does not destroy the camp. Camp receives enough warning and sends Annabeth, Percy, Grover and Tyson on a quest, the first lead by Annabeth to find the creator Daedalus and convince him to help them defeat the forces. Meanwhile, Grover has been told he has seven days to find Pan and if he does not his searcher’s license will be revoked, thanks to his encounter with the essence of the Wild in New Mexico.

Click here to continue reading

Books

Book 23: The Titan’s Curse – Rick Riordan

In book three of the Percy Jackson and the Olypmians series, everything starts out as quickly as in the other novels. Grover has been following up on a couple of potential half-bloods at a military academy and needs Percy and Thalia’s help. He also brings along Thalia, the daughter of Zeus, who sacrificed herself to make sure Luke and Annabeth could get to camp, but was rescued from the tree by the Golden Fleece.

The two half-bloods are Nico and Bianca di Angelo. Little is known about them and as the story progresses Riordan drops little hints that they have some how fallen out of time for a long period of time, such as asking Bianca who the president before last was and she says Roosevelt. They are able to get Bianca and Nico from the school, but Bianca is offered to join the Huntresses of Artemis and accepts the position abandoning her brother to Camp Half-Blood. In the process however Annabeth disappears and is ultimately held hostage by the Titan Atlas. She takes the weight of the sky on her shoulders to supposedly save Luke, but this doesn’t work. The goddess Artemis is later tricked into taking the sky from Artemis.

Click here to continue reading.

Books

Book 22: The Sea of Monsters – Rick Riordan

This is the second novel in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series and was just as exciting and as quick a read as the first book. With the beginning of this book the reader finds Grover on his search to find the legendary Pan, god of the wild, and Percy trying to survive yet another school year in the mortal world. Giants attack Percy and he discovers that his friend over this past year is a cyclops named Tyson, whom we later find out is his half brother when Poseidon claims him similar to the way he claimed Percy.

As they make their way to camp, they find out how much things have changed and how dangerous the world has become for half-bloods. Luke, a son of Hermes, has poisoned the sacred pine tree and the camp’s protections are slowly fading. Meanwhile, a full grown, incredibly dangerous cyclops holds Grover captive, and also has in his possession the legendary Golden Fleece. We discover that Grover bound himself to Percy so that if he dies so does Percy creating a greater sense of urgency.

Click here to continue reading.

Books

Book 21: The Lightning Thief – Rick Riordan

What an intriguing novel. It is the first book in a series of five novels in the Percy Jackson and The Olympians series. I have wanted to read this book since I first heard they were making it into a film. I did not realize at the time what sort of novel it was, who it was geared towards or the more specifics of the series, but I liked the general idea of it.

In this first novel of the series we meet a host of mythological characters and find out that the gods of Olympus and all of their connections remain alive. This is the story of Perseus (Percy) Jackson and the other Heroes who are half-bloods, half-god half-mortal. The reader is quickly thrown into the action when a teacher/monster attacks Percy and he realizes that he is not like other kids his age. Fast forward to where Percy and his mom encounter his best friend Grover (a satyr) at their rented beach house and the story gets fully underway.

Click here to continue reading.