Book Review: The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan

The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan

This book is the second in the Riordan series, Heroes of Olympus, the follow-up to his wildly-popular Percy Jackson and the Olympian series. This series makes sense (on more than a just-cashing-in-on-a-popular-character basis) because it explores the way the Romans took the Greek gods and altered them, as well as contrasting the Greek and Roman cultures in general.

This is good, not only because it is educational, and not only because that is an interesting topic to explore. I like this series better than the last because it gives the gods and goddesses more nuanced characters, particularly as they appear in either their Greek or Roman forms; I felt they were rather simplified into larger-than-life caricatures, and too often presented for comic effect.

I would extend the same praise to the new characters introduced in this series. While the story still incorporates Percy Jackson and some of the most important demigods (the offspring of the gods/goddesses with their human partners) from the former series, the new ones tend to be more well-developed personalities with more interesting abilities, quirks, and/or backstories. In this book, we meet Hazel, who harbors a secret skill and a ton of guilt about how that skill was used to bad ends in her history, and Frank, who has an unknown family legacy and a life-and-death secret that may be the key to saving the world.

Perhaps my favorite part of the book was towards the beginning, which is largely set in Camp Jupiter, the Roman alternative to the Greek demigod training facility, Camp Half-Blood, that was home base in the original series. I really enjoyed how Riordan demonstrated some of the big differences in the Roman culture by the ways Camp Jupiter contrasted with Camp Half-Blood (although you had to have read and remembered the other books, because there is no description of Camp Half-Blood in this book).

I haven’t mentioned much about the plot because it is typical Rick Riordan fare. That is, it largely consists of the underdog heroes having to get somewhere (usually far away and in very little time without any obvious means of transportation) in order to follow a quest/rescue someone/get a vital clue or piece of information/retrieve some necessary item from some mythical creature. Of course, either on the way or once there (sometimes both), the heroes have to defeat some monstrous force from Greek or Roman mythology against which it would seem they would have no chance, but somehow miraculously prevail. Repeat multiple times through the course of, in the case of this book, 513 pages.

So the nonstop battles to save the world aren’t my cup of tea, but, then, Riordan isn’t really writing for me. His stuff is very popular among the upper elementary and middle school crowd, and it appropriate for them to be reading such heroic tales. But I will say that I like the heroes, particularly Frank, better than the ones in past books, which makes all the violent (but not gross or nightmare-provoking) encounters more palatable for me.

And, as I’ve said in previous reviews, given that kids of this age like reading this kind of action book, it’s great that Riordan packs in a lot of great mythological and historical content in among the mayhem.

Book Review: The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan

My request for the second book in Rick Riordan's The Kane Chronicles series showed up this week, so I just finished reading The Throne of Fire.  Just as with the first book in the series, The Red Pyramid, I had some issues with this book (as I do with all of the Riordan books I have read, I have to admit).  But I will say that I liked this book better than the inaugural book in the series.

In case you've been in a coma for the past decade and don't know who Rick Riordan is, he is the highly successful author of the "Percy Jackson and the Olympian" series, which posits that the ancient Greek gods and goddesses are still around and have, in fact, relocated to New York City, where they are still doing that old Greek god thing of siring children with mortal females, thus creating a bunch of modern demigods (including Percy Jackson) who are called upon to save the world.  His follow-up series is The Kane Chronicles, in which the ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses are trying to make a comeback, assisted by the descendants of the old pharaoh lines, including siblings Carter and Sadie Kane, who are called upon to save the world.

Now, I love what Riordan is trying to do, which is to use the modern middle schooler's predeliction for fantasy and action literature, and to try to throw in some true information about classical mythology.  And I am sure that he has done a lot to raise the knowledge level of this generation on these topics.  My concern is that I, an adult with a masters degree and a pretty substantial background in Greek mythology, and at least above average familiarity with Egyptian mythology, have a hard time linking up the non-stop action with the content of the myths.  The kids in these stories tend to be under attack from one god, monster, demon, or other mythological forces after another, and they pass through so quickly and with so little context that I worry that none of it is really going to stick in the adolescent mind.  As Bruce Handy writes in The New York Times in his review of The Red Pyramid, "Riordan writes the way Michael Bay directs, or would direct if Bay had ADHD, with eruptions of mayhem every few pages and exposition falling like hail."

So, as I said in my review of Riordan's second Greek-based "Heroes of Olympus"series first book, The Lost Hero,  I actually liked that better than The Lightening Thief series because it made more sense to me.  I would say the same thing about The Throne of Fire.  This time, instead of having to investigate the entire world of Egyptian mythology and who is good and who is bad, the plot is focused on an attempt to resurrect the ancient Sun god, Ra.  To me, it contains more consistent information about a specific--and fascinating--part of Egyptian mythology, so the plot developments seem much less random.  Plus, this book introduces some other characters besides the Kane siblings with some unsolved mysteries that make things a little more interesting (all Riordan's main protagonists seem a bit too much "wisecracking" and a little less deep than some of the secondary characters, at least in my opinion).

The bottom line is that readers in the early adolescent age range tend to love these books, hyperactive plots and shallow characters or not.  But I think this one may do a better job of conveying a piece of Egyptian mythology in a way they can understand and remember.

Book Review: The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan

While it's not like I don't have enough things to keep me busy this time of year, I just finished reading The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan.  But I had requested it from the library, and after how ever many weeks? months? of waiting, it arrived and I only had a week to read it.  So if I never get around to doing Christmas cards, I'm blaming it on Rick Riordan.

However, I have to say that I'm glad I got to read it.  The truth is, we're not big Percy Jackson fans here.  My son read The Lightning Thief, and he liked it OK, but never read any of the other books in the series, nor did my husband.  I read all five books, and while I really liked the premise and love the way the books hook children into Greek mythology, I never was in love with the series like I have been with some other young adult series.

So, while I don't know that this would be true for middle school readers, I think I actually like The Lost Hero better than the previous series.  My main reason is that, to me, this book is more like a real mystery book, where you can figure out from the clues what may be coming up.  One of my biggest problems with the Percy Jackson series is that while you quickly learned that every chapter or so, the protagonists would be facing some horrible monster or vengeful god from Greek mythology, it always seemed arbitrary to me as to who was showing up when.  It felt to me like when Riordan was writing, he would say to himself "Whoops, it's been three chapters now since Percy Jackson was on the brink of being killed.  Let's see, who haven't I used yet to try to destroy him?" and then just throw in some new Greek horror.  But from my perspective, this one seems more cohesive, and Greek figures who either help or oppose the demigod heroes make more sense to me, based on their traditional stories and what is going on in the book.  This time around, I could take the clues and figure out somethings about the heroes and about the forces of evil that they must overcome (I don't want to be more specific and give things away, but come on--that's what Riordan's mythology series are always about).  I felt like I used my brain a bit more in this book, and that's something I appreciate in a book.

Another thing that I really like about this series is that it is blending the Greek and the Roman mythologies.  It is only touched on in this book, but the groundwork is laid for the fact that while the Romans borrowed their gods from the Greeks, their versions were slightly different in some significant ways.  I don't know where Riordan is going with this, but this is a fascinating new element to weave into his updated mythological tales.

This series maintains the same madcap pace...can't any of these "end of life as we know" scenarios give the protagonists at least a week of warning?...but has less of the comic/bravado/sarcastic patter that Percy Jackson tends to keep up during his battles.  Again, that is probably undesirable from the point of view of young adolescents, but a parent (or, at least, I) doesn't miss it.  Also, the story is told in third person among the three demigods who are the main characters in the book, which I like because I like spreading the wealth and getting to know more characters, rather that being so focused on just Percy Jackson.  The gods are also a bit nicer to their kids (so far, at least), and as a parent, I approve of that as well.

So I enjoyed the book, and recommend it to others.  It's not really something that I think of as being a Newbery contender.  But it is fun, fast-paced, and builds on a successful series that did build an interesting world that brings ancient mythology into the 21st century.  I think Riordan's idea of looking at both the Greek and Roman faces of these stories has a lot of potential, and I hope he takes advantage of that in the books to come.