Percy Jackson and the Olympians

I don't usually do book reviews, but when I power through a series of five books in seven days, we're talking about a particularly review-worthy group of books.

So, I'm here now to talk about the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan. Made up of The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, The Battle of the Labyrinth, The Titan's Curse, and The Last Olympian... and soon to be a major motion picture, this is an adventure story after my heart. You see, I've always had a thing for Greek Mythology. I had this little set of books from one of those Scholastic Book Orders from Elementary School that I read a bazillion times. I drank the stories right up, I reveled in the legends of the Olympian gods, the myths of Pandora, Narcissus, and Hercules... there was just *something* that drew me to these tales.

Of course, when I heard there was a series of books that had a lot of the same elements that made us fall in love with Harry Potter -- and had to do with Greek mythology -- I was hooked before I even read the first word. And the stories didn't disappoint at all once I finally got around to pulling them off the shelf. Sure, they're easy reads made for younger children (in fact, the 9-year-old I was babysitting a few weeks ago was reading The Lightning Thief) -- but that just made them all the more exciting. When you can really power through a book -- I read just about all of the 300-page books in 2 days -- you get to enjoy the pace and adventure even more than a book which bogs you down with complex writing.

Riordan is witty and playful as he mixes up the adventures of Percy Jackson, Son of Poseidon, and all the other demi-gods who go to Camp Half-Blood. He makes the existence of the Olympian Gods believable with the explanation that they follow the beacon of light that is Western Civilization. He gives Apollo attitude, Hermes personality, and mythical creatures like satyrs, cyclopses, and centaurs so much energy that they seem to leap off the page. I particularly liked the way Riodan mixed other Greek tales -- like the Odessey, the Labyrinth, and the Trojan War -- into the story of Percy and his friends. And the way he drew out the basic plot-line of Kronos returning to power didn't feel stretched, even though it is the focal point of most of the latter four books of the series.

I'm going to be writing brief reviews of the individual stories on my Goodreads account, so I'll wrap this up by saying that I really enjoyed this series. I'm looking forward to see what Chris Columbus (director of the first two Harry Potter films) does with the movie adaptation in February... and I'm pleased to hear that Riordan is writing more Percy Jackson stories, possibly due Fall 2010. Overall, reading these books over the past week has been a fun ride -- if what I've described sounds like something you might like, I encourage you to give the series a go, but don't start until you have all the books and have a bit of time to read, because you won't want to put them down! Cheers :)