By Lee McGowan
Correspondent
New York Times bestselling author Rick Riordan returned to his roots on Sept. 26 with the release of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Chalice of the Gods.”
“Percy Jackson and the Olympians” began as a bedtime story for Riordan’s 12-year-old son. His son was struggling with ADHD and dyslexia, so Riordan created Percy Jackson — a son of the Greek god Poseidon, who uses his learning disabilities as a way to save the world from mythical monsters.
Riordan released the first of the series, “The Lightning Thief,” in 2005. Since then, the series has grown into five books and over 15 more sequels from other characters’ points of view. While Riordan has steadily released novels in this universe since 2005, this is his first return to a novel entirely focused on Percy.
Riordan announced the release of “The Chalice of the Gods” in October 2022. In his announcement, he revealed he wrote the novel as a way to persuade Disney executives to shoot a Percy Jackson television series.
“If [Disney] helps me get a live-action series off the ground, I would be willing to write a new Percy Jackson novel, or even several, which Disney Publishing could release when the show came out,” Riordan said.
After the negative reaction to the movie adaptations released in 2010 and 2013, Riordan has been very public about his desire for Percy to get a second try on screen. He said, “I wanted it to be a book you all might actually love, a kind of ‘thank you’ for sticking with me all these years as you waited for a better PJO adaptation.”
The novel follows Percy in between the sequel series “Heroes of Olympus” and “Trials of Apollo.” Percy is in his senior year at Alternative High School, and it’s the dreaded college application season.
Although Percy thinks saving the world once or twice might help him get into New Rome University (a college specially designed for demigods), he finds some roadblocks in his way. In order to be admitted, he must have a letter of recommendation from three gods, which can only be obtained by completing quests.
This was the perfect set up for Riordan to return to Percy, as it follows the structure of the previous novels. Riordan does not try to push Percy into brand new situations; he keeps him firmly planted in the universe already created.
Percy is aided in his first quest by his girlfriend Annabeth Chase and best friend Grover Underwood, two returns from the previous series, with the three characters always aiding each other in quests.
Although other characters from the series are mentioned, there is a clear focus throughout the novel on these three. Fans were ecstatic with this news, though some were upset to see a lack of their favorite characters.
While some fans were hoping for the rating of the novel to age alongside themselves, Riordan has kept his original style of writing for middle school ages. Riordan allows fans of all ages to read his books, from new middle schoolers to millennials reliving their childhood.
However, Percy is now 17 years old and is beginning to plan for his life outside of school. He is a more mature character now than he was, as his problems are more mature.
Riordan balances this juggle between dealing with adult issues but still being engaging for young people by keeping a lighthearted tone throughout. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Riordan said, “I think this book allowed me some more space to let the narrative breathe and give Percy some downtime.”
Fans enjoy seeing Percy’s real life, but the fast moving plot of the first five books meant Riordan didn’t have time to break down Percy’s hobbies outside of Camp Half Blood. In this book, the action takes a backseat to focus on Percy’s relationship with his friends, mother and step-father, and who he wants to be outside of a demigod.
By keeping a lighthearted tone, Riordan was very successful in maintaining the original style of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians.” It is not an easy feat to keep a writing style consistent for 18 years, but Riordan is clearly in touch with his characters.
Though Riordan is in touch with how to write his characters, taking a break from a series for so long means continuity errors are bound to occur. For example, in the novel, Percy wears a baseball cap that can turn him invisible, which belongs to his girlfriend. Once removed, he noticed wearing the cap was painful.
However, in “The Titan’s Curse,” Percy wears the cap for an extended period, with no comment to it being painful. Small continuity errors like that pop up throughout, but as a whole, the novel stays true to the well-loved series.
The original concept for the “Chalice of Gods” was to be a three part series on the different quests Percy takes to get into college. Riordan has more recently announced to Entertainment Weekly that these stories are not on his timeline yet, but that he would be interested in making them animated specials rather than full fledged novels. Riordan does promise that no matter what form they come in, he still has more of Percy’s story to share.
