The Red Pyramid, the first book in Rick Riordan's new series the Kane Chronicles was one of my favorite picks for 2010, and having enjoyed it so much I figured I should go back to where it all began for Riordan, with The Lightening Thief. This was a book that had been sort of taunting me for months. I received a bundle of all five books in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series for my classroom, and they have proved very popular. I had one student who was pushing them blatantly (I'm fairly certain he felt he belonged at Camp Half-Blood) to the point that he started leaving copies on my desk. Still I didn't read them, because frankly it just didn't catch my fancy.Last year a co-worker of mine, Katie, had mentioned the books to me, after I saw her reading one at lunch. She encouraged me to read them because after all "don't you just love Greek mythology!" Okay, I know I have a cultural anthropology degree, I know I've done some archeological work, yes I've been to Greece. That does not add up to a love of Greek mythology, and if a love of mythology was what would attract me to these books, it just wasn't going to happen. THis past fall another co-worker, Stephanie, about twenty years older than Katie happened to pick up the none-too-subtly deposited book off my desk and mentioned she had read the series, and found them enjoyable. Her fourteen year-old son struggled with reading, but found these books to not be so much of a challenge (I refrained from asking if her son's difficulty reading had anything to do with a dalliance some fifteen or so years ago with the mailman, who was really the god Hermes in disguise). We then went on to have an intelligent discussion about what she liked about the books, and subsequently what she hadn't like about the movie version.
Stephanie, my elder co-worker said that Percy's age (12) and the insecurities and responses that h has because of that stage of development were the best part for her, lost when the movie-makers bumped his age up a few years. Personally I found it a little irritating, there was too much of a gap for me to relate to him as a character and at times it felt a little too silly. In The Red Pyramid because one protagonist is twelve and the other fourteen and the narrative switches off between them that goofy childishness is more tempered. Back to The Lightening Thief. Was it a bad book? Certainly not, it is fairly well paced, had some nice twists and turns, which if they weren't totally unexpected at least well plotted. The modernization of the gods was a nice touch that gave it a fresh feel and was good for a laugh, the next time you see Jimmy Buffett on T.V. singing Margaritaville just remember, Poseidon looks exactly like him, except with black hair.
At 375 pages it was a lot shorter than Red Pyramid (a hefty 528) however to tell the truth I'm not sure if I can slog through another four books worth of Olympian fun. At present I have an enormous bcaklog of books waiting so it won't be soon. However, Riordan is one of the freshest authors I've read in a long time. I think his storytelling is top notch, so even if I'm not terribly interested in the subject matter I might give it the old college try again. After all how can that many million fans be wrong?
