Monday, December 6, 2010

The Lost Hero (Heroes of Olympus) by Rick Riordan

     Jason has a problem. He doesn’t remember anything before waking up in a bus full of kids on a field trip. Apparently he has a girlfriend named Piper and a best friend named Leo. They’re all students at a boarding school for “bad kids.” What did Jason do to end up here? And where is here, exactly? Piper has a secret. Her father has been missing for three days, ever since she had that terrifying nightmare. Piper doesn’t understand her dream, or why her boyfriend suddenly doesn’t recognize her. When a freak storm hits, unleashing strange creatures and whisking her, Jason, and Leo away to someplace called Camp Half-Blood, she has a feeling she’s going to find out. Leo has a way with tools. When he sees his cabin at Camp Half-Blood, filled with power tools and machine parts, he feels right at home. But there’s weird stuff, too—like the curse everyone keeps talking about. Weirdest of all, his bunkmates insist that each of them—including Leo—is related to a god.

(Summary courtesy of Goodreads)

     The Lost Hero is book one of a new series from Rick Riordan as a continuation spin-off of Riordan’s best selling series Percy Jackson & The Olympians. It takes place two weeks after The Last Olympian (PJ & O) left off, where Percy and his friends successfully lead a group of demigods against the Titan king Kronos and saved Mt. Olympus from crumbling out of its refuge in the sky.
      In the story, Percy has gone missing and Jason magically appears at the same time with no memory of who he is or how he got there. All Jason knows is his name, there’s a golden coin in his pocket that turns into whatever type of sword he needs for the occasion and that he suddenly knows random facts about Roman gods and their attributes. He has no idea what is in store for him when he arrives at Camp Half-Blood, haven for the children of the gods.
      I have to say that I really enjoyed this book. It was not only a continuation of one of my favorite book series, but also a breath of fresh air with new characters and new prophecies to be fulfilled. I enjoyed the (although brief) appearances of my favorite characters (Annabeth, Chiron, and Thalia etc) from the original series. They kept me involved with the story because I wanted to know how much of an asset would they be to it.
      The plotline was pretty great. I love how Riordan uses the actual story/timeline that the Greek myths take. For example, in PJ & O the storyline was that the Titan lord Kronos tried to overthrow his Olympian children and regain the stem of power, which is exactly what the myths said happened millennia ago. After the Titans were defeated again, Gaia (the personification of earth and mother of Kronos) became angry at her son’s defeat and went back to Tartarus to rebirth her nastiest children, the Giant Lords to do what Kronos could not in The Lost Hero. All of this was written as myths and Riordan revamped them to fit into modern times which works so well.
       I am very excited for the next book in the series (Son of Neptune), which will have me jumping for joy as Jason and his friends go on a quest to find Percy, son of Poseidon! I recommend this to anyone who has ever read the Percy Jackson series and both to anyone who enjoys reading about the Greek gods and their children.
Four stars

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