Show Buzz: A Literary Juggernaut Brought to Life

It feels like lately there is a new book-to-movie or TV show adaptation announced every week. And all we have to say about that is more. Please give us more. There is nothing better than being able to watch as your characters, world, creatures, universes, whatever come to life before your eyes. And this week, we are highlighting the book series that---arguably---put mythology on the map. That alone should be a dead giveaway to most of you reading, but for everyone else, we are talking about the one and only Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan. Despite its global popularity, the universe created by Riordan has come a long way and, to this day, spans over fifteen novels, two films, and the recently premiered Disney+ series being highlighted this week. But it was not an easy path to the finish line we stand at today, and we're about to take a trip through nearly two decades and a fandom that circles around the globe.

It All Began With a Boy

...but not the one you're thinking of. Riordan found himself asked by his son, Haley, who at the time was only nine years old and recently diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, to make up a story inspired by Greek mythology after his father ran out of myths to recount to him at bedtime. That earnest request from a child looking for a bedtime story from his father resulted in the birth of Percy Jackson, a twelve-year-old demigod and the character that would soon headline one of the most popular franchises around the globe.

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

Percy Jackson is a good kid, but he can't seem to focus on his schoolwork or control his temper. And lately, being away at boarding school is only getting worse - Percy could have sworn his pre-algebra teacher turned into a monster and tried to kill him. When Percy's mom finds out, she knows it's time that he knew the truth about where he came from, and that he go to the one place he'll be safe. She sends Percy to Camp Half Blood, a summer camp for demigods (on Long Island), where he learns that the father he never knew is Poseidon, God of the Sea. Soon a mystery unfolds and together with his friends—one a satyr and the other the demigod daughter of Athena - Percy sets out on a quest across the United States to reach the gates of the Underworld (located in a recording studio in Hollywood) and prevent a catastrophic war between the gods.

The Lightning Thief is the story that started it all. Readers worldwide fell in love with Percy Jackson, the eclectic cast of characters, and Riordan's storytelling, which drew new life to the myths and stories many have grown up with. Riordan's inventive tale saw the Greek Gods and monsters brought to life in the 21st century, masterfully crafting the characters for the modern world and bringing Greek mythology to life for a new generation of readers. In the first novel alone, you are introduced to a whole host of Greek Gods---including Ares, Dionysus, Hades, Zeus, and Poseidon---in addition to a handful of the monsters many have long read about, like Medusa, Echidna, the Chimera, and the Furies. Riordan promptly found himself leaving behind his job as a teacher to focus on writing full-time. By 2009, just four years later, Riordan published the final installation of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series: The Last Olympian.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians (2005-2009)

A Story in Motion

Just one year after the release of The Last Olympian in 2009, fans of the series were rewarded with a film adaptation of the first book, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. The star-studded film was led by Logan Lerman in the titular role of Percy Jackson, accompanied by Brandon T. Jackson, Alexandra Daddario, Jake Abel, Sean Bean, Kevin McKidd, Steve Coogan, Melina Kanakaredes, Rosario Dawson, Dylan Neal, Erica Cerra, Stefanie von Pfetten, Dimitri Lekkos, Ona Grauer, Serinda Swan, Conrad Coates, Ray Winstone, Like Camilleri, Uma Thurman, Pierce Brosnan, Maria Olsen, Julian Richings, Catherine Keener, and Joe Pantoliano.

Despite being praised for the actors' performances and parts of its production, the film received a staggering mix of reviews from critics and fans. However, for many, the nail in the coffin came from author Rick Riordan's stance on the film. Having had no involvement in the production or writing of the film and finding his feedback and opinions ignored, Riordan has, from the start, been opposed to the film. Riordan's criticism of the film's plot, decisions, changes, and overall direction did not sit well with fans. Yet, in 2013, a sequel titled Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters was released. The film once again faced mixed reviews and succumbed to the same faults of its predecessors, with fans opposed to the fact that despite being based on the second novel in the series, the film took too many liberties and deviated so thoroughly from the base material that it became unrecognizable to a point.

A Universe is Born

Riordan, for his part, continued to build upon the groundwork he had laid with the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. In 2010, the same year the first film premiered, Riordan came out with The Lost Hero, the first installment of a brand new series titled The Heroes of Olympus. The new series brought many changes to the franchise, expanding into what many fans call the "Riordanverse" for the first time. Among these changes was a shift to Roman mythology, introducing a new trio of main characters and switching to third-person point-of-view storytelling with alternating character chapters.

The Lost Hero 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 his best friend is a guy named Leo. They’re all students at the Wilderness School, a boarding school for “bad kids," as Leo puts it. What did Jason do to end up here? And where is here, exactly? Jason doesn't know anything—except that everything seems very wrong.

PIPER HAS A SECRET. Her father has been missing for three days, ever since she had that terrifying nightmare about his being in trouble. Piper doesn’t understand her dream, or why her boyfriend suddenly doesn’t recognize her. When a freak storm hits during the school trip, 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, whether she wants to or not.

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, and some camper who's gone missing. Weirdest of all, his bunkmates insist that each of them—including Leo—is related to a god. Does this have anything to do with Jason's amnesia, or the fact that Leo keeps seeing ghosts?

The Lost Hero is Riordan's explosive introduction to a new saga set in the world his fans have come to love. The story brings readers back into Percy Jackson's world while introducing characters they will come to love and bringing back those that appeared in the original series. Brimming with a new prophecy, action, adventure, and all the Gods and monsters from mythology you can imagine, this new series was an instant bestseller, hitting all the right spots with the fans of the original and garnering its very own following.

The Heroes of Olympus (2010-2014)

The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan

How do you punish an immortal?

By making him human.

After angering his father Zeus, the god Apollo is cast down from Olympus. Weak and disorientated, he lands in New York City as a regular teenage boy. Now, without his godly powers, the four-thousand-year-old deity must learn to survive in the modern world until he can somehow find a way to regain Zeus's favour.

But Apollo has many enemies—gods, monsters and mortals who would love to see the former Olympian permanently destroyed. Apollo needs help, and he can think of only one place to go... an enclave of modern demigods known as Camp Half-Blood.

The universe's expansion continues just two years after the publication of The Blood of Olympus, the final installment of The Heroes of Olympus series, with The Hidden Oracle in 2016. As the first novel of the second Percy Jackson spin-off series, The Trials of Apollo, The Hidden Oracle takes readers back into a first-person point-of-view as we follow the Greek God Apollo, whom Zeus has punished by being turned into a mortal. It is an inventive story that draws readers back into the world they have become enthralled with and continues Riordan's master storytelling with a brand new cast of characters while still dropping in on those we have come to love from past novels.

The Trials of Apollo (2016-2020)

A Story Come to Life

Finally, fifteen years after the release of The Lightning Thief, the three series that make up the universe of Percy Jackson have come to a close. However, readers hardly have reason to fret as months before the release of The Tower of Nero, the final installment of The Trials of Apollo, Riordan announced that Disney would be adapting the series into a television series. It is an announcement fifteen years in the making that fans have wished for since the film franchise failed to deliver on the magic of the books. Better yet, Riordan and his wife, Becky, will be directly involved with the development of the series, which will also cast actors in the book characters' age range. After a nail-biting wait for filming on the series to wrap, fans were rewarded with the long-awaited true-to-the-books live-action adaption they craved when the series premiered on Disney+ just last month on December 20, 2023.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians

Percy Jackson is on a dangerous quest. Outrunning monsters and outwitting gods, he must journey across America to return Zeus' master bolt and stop an all-out war. After losing his mother, Percy is sheltered at Camp Half-Blood, a sanctuary for demigod children. He must prove himself and confront his origins once he discovers he too is a demigod, and will take off into the perils of pursuing enemies in search of the Underworld. With the help of his quest mates Annabeth and Grover, Percy's journey will lead him closer to the answers he seeks: how to fit into a world where he feels out of place, if he'll ever see his mother again, and if he can ever find out who he's destined to be.

A world two decades in the making finally comes to life with characters, videography, graphics, visuals, production, and writing that has been praised for its homage to the original text and even for the carefully crafted changes that have served to enhance the viewer's experience and tell the story. It is the epitome of a successful book-to-live-action adaptation that masterfully demonstrates the power of the genre when the original creator of the material is at the forefront of its development. The series is at the top of its game with an engaging plot, a cast true to the characters they portray, and an overall quality and attention to detail that will have viewers who have read the series transported back to the very start as they immerse themselves in the world of Percy Jackson come to life.

The series is headed by fifteen-year-old Walker Scobell (The Adam Project) in the titular role of Percy Jackson, along with Leah Sava Jeffries (Beast) as Annabeth Chase and Aryan Simhadri (Cheaper by the Dozen) as Grover Underwood. They are joined by Charlie Bushnell, Timm Sharp, Glynn Turman, Jason Mantzoukas, Megan Mullaly, Virginia Kull, Dior Goodjohn, Adam Copeland, Timothy Omundson, Suzanne Cryer, Jessica Parker Kennedy, Toby Stephens, Lance Reddick, Jay Duplass, and Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians promotional character posters

Episode 7: "We Found Out the Truth, Sort Of" releases tomorrow, January 23, 2024, and don't miss the highly anticipated finale when Episode 8: "The Prophecy Comes True" airs next week on January 30, 2024.

An Ever Expanding Universe

In addition to the release of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians live-action adaptation on Disney+, Riordan surprised readers in 2023 with the release of The Sun and the Star, a standalone novel co-written with Mark Oshiro, and set directly after the events of The Tower of Nero, the final installment of The Trials of Apollo series. The story follows Nico di Angelo, son of Hades, and his boyfriend Will Solace, son of Apollo, as they embark on their own quest to Tartarus. As if this additional treat wasn't enough, Riordan came out swinging last year with the release of a second novel, The Chalice of the Gods, a direct sequel to The Heroes of Olympus series, and a sixth installment of the long-finished original Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, which centers on Percy, Annabeth, and Grover once again. As expected, long-time fans of the series who have been through the last two decades of book releases went feral with the release and ecstatic over the return to where it all began. The cherry on top? At his launch event for The Chalice of the Gods, Riordan announced that the novel was just the beginning of a new trilogy that will follow our original trio as they transition from High School to College and is chronologically set in the time between the end of The Heroes of Olympus series and the beginning of The Trials of Apollo series.

The seventh installment of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series and the second in the new trilogy, The Wrath of the Triple Goddess, is slated for release in the fall of 2024.

Rick Riordan is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of over twenty novels for young readers, including the Percy Jackson series. For fifteen years, Rick taught English and history at public and private middle schools. While teaching full time, Riordan began writing mystery novels for grownups. His Tres Navarre series went on to win the top three national awards in the mystery genre – the Edgar, the Anthony and the Shamus. Riordan turned to children’s fiction when he started The Lightning Thief as a bedtime story for his oldest son. Today, over 190 million copies of his books are in print worldwide, and rights have been sold into more than 37 countries. Rick and his wife Becky are both executive producers overseeing TV/film adaptations of his works including Percy Jackson, the Kane Chronicles and Daughter of the Deep. Rick Riordan now writes full-time. He lives in Boston with his wife and two sons. You can learn more about Riordan and his extensive list of works at his website, rickriordan.com

HAVE YOU READ THE ENTIRE PERCY JACKSON SERIES?

ARE YOU FOLLOWING ALONG WITH THE WEEKLY EPISODE RELEASES OF THE SHOW?

OR MAYBE YOU'RE WAITING TO BINGE THE FULL SERIES ONCE ALL EIGHT EPISODES ARE RELEASED AT THE END OF THE MONTH?

STOP BY THE QUEEN'S CORNER TO SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS!