Michael Reads Percy Jackson: Starting Point

Are you excited? I’M excited! Also, I’m caffeinated. That’s probably something, too.

So I’m all set to plunge into the first novel of Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series, The Lightning Thief. (Here’s my intro blog post if you missed that one.) This will be the first time I’ve ever blogged my experience of reading a book, so I don’t know quite how quickly it will go, but I guess we’ll explore this together.

First, a few ground rules:

1. NO SPOILERS! I want to experience the book as Riordan intended. The art of crafting how a story unfolds to a reader is something I’m passionate about. I’d hate to think of someone altering that experience for readers of my own novels, and I don’t see how I should hold myself to different standards when I’m reading. Comments are encouraged, but please leave them spoiler free – or at least blatantly spoiler-tagged to give me some warning.
2. …Actually, there’s really only one ground rule, now that I think about it. But I’ve already typed the “2)” there, so, um, let’s see… Do NOT talk about Fight Club! Which actually makes me think of another rule…
3. Talk about Michael Reads Percy Jackson as much as you want. Tell your friends if you like. And your family. And Rick Riordan if you know him. In fact, why not hit one of the “share” buttons down at the bottom right now? (Yeah, I’m shameless.)

I know very little about this series, but it seems fitting for me to tell you just how much I think I do know. This shouldn’t take long. Like I said, I avoided exposure to the series while finishing up Zeus Is Dead, but I did once take a glance at The Lightning Thief’s Wikipedia entry to see if Riordan’s idea differed any from my own. So here’s what I know–or think I know:

• It’s like Harry Potter but with Greek mythology instead of wizardry.
• The main character is Percy Jackson, who is a mortal son of…either Poseidon or Zeus. I want to say Poseidon.
• There is a character named Thalia, but it’s a different mythological Thalia (i.e. NOT the Muse of Comedy (and Science Fiction) featured in Zeus Is Dead).
• Someone stole Zeus’s lightning.
• Olympus is a big skyscraper in New York. I think. I’m less sure about this one.
• Percy Jackson finds out during adolescence that he’s got divine parentage and goes to a school for other divinely spawned kids.
• Medusa is in it.
• Ares is in a motorcycle gang. I think. Maybe.
• There is humor in it, but it’s primarily a dramatic adventure tale.
• Unlike the world of Zeus Is Dead, the Greek pantheon’s existence is NOT known to the general public.

Lightning thief? Why do I immediately suspect Hermes is involved?

And that’s about it, really. If I’m wrong about any of these, just snicker quietly to yourself. I’ll find out the truth in the book soon enough.

My plan with this is to do a blog post for each chapter that I read, but I’m weird and unpredictable so it’s possible I might occasionally lump two chapters together or spend a post talking entirely about cheese, because reasons. There will also soon be a link on the right in the blog that will take you to all of the “Michael Reads…” entries, as soon as I’ve built up a few.

Here we go!