Michael Reads Percy Jackson: The Sea of Monsters – Ch 17

“When you’re Fleeced, you’ve got nothing. No cash, no drachmas, no job history…”

Whenever anyone travels to Miami these days, I secretly hope they’ll run into Michael Weston and the rest of the Burn Notice crew. That doesn’t happen to Percy Jackson, but some other stuff does. It’s time for part 17 of Michael Reads Percy Jackson: The Sea of Monsters…

We Get a Surprise on Miami Beach

As the title implies, Percy et al. swiftly arrive at Miami Beach where the hippocampi leave them and the Mist pixelates Tyson’s eye. I wonder: Who controls the Mist? Is it the purview of a particular god, or more of an independent phenomenon? (Did Riordan already say and I missed it? You can tell me if so…)

I hadn’t expected getting the Fleece home to be as simple as sending Clarisse to the airport with some cash. (Then again, she hasn’t made it home yet. I wonder if it’ll give her any trouble going through the metal detectors?) And while I was busy being surprised about that development occurring before Luke came back into the story, Luke…surprised me by coming back into the story.

I’ll be the first to admit that my mind works in strange ways, especially on a Monday. I should really have expected something given the warning that the chapter title gives me, huh?

But wait! Percy boasts that the Fleece is on it’s way to the airport, and Luke calls for his (as yet unseen) steed. Well, crap: The Fleece isn’t as safely away as I’d thought. (Curse you, Luke and your villainous, dastardly ways!) Strangely, I can’t quite blame Percy for letting slip the Fleece’s whereabouts. Maybe it’s that he admits to the reader that it was unwise of him, or maybe I’m just cutting the kid more slack than I usually do because of how quickly he deciphered Clarisse’s prophecy.

Or maybe I’m just inconsistent unpredictable that way.

Now what happens next isn’t entirely original: The whole “get the villain to monologue so everyone can hear him” trope is an old one. Nonetheless, I admit this is the first time I’ve encountered it used in conjunction with a coin thrown into a fountain, and Percy’s surreptitious dialing of Dionysus earns him some cleverness points. And as everyone should know, just because something is a trope doesn’t mean it’s bad. (Warning: TVTropes link! Proceed with caution.) The whole thing works quite well, and I was pleased to see Chiron’s name cleared.

Of course, Percy, Annabeth, and Tyson are still stuck on the ship with Luke and numerous murderous folk. But that’s their problem.

The clearing of Chiron’s name means Tantalus gets sent back to the Underworld. But why was he there in the first place? It seems like the only reason someone would pull the guy up from Hades is to actively sabotage Camp Halfblood. Who hired him? If they didn’t have an ulterior motive, then that feels like a big loose end to me. I’ll be keeping an eye out for more on this later in the book, or perhaps in the next…

No lines really jumped out at me as I was reading that I would nominate for a favorite for this chapter, so I had to hunt for one this time. That said, I’m going with:

“The hippocampi are acting funny.”

The idea of an already unusual creature acting in an additionally strange manner just amuses me.

So why would Luke have let Percy take the Fleece? He didn’t have time to say. Is it something to do with the prophecy that no one wants to tell him about? Maybe Luke intended it to be a gift in order to bribe Percy onto Luke’s side of the conflict? I guess I’ll have to read on…