Rick Riordan - Percy Jackson and the Greek Gods

I N THE BEGINNING , I wasnt there. I dont think the Ancient Greeks were, either. Nobody had a pen and paper to take notes, so I cant vouch for what follows, but I can tell you its what the Greeks thought happened.

At first, there was pretty much nothing. A lot of nothing.

The first god, if you can call it that, was Chaos a gloomy, soupy mist with all the matter in the cosmos just drifting around. Heres a fact for you: Chaos literally means the Gap, and were not talking about the clothing store.

Eventually Chaos got less chaotic. Maybe it got bored with being all gloomy and misty. Some of its matter collected and solidified into the earth, which unfortunately developed a living personality. She called herself Gaia, the Earth Mother.

Now Gaia was the actual earth the rocks, the hills, the valleys, the whole enchilada. But she could also take on humanlike form. She liked to walk across the earth which was basically walking across herself in the shape of a matronly woman with a flowing green dress, curly black hair and a serene smile on her face. The smile hid a nasty disposition. Youll see that soon enough.

After a long time alone, Gaia looked up into the misty nothing above the earth and said to herself: You know what would be good? A sky. I could really go for a sky. And it would be nice if he was also a handsome man I could fall in love with, because Im kind of lonely down here with just these rocks.

Either Chaos heard her and cooperated, or Gaia simply willed it to happen. Above the earth, the sky formed a protective dome that was blue in the daytime and black at night. The sky named himself Ouranos and, yeah, thats another spelling for Uranus. Theres pretty much no way you can pronounce that name without people snickering. It just sounds wrong. Why he didnt choose a better name for himself like Deathbringer or Jos I dont know, but it might explain why Ouranos was so cranky all the time.

Like Gaia, Ouranos could take human shape and visit the earth which was good, because the sky is way up there and long-distance relationships never work out.

In physical form, he looked like a tall, buff guy with longish dark hair. He wore only a loincloth, and his skin changed colour sometimes blue with cloudy patterns across his muscles, sometimes dark with glimmering stars. Hey, Gaia dreamed him up to look like that. Dont blame me. Sometimes youll see pictures of him holding a zodiac wheel, representing all the constellations that pass through the sky over and over for eternity.

Anyway, Ouranos and Gaia got married.

Happily ever after?

Not exactly.

Part of the problem was that Chaos got a little creation-happy. It thought to its misty, gloomy self, Hey, Earth and Sky. That was fun! I wonder what else I can make.

Soon it created all sorts of other problems and by that I mean gods. Water collected out of the mist of Chaos, pooled in the deepest parts of the earth and formed the first seas, which naturally developed a consciousness the god Pontus.