Natalie Buczynsky - The Unofficial Heroes of Olympus Companion: Gods, Monsters, Myths and Whats in Store for Jason, Piper and Leo

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Are You Ready for the Next Adventure?

The new series begins October 2015! Learn everything you need to know about the mythical Norse before the story begins with the Unofficial Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard Companion .

Find out more at:

www.ulyssespress.com

Table of Contents

To J.C., who makes me believe
that I can do all things.

N. B.

To the one who makes
Zeus look like a tiny spark.

J. S.

To Eriana Marcus,
still the brightest light illuminating my path.

R. M.

A note on spellings and pronunciation in this book: Ancient Greek was written in a different alphabet than we use today, and through the ages and various translations, a number of different spellings have been used for their names. Weve elected to follow the most common spellings used today, and those used by Rick Riordan in his books. The versions we reference are:

Riordan, Rick. The Lightning Thief. New York: Disney / Hyperion, 2005.

Riordan, Rick. The Sea of Monsters. New York: Disney / Hyperion, 2006.

Riordan, Rick. The Titans Curse. New York: Disney / Hyperion, 2007.

Riordan, Rick. The Battle of the Labyrinth. New York: Disney / Hyperion, 2008.

Riordan, Rick. The Last Olympian. New York: Disney / Hyperion, 2009.

Riordan, Rick. The Lost Hero. New York: Disney / Hyperion, 2010.

CHAPTER ONE

THE GODS THEN AND NOW

GRECO-ROMAN GODS and goddesses can do a lot of miraculous things. They can make themselves tiny or huge, transform themselves into any animal imaginable from serpents to swans, hurl lightning bolts, appear and vanish at will, or turn the tides of battles. But theres one thing they cannot do: They cant die. They are immortal.

THE PERCY JACKSON STORY

This simple fact is the central premise for the Percy Jackson & the Olympians and Heroes of Olympus series of young adult novels by Rick Riordan, a former middle-school English and history teacher from San Antonio, Texas. If the gods of antiquity could not die, Riordan reasoned, then they must still be around... somewhere. Probably not atop the original Mount Olympus in Greece, where they would stick out like sore thumbs among the thousands of tourists who climb that mountain each year. Nor would they likely reside in Rome, which is now the home of the Catholic Church and long ago rejected the pagan gods of ancient times. No, the old gods would most likely live in the heart of Western civilization todayand that, at least to an author born and raised in Texas, could only be the United States of America.

With that in mind, in 1994 Riordan wrote The Lightning Thief, a tale designed to introduce adolescent students to Greek mythology in an exciting new way. The book features a troubled 12-year-old hero who suffers from learning disabilitiesdyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorderand has trouble keeping out of trouble in school or even staying in the same school for more than one year. Upon discovering that some of his teachers are not what they seem, Percy is forced to flee to upstate New York, where he takes refuge at a kids summer camp called Camp Half-Blood. This is no ordinary camp. It is run by Greek gods in the guise of mortals, and each of the kids there is a demigodthe offspring of a mortal parent and a god. Percy soon learns that the very flaws that caused him to be seen as a troublemaking nerd in the outside world are the traits of a hero in the realm of gods and demigods. Soon he is off on the first of a series of quests with his friendsAnnabeth, a daughter of the goddess Athena, and Grover, a young satyr, or goat-boywhich will take them across the breadth of the United States and bring them face-to-face with gods and monsters that have lived since ancient times.

After several years, Riordan succeeded in finding a publisher who would buy the rights to The Lightning Thief, but the book was not actually published then. Instead, the rights were traded from one publisher to another until finally one editor noticed that Percy Jacksons story bore a striking resemblance to that of Harry Potter, the hero of the British novels that rank as the best-selling young adult series of all time. That was around the same time author J. K. Rowling announced that the Harry Potter series would come to an end with the publication of the seventh volume in 2006. Booksellers, educators, and fans alike began to wonder nervously who the next Harry Potter would beand behold, the long-unpublished The Lightning Thief surfaced.

In the years since, Riordan has written a new book in his series each year, just as J. K. Rowling used to. Although his books have yet to reach anything like the universal popularity of Harry Potter, each of them has reached the top of the New York Times Best Seller List. And just as J. K. Rowling is credited with introducing a new generation to the joys of reading, Rick Riordan has undoubtedly succeeded in his goal of bringing the adventure and excitement of ancient mythology to millions of young readers who otherwise would likely roll their eyes in exaggerated boredom when the subject came up.

Over the course of the five novels of the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, Percy and his friends matured from age 12 to 16. By the fifth book they were getting a little old for the kind of summer camp theyd known so far, and in any case, Camp Half-Blood was no longer what it had been before the final apocalyptic battle between the Olympian gods and their ancient Titan rivals. So Riordan immediately set to work on the first installment of a new series, the Heroes of Olympus. This book, The Lost Hero, introduced a whole new set of young characters. It promised to explore the transformation of Greek mythology into the mythology of the Roman Empire. And it assured fans around the world that, as the series progressed, Percy Jackson would be back.

HOMER AND THE HEROES

The Percy Jackson phenomenon is the latest chapter in the timeless saga of the Greco-Roman gods and goddesses, demigods, and monsters. The origins of the gods are lost in the mists of time, long before the first of the ancient Greeks were born, but date back to earlier civilizations such as the Persians (4000 B.C.), Northern Indians (3100 B.C.), Mesopotamians (3000 B.C.), and Egyptians (2600 B.C.). At least one mythological being common to Egyptian, Greek, and Roman tradition can be traced back to sculptures erected in Turkey around 9500 B.C.

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