With a new adaptation already on the way, Rick Riordan has announced a new Percy Jackson book
This will be the first mainline Percy Jackson book in over a decade
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It’s 2022, and being in the Percy Jackson business is good. Disney+ is putting together a new series adaptation of the best-selling children’s fantasy books about a demigod learning about his destiny and all the other gods and god-type people who have opinions about it, with Walker Scobell playing Percy himself (replacing Logan Lerman from the movies). Now, original Percy Jackson author Rick Riordan is cashing in by announcing a brand new Percy Jackson book—the first in over a decade. (Is it “cashing in” if you write a successful series of books that is now getting a second stab at an adaptation, and you decide to write another book? Or is it just smart business sense?)
Riordan posted about the new book on Twitter (via The Hollywood Reporter), saying it will be titled Percy Jackson And The Olympians: The Chalice Of The Gods. It will be available on September 26, 2023. This will be the sixth book in the series, with the last book (The Last Olympian) having been released in 2009. That’s if you don’t count the technically standalone sequel series, though, called The Heroes Of Olympus, which wrapped up in 2014 with The Blood Of Olympus.
The fact that this new book as Percy Jackson And The Olympians in the title means it will be connected to the original series, with Riordan saying in an interview with Publishers Weekly that it will be about Percy getting ready to go to New Rome University and getting recommendation letters from gods by doing heroic quests. Riordan says it will mostly take place in New York, and rather than being about a “world-ending adventure,” it will be “a day in the life of a demigod.” He also says that there won’t be a big tonal shift as compared to the other books, even though Percy is older now, so it just sounds like it’s designed to be a chill time for fans of the series—and if you happen to buy it because there’s a new Disney+ series, that’s cool too.
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Doesn’t he also pump out books in the same universe about children of different gods as well? Like Norse demigods. I seem to recall my son reading those
Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, and yes there is a connection; the main character is the cousin of one the Percy Jackson leads. I only read the first one, though I remember liking it – it’s good for the same reason most of his books are good, and I appreciate him going all in on all the main characters having DIED (what with the main setting being Valhalla)
The co-lead in that Norse series is gender-fluid. He really is the anti-Rowling in a lot of ways.
That is both cool and fitting for a lot of Norse and honestly many other mythologies. I am gonna guess the co-leads god parent was Loki maybe?
YES.
Yes. He’s also written ones based on Egyptian mythology and has an imprint called Rick Riordan Presents that promotes lesser-known writers who are writing own voices books inspired by Aztec, Mayan, Cuban, Native American, African, and Asian mythology and folklore (among others). I work in a small public library in the middle of nowhere and have directed my fair share of teens and tweens to Riordan’s other books. They seem to be pretty popular, and I like the fact that he used his own clout to help other writers, so I don’t mind promoting him at all. And I have no problem with him cashing in on another Percy Jackson adaptation. It’s not like he’s been sitting on his thumbs in the intervening years not writing. I’d 10 to 1 rather promote his books to kids than James Fucking Patterson, who has an organization that is supposed to promote childhood reading but every time I’ve ever seen material from them it seems like all he does is promote his own books for kids. I can’t stand that man. I mean, I still recommend him to people whom I think would enjoy his work because it’s not my job to gatekeep reading, but it’s with much less palpable enthusiasm than I do Riordan. LOL
I didn’t realize James Patterson also wrote YA and children’s novels. Honestly I am still skeptical he does. The guys output is insane, I have to think that a lot of his work is contracted out to others and they just use his pen name. Not sure why you would want to do that since to me the name James Patterson invokes a shitty paperback you desperately bought at a Airport shop because you needed something to read on the plane
Yeah I should probably have put some quotation marks around his own books. I know he’s been pretty open about farming out his adult books, and I don’t think it is unreasonable to assume he does the same with books geared toward younger readers. I have never understood his appeal either, but a pretty good percentage of the reader’s advisory work I do with adult readers is someone who is a James Patterson fan looking for something similar to read or someone I end up recommending James Patterson to because it is very much in line with their reading tastes. That was actually the last 2 RA sessions I did. I’ve not looked in a couple of years, but last time I checked, he circulated far more than any other author in our system. It boggles my mind, but he and his writer minions are clearly doing something that people keep coming back for.
Technically, in his Greek/Roman mythology series, this is book 17. (The original 5 Percy Jackson books, then Heroes of Olympus, then Trials of Apollo, then the Nico/Will book also due next year.) That’s if you don’t count the Egyptian and Norse mythology books, which I suppose you can if you want since Percy and Annabeth cross over into them.However you define it, the new book is good news – because any new literature from Rick Riordan is good news.
I’m a mythology nut and devoured these books. They are my Harry Potter. As expected, you got it all wrong, but I’m here to help and not just snark. Well, almost not just…
First five books – Greek mythology.
Ends with “The Last Olympian” but also ends with two key clues – a new prophecy and a vague reference to a villain’s tower in California “collapsing on itself” when the New York heroes win. – Percy, Annabeth and Grover are the leads.
The next five books focus heavy on Roman mythology and a parallel “Hogwarts, but American” vibe. The collapsing tower was actually them.
Leads: Jason, Piper, Leo.
This is where Riordan also really gets his crayons out and goes for diversity and he eventually jumps in full bore. Jason is a proto-Redford/Pitt, but Piper is Cherokee and Leo is a Texan of Mexican descent.
The second book of this series is a Percy book. It is literally called “The Son of Neptune.” He’s a lead along with Hazel (African-American from New Orleans) and Frank (Chinese Canadian).
Then, the two pantheons merge for the last three books and Nico, a sort of frenemy, is written as queer, with an actual boyfriend and crushes and a coming out story. (As opposed to a blog post 10 years after the last book or whatever)
Around this time, he does the Egyptian trilogy, with Carter and Sadie Kane – African-American father and white English mother. A series of short stories cross over Percy and Annabeth and Carter and Sadie, but it’s not folded into the main story for either.
Then the Norse trilogy. Magnus Chase is Annabeth’s cousin. Percy shows up at the end when the stuff goes to sea. Co-lead is Alex, a gender-fluid character who is specifically written as gender fluid, discussing pronouns, calling attention to when he or she (Alex prefers to use the specific gender pronoun when living as that gender, but he or she will accept they in a pinch) has shifted aspects. Magnus and Alex are a couple and he cheerfully addresses how it feels when Alex shifts to male while they are making out. (“How does it feel? Great! I’m making out with Alex!”)
And lastly, the Trials of Apollo series, which involves characters from all the Greek and Roman books. Percy is in the first one and wanders in and out.
Nico and Piper show up, as does Jason. Leo is a key supporting character. And it has a lot of frank and just “fuck you” attitudes toward sexuality. Apollo is happily bisexual and as a god, has fathered children with both genders because fuck you.
So, there’s a lot there. Percy is in quite a bit. He’s the O.G. creation, so Riordan treats him with kid gloves a lot, but you do get to see his dark side. (Did YOU know that someone with the power over water can also fuck with the liquids in your body? It’s kinda cool, actually)
Riordan never really gets the credit for putting so much diversity in the books. The entire series started as a celebration of neurodiversity, as he was trying to represent his own son, who has ADHD and dyslexia. It’s probably easier to snark about cashing in and all that, but to me at least, he’s done what sites like this ask.