As you may know, there is a new Percy Jackson and the Olympians adaptation headed to the screen before this year is up. The author of the original book series, Rick Riordan, was heavily involved in the new Disney+ TV series, but that's not all he's been up to lately. Riordan is also celebrating Percy's resurgence with a new book, Percy Jackson and the Chalice of the Gods, which hit bookstores last week. Riordan originally previewed the book with EW back in February, but now that it's available to read, he agreed to dive in a little deeper.
Picking up after the end of the original five-book Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, Chalice of the Gods is a more fun, low-stakes adventure. Percy no longer has to worry about renegade Titans trying to destroy the world or unleash unstoppable monsters from the pit of monsters. His biggest challenge in this book is trying to get into college. Readers who have loved this character for years should enjoy the chance to just see Percy hanging out with his best friends Annabeth and Grover while they do their Greek-mythologized version of normal teenager stuff.
"I think 'a day in the life' is a good way to describe the book," Riordan tells EW. "It is basically, what is Percy Jackson doing on the average Tuesday? It's crazy, it's weird, it's dangerous, but it's not anything out of the ordinary for him. I think this book allowed me some more space to let the narrative breathe and give Percy some downtime, show the readers what's going on with him as he's just doing his homework or going to a swim meet or hanging out with Annabeth and Grover in the park. That's important, too. Because of the breakneck pace of the earlier books, you don't get a lot of that stuff in Percy's world usually. So that was fun."
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/Rick-Riordan-092923-ca0329aed4de48428de5a12697f90077.jpg "Rick Riordan discusses Percy Jackson and the 'Chalice of the Gods' (1)")
In order to get into the college he wants (and hopefully continue his romance with Annabeth past high school), Percy has to acquire three letters of recommendation from Olympian gods — which are only given in return for fulfilling a special quest. Chalice of the Gods is about Percy's first such quest, recovering the titular sacred object for the divine cupbearer Ganymede after it is stolen by an unknown source.
Ganymede's origin story is one of the darker ones in Greek mythology. As a young boy, Ganymede was so beautiful that the ever-horny Zeus transformed into an eagle, snatched him, and took him up to Olympus to live forever as a pourer of wine at the gods' feasts. It's a pretty horrifying kidnapping, when you think about it. Riordan didn't want to shy away from that darkness, even as he fit Ganymede into the Percy Jackson world of humorous takes on Greek gods (in this world, Ganymede gets described as a "himbo," and his cup-bearing duties now make him almost equivalent to a Seamless delivery driver).
"Much like Grimms' fairytales, which we always talk about as being kids' books but are in fact horrifying, Greek mythology can be insane," Riordan says. "At face value, the Ganymede story is pretty awful. Yes, he becomes a god, but still — being abducted by this much older man and taken away from your home just because you're physically attractive is pretty horrible stuff. So I have to honor that while at the same time not making it so dark and gruesome that you can't move on from it or use Ganymede as a character. He is a god, and he has come to terms with his past as best he can. The best way into his character for me was sympathy. Percy looks at him and says, 'I can only imagine what your life has been like, and I don't envy you as much as I'm supposed to envy the gods.'"
The reason Ganymede is so eager to get his chalice back is that if any mortal drinks from it, they will become immortal. Naturally, that makes it a dangerous thing to have out and about in the world. So the specter of mortality vs. immortality hangs over the whole book. On top of that, Percy and his friends run into Greek gods with specific domains over aging and time — such as Hebe, the goddess of youth. That substance gives the new book an interesting thematic resonance with the release of the upcoming show, which will surely bring in a new generation of Percy Jackson fans along with older readers who have loved these books since The Lightning Thief first hit shelves in 2005.
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/PERCY-JACKSON-AND-THE-OLYMPIANS-091423-02-466bca79ee804c668ad2f5f7339afb14.jpg "Rick Riordan discusses Percy Jackson and the 'Chalice of the Gods' (2)")
"I don't think I had been conscious of that as a theme, but as is so often the case when you're writing something, things come out of the subconscious and they make themselves manifest in these different ways," Riordan says. "It is very much about aging, the passage of time, and what does it mean to get older? That's something Percy is wrestling with at the ripe old age of 17. He is thinking, 'Wow, this really could be the end of one part of my life. I could be moving to a different state with my girlfriend, and going to college. What is that going to look like? I'll be leaving my mom and my stepdad behind, and my best friend Grover's not going with us.' I think it's something that all of us can relate to, the changes that happen as we get older and what does that mean? It seemed appropriate that Percy would be dealing with this when we see him for the first time in first person after so long."
Chalice of the Gods deals with one quest, but Percy will need to complete two more if he wants to secure his college admission. Does that mean more books are on the way…? Riordan's playing coy for now. After all, there's still a whole TV show to roll out this year.
"Nothing has been announced yet, and I don't have a solid timeline for anything," Riordan says of the possibility for more books. "It is true that initially it was conceived of as three stories. But originally, I thought they might be animated specials or features or something like that. So there are two other ideas that would follow him on the rest of this course of trying to get into college. But as for when and where and how we might see those, I don't know yet."
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Chalice of the Gods is available now, and the first episodes of Percy Jackson and the Olympians premieres Dec. 20 on Disney+. It's a good time to be a fan of Camp Half-Blood demigods.
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