Personally, I think watching movies isn't as straightforward as it sounds. What I mean by this is, to watch a movie, you kind of have to get into the mindset that is fairly parallel to the tone of the movie. Essentially, if you watch a comedy movie with a drama mindset, you're going to be disappointed. Or if you watch a horror movie with a tearjerker mentality, you're going to be disappointed. The same way you use different tones of voices to address different emotions displayed by other people, you use different frames of minds to address different tones of different movies.
What does this have to do with Percy Jackson and the Olympians? Well, in 2010, the movie "Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief" was released. And I remember watching it with a group of friends and the consensus among the group was that the movie was crap. Why? It was a Greek mythology-based movie but it wasn't like Clash of the Titans or Troy or that sort of thing.
The consensus coming out of that group provides evidence for two things. First, democracy is retarded. Second, to enjoy a movie, you have to get into the right frame of mind for the movie. When you view Percy Jackson (the movie) as good, wholesome, fun for all, you'll enjoy the movie. If I ever have children, this Percy Jackson movie will be a no-hesitation-whatsoever-show-it-to-the-kids movie when they're like 8-10. And I'll probably have fun watching it too. It's great fun!
So, anyway, that was how I got introduced to the Percy Jackson universe. Not long after this movie, there was a book fair in KL Convex, and they had the entire Percy Jackson series on discount. And I snapped up all 5 books in the "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" series.
And conveniently left them there until this past weekend. Yup, they set on my shelf for a good 1.5 years or so before being read. In my opinion, that was easily one of the 5 dumbest mistakes I made in the last 1.5 years.
I picked up the first book on Saturday at around 3pm or so. And proceeded to blitz through Book 1, Book 2, Book 3 and half of Book 4 by Sunday night. And then I finished the 2nd half of Book 4 on Monday morning and finished Book 5 on Monday evening. I was hooked. Absolutely and completely hooked. This series is immensely fun to read. Here are some reasons why, in no particular order.
1. Rick Riordan, the writer of the series, is a really good writer. In my opinion, in terms of capturing the essence of the characters, he is better than J.K. Rowling. Rowling does better in terms of imagination and plot-weaving, but Riordan's no slouch. The language is easy, quick, concise and punchy. When I read the Harry Potter series, I get the feeling that Rowling isn't really that brilliant a writer, but she's a brilliant story teller. There's a big difference. Riordan, on the other hand, is a really good writer which makes the series very readable.
2. On a scale of 1 to 5, where 5 represents extremely deeply-woven plot lines (think one of those ridiculous historical novels - Dan Brown et al - where the plot is needlessly hypercomplicated), this series comes in at a solid 3. It's not too basic that you get bored and it's not too impossibly complicated that it overwhelms you with incredulity. Granted, I'd prefer a level 4 plot complexity but 3 is good. I had no complaints. As I was reading the book, the storyline flowed very well and it piqued my interest. At times, the book was unputdownable.
3. The mythology aspect of the series helped a lot as well. As someone whose mind gets blown on a regular basis by just knowing that there was once a Temple of Apollo at Delphi for reals (just think of that for a while - the depth of civilisation never fails to blow me away), it's hardly a surprise that the mythology takes me away. From the legends of the Greek gods to the quests of the Demigods to the battles of the Titans to the little nuances of Greek culture here and there, it's great learning for all involved. Very educational.
4. The characters are also really cool to follow. While, of course, the character development is nowhere near the Stephen King levels, I still found myself rooting for the good guys to win. In honesty, I didn't feel this way while reading the Harry Potter series - they all seemed fairly bland to me and I was just flipping pages to get to the end. While the Potter characters were definitely more complex, I only found myself feeling anything for one of them - Severus Snape. For this one, while I didn't find them very complex, I still found myself flipping the pages to see how our heroes would turn out.
5. If you know me, you'll know my favourite sorts of books and movies have themes that are based on friendship, loyalty and coming-of-age. Which is why my favourite book is It. Which is why I love "The Lord of the Rings". And yes, even the Potter series - for me, the Potter series stands out because of its themes (as well as the magical world crafted by Rowling though she doesn't compare at all to the Tolkein universe). And the Percy Jackson series themes are also of top quality. Like the Potter series, I recommend this series to anybody, particularly to kids - great ways to understand how and why friendships work, how and why it's not always about what we want, how an why responsibility matters, and how and why we sometimes have to clean stuff up for everyone else (great life lesson). To me, the one way that Potter beats out Jackson is the theme of "love" that encompasses the entire Potter series. But even so, the Percy Jackson series has excellent themes.
Yes, there are some drawbacks. For one, like I said, I prefer a slightly more complex plot development. Character development could be better as well - The main female protagonist, Annabeth, is seriously like-for-like with Hermione Granger. A bit more diversity would be good.
That said, those are minor stuff. Overall, a great series to read. I wholeheartedly recommend the series.
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