The Lightning Thief: The Book

The other day I saw on TV a trailer for a new fantasy flick, titled Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. It looked like a fun movie to watch and reminded me (along with the title) of the Harry Potter series I have been so enamored with over recent years. Since this movie was based on the book, I checked it out and read it.

Rick Riordan, like Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, wrote about a boy who makes the sudden realization that although he had known over the course of his life that he was different from others, the difference was due to supernatural beings and his relationship with them. And that, like with young Potter, he was the focal point of a major conflict between these beings. Essentially putting his very life in danger. With Rowling, it was "magic" and wizards. With Riordan, it is Greek mythology and the various gods and assorted beings associated with it.

So twelve-year old Percy Jackson, continually being moved from one school to another as a disruptive and troubled student, discovers through the course of The Lightning Thief his proper place in the pantheon of that mythology, which he discovers is literally true and has moved its "homeland" from Greece to the United States (Mount Olympus is on the 600th floor of New York's Empire State Building). There is a missing item of one of the gods and Percy is suspected of having stolen it. He also is very protective of his mother, a theme very important to the story. And he gets (like Potter) two "sidekicks": Grover and Annabeth. Plus he has a mentor of sorts who reminds me a bit of Potter's Dumbledore.

There is no doubt that Riordan meant to capitalize on the phenomenal success of Harry Potter. The Lightning Thief was published in 2005, after the first five volumes of the Potter saga had already been out. But still, Riordan worked very hard to establish the characters' identities (especially that of Percy Jackson) as special and different from those in the more famous series. And a series this is as well, with already five books out in this relatively short time span. The books themselves are consistently reasonable in length, The Lightning Thief being only 375 pages in the paperback edition.

One element I liked a lot about The Lightning Thief, and a major difference from Harry Potter, is that the narrative is told in the first person from Percy Jackson's perspective. This gives me, as a reader, access to his sometimes quirky perspectives on events, people, and life in general. But Riordan doesn't go overboard with Jackson's thoughts; the book is driven by action.

So go read Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. It is good, fun entertainment. I plan to read the other books in the series, although right now I am plodding through Stephen King's excruciatingly long 2009 novel Under the Dome.