Confused as to why I'm talking about a mildly older book? DON'T BE. THE LINK OF ALMOST DETAILS
Didn't read The Olympians series? That's okay! I read them and reviewed them already! OH MAN, LIST OF LINKS GOOO!
Book #1: THE LIGHTNING THIEF
Book #2: THE SEA OF MONSTERS
Book #3: THE TITAN'S CURSE
Book #4: THE BATTLE OF THE LABYRINTH
Book #5: THE LAST OLYMPIAN
When I post about The Son of Neptune, I'm only going to link back to this post because all these links are getting slightly tedious and obnoxious.
What's that? Amazon summary? BAM. "Jason has a problem. He doesn’t remember anything before waking up on a school bus holding hands with a girl. Apparently she’s his girlfriend Piper, his best friend is a kid named Leo, and they’re all students in the Wilderness School, a boarding school for “bad kids.” What he did to end up here, Jason has no idea—except that everything seems very wrong.
Piper has a secret. Her father has been missing for three days, and her vivid nightmares reveal that he’s in terrible danger. Now her boyfriend doesn’t recognize her, and when a freak storm and strange creatures attack during a school field trip, she, Jason, and Leo are whisked away to someplace called Camp Half-Blood. What is going on?
Leo has a way with tools. His new cabin at Camp Half-Blood is filled with them. Seriously, the place beats Wilderness School hands down, with its weapons training, monsters, and fine-looking girls. What’s troubling is the curse everyone keeps talking about, and that a camper’s gone missing. Weirdest of all, his bunkmates insist they are all—including Leo—related to a god.
Rick Riordan, the best-selling author of the Percy Jackson series, pumps up the action and suspense in The Lost Hero, the first book in The Heroes of Olympus series. Fans of demi-gods, prophesies, and quests will be left breathless--and panting for Book Two." AMAZON LINK OF THAT SUMMARY WASN'T AS BAD AS THE LAST ONEEE
Okay, I know in my last post I said I would take mini break and read two books, but this book was right there, and I knew Percy wasn't the voice in it, and after five books of Percy in an awesome world, I wanted some awesome world sans Percy. So I read it. Don't get me wrong, I normally like Percy, but I was a little overwhelmed by the Percy perspective about everything. So there. I read the book. NYAH.
So this book definitely mixes everything up a little bit. One, there's no Percy narration (small sigh of relief). Two, there's three different narrators (and they're all NEW characters! OOO). Three, the new characters react appropriately to being introduced to all the different stuff at camp and don't dwell too long on stuff we already know from the previous books. So refreshing. Again, I really did enjoy the last series, but awesome world sans Percy Jackson! I'm ready for Percy to be in the next book, but a little break, just a little one was nice.
ANYWAYS.
So the book begins with Jason narrating in his very amnesia riddled state. He becomes aware while holding Piper's hand and with Leo cracking jokes nearby. He's like, "Uh...what? WHAT IS THIS?" kind of deal. So he's trying to puzzle everything out and introduced to a school for 'troubled kids' and they're on a field trip to the grand canyon. Alright that's cool.
So Jason meanders around asking questions, being weird, and everyone else kind of giving him a little space and giving him weird looks since they're all under the impression that's been there all semester. Then Coach Hedge gives it away. Coach Hedge is their gruff teacher who is leading the field trip and asks Jason if he's the special package and reveals that the Mist is making everyone believe he's been there for a while. Then all hell breaks loose. Some angry wind spirits try to come and capture them and Jason reveals he's got a coin that turns into a sword, Coach Hedge reveals he's a satyr while trying to pummel the wind spirits while Piper and Leo are kind of thrown around but are also revealed to be demi-gods. Whew.
So Annabeth and Butch (no we've never met Butch before now, I didn't withhold a fun character on you) swoop in and save them after Coach Hedge is carried off by the wind spirits. They whisk them away to camp half-blood where they start to explain things, like how Percy Jackson is missing. They go through the whole, what is camp? What is demi-god? Who are you? Hello? process.
Leo gets claimed pretty much immediately and we're taken with his narration through the Hephaestus cabin which is allegedly cursed since Beckendorf died and they reveal that a dragon is on the loose in the woods.
With the switching narrations we've learned a few important things about the three characters: Leo believes he accidentally murdered his mother while also possessing the ability to make fire (a very rare gift that Hephaestus kids SOMETIMES get, mostly in times of great peril). Jason is a blank slate, not dumb, just doesn't remember crap, or the stuff he does remember is all in Roman reference instead of Greek; he also speaks Latin. Piper's Dad has been captured by someone or something and she is led to believe that she needs to lead Jason to her Dad's captors in order to get her Dad back, but that might lead to his death.
Meh.
It's also revealed that Olympus has been closed for a month and even Dionysus has been recalled up to Mount Olympus. None of the God's are answering prayers or anything, but they are still claiming their kids. It's also learned that Hera has been kidnapped and Chiron gets all white-faced and like I SWORE ON THE RIVER STYX HYPERVENTILATE IN MY BRAINNNN. Yeah.
So a quest is born! The prophecy for the quest is: "Child of lightning, beware the earth, The giants' revenge the seven shall birth, The forge and dove shall break the cage, And death unleash through Hera's rage," (Riordan, Page 128, The Lost Hero).
Jason is chosen to lead the quest because it's already known that he's a child of Zeus (did I mention that he can summon lightning and fly via controlling wind? yeah, he did that). Jason asks Leo to go with him as long as Leo can provide a ride (cue psychotic mechanical dragon), and the head counselor of the Aphrodite cabin, Drew, volunteers to go, but Piper gets all up in arms since Drew is awful. (Drew took over after Silena died.) Piper gets claimed by Aphrodite by getting glammed out (amazing hair, make up, clothes etc) and it is also known that she can charmspeak (although she doesn't really have control over it).
So they get all set to go on their quest and Annabeth is like IMMA GO LOOK FOR PERCY. NYEH. DERP. That's pretty much for Annabeth in this book. We also learn that Jason has a sister! Thalia. I know, WHAT? But it's cool.
So Leo immediately took off into the woods to find the mechanical dragon that keeps terrorizing the camp, captures it with an already lain trap, fixes it, and it takes him to bunker 9 where he puts wings on it.
SPOILER LAND TIME GO.
So Leo returns to camp with the dragon, Leo, Piper, and Jason all take off to see the north wind Boreas to get help on their quest. They meet up with Boreas and meet his children of demented integrity (the only one that actually matters right now is Khione as she comes into play later, the other ones seem to be there for comic relief). Boreas is like WHOA JASON, and the element of Greek vs Roman elements of the gods is introduced. It's pretty cool and there's a lot of detail and explanation in the book about it. So you should read it. Eh, eh?
There's a really creepy bit with cyclops, but due to my love of Tyson, I'm just going to gloss over it. There was something really creepy with the cyclops. Moving on.
So they escape the cyclops only to run into Medea. This is the clue that evil mortals are returning due to a more powerful force than Hades. This is the spot of the book where they run into a lot of temptation, testing of loyalties and start to really discover their powers (especially in the case of Piper). It's also kind of a humbling experience for them as well. They kind of have a battle which winds up with Medea getting doused in a whole bunch of different potions and the whole place magically exploding.
They manage to escape, fly/crash land into Midas and Leo gets a visit from his Dad in a dream. They're beginning to notice that monsters don't stay dead, evil mortals are being let out, and the doors of the dead are open so to speak. Again, playing back to the Medea theme. So Festus bit the dust and his head remained but Leo pleaded with his Father to take it to safety and Hephaestus presumably does. Midas turns Leo and Piper into golden statues (because that's kind of his thing) and Jason saves them. They get the heck out of there.
So they seek out Aeolus for help and he's CRAZYYY and they learn the information they need from him before Aeolus received orders from SOMEONE MYSTERIOUS (cue the villain for this series-no it's not Kronos-he got all stabbed last series) and tries to kill them. They're flung out of the dude's castle and Aphrodite makes sure they wind up safely in a diner after having a magic dream chat with Piper. During this dream chat, Piper figures out their big bad foe is actually the Earth itself, Gaea. It's like an 'oh crap, crapped myself' kind of moment for everyone because they're literally going to fight THE EARTH. Yeah, take it in for a moment.
So they proceed to go to the mountain where Piper's Dad is kept, manage to get him free and plummet a Giant (giant is the new titan, easiest explanation) into the earth. It's a pretty cool battle scene, but again, read the book. I'm not going to recount EVERY detail.
Piper's Dad is all delirious and confused and traumatized and they manage to get him to his private plane and give him a potion that Aphrodite gave to Piper to wipe his recent memory (like the week he was captured). Coach Hedge goes with him to protect him and the three heroes go onward to free Hera.
Alright, back to the prophecy. So the line, "The forge and dove shall break the cage" comes into play here as they get into the Wolf Manor where Hera is being imprisoned and Piper with Leo work on breaking the cage. Leo uses a saw, Piper charmspeaks it into going away. Meanwhile, big battle takes place with Leo and the Hunters (YAY HUNTERS! AKA THALIA & CO!) but the main point is, they get Hera free. A big nasty Giant is also summoned in this time, but mostly Hera is free. WHEW.
A lot of things are revealed about the difference between Thalia and Jason and their mutual crazy mother (which is pretty neat) and Hera claims Jason as her champion and takes on a weird bitter hag kind of persona and send them back to camp half-blood sans the Hunters as they still have things to hunt or something. They appear in the middle of dinner with their feet in people's food which is pretty funny.
So they tell them everything that happened and they deduce that there are actually two demi-god camps; one for the Greek aspects of the gods and one for the Roman aspects of the gods. Jason is from the Roman camp, and has been sent in place of Percy, and they believe that Percy has been sent to the Roman camp which is why Annabeth can't find him.
THE END of this book. Essentially.
There are of course a lot of neat little things that happened in this book like Piper randomly spouting Cherokee folklore at the readers and a lot of fun moments from Coach Hedge and Leo. I strongly recommend the book series.
Happy reading!
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