Friday, February 27, 2009

At Last!! The Demigod Files!!

Yes, reader guys and halfbloods everywhere, the library has finally received its copies of The Demigod Files!! I got hold of one the other day and zipped right through it. (Well, it was easy for this slow reader because I'd already read two of the stories online!) Was it good? Was it worth the wait? Oh, yes indeed! Master storyteller Rick Riordan has done it again! You get all the excitement, humor, great characters, and unexpected twists that we all enjoy in the Percy Jackson series.

There are 3 shorter stories here. In the first one, "The Stolen Chariot," Percy has to help Clarisse recover the Chariot of Ares from Phobos and Deimos, the two immortal sons of Ares. (Wait a minute--did I say that Percy helped Clarisse???) The second one, "The Bronze Dragon," has Percy and Charles Beckendorf rescue Annabeth And Silena Beauregrd from an abandoned (and deadly) camp project. The third one, "The Sword of Hades," has Percy, Thalia, and Nico going on an urgent quest through the underworld (even through the Fields of Punishment) where they meet some particularly nasty enemies.

There are also interviews with the characters (there's a really funny one with the Stolls brothers), a map of Camp Half Blood, AND a great appetizer at the end--an excerpt from The Last Olympian, the full-length PJ book that's due on May 10!! The excerpt is short, only six pages, but just enough to make you hungry for more. Good stuff for all PJ fans! Highly recommended. Makes me realize how looooonnngggg it's going to be until May 10!
Carl
PS--Random thoughts:
"The Sword of Hades" starts with another of those great first lines that Mr. Riordan does so well: "Christmas in the underworld was NOT my idea."
Mr. Riordan is a master of making the characters from classical mythology come alive. Wait until you meet Phobos, Deimos, Persephone, Sisyphus, and Melinoe. No one does it better.
The scene in which Melinoe asks Percy, "Where are your ghosts?" is one of Mr. Riordan's (and Percy's) finest moments. Percy may be obtuse, as Annabeth would say, but he's nobler and smarter than the others when it counts.
AAANNNDDD--what's up with Rachel? and Percy? Read the excerpt to see what I mean.
As I've said before, this book is the ONLY place to read an excerpt from The Last Olympian. Unless there's some cyberpirate out there who's stolen an excerpt. And we wouldn't want to support him, would we?
BTW, you'll notice that I haven't answered Darth Bill's accusations about putting a pink princess book in the Sacred Shrine of Guyhood. The armor of my innocence protects me from any arrows of accusation. Besides, he should know that no guy, not even the evil titan Kronos, would defile a place of such immortal honor!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

you read the books online? where? help!

Iron Guy Carl said...

Well, I didn't read the whole book online. Two of the stories exist online ("The Stolen Chariot" and "The Bronze Dragon")and I read them at the PercyQuest site. There's a link to it on the left-hand side of the page. I didn't see the rest until the book came out.

Anonymous said...

it would be great if i actually got the entire book to read - rick Riordan is absolutely fabulous