I can only tell you that the people who have read The Lost Hero, -- my kids, the editor, my agent -- actually told me that they like this even better than The Lightning Thief.
So says Rick Riordan about The Lost Hero, the first book in his new Heroes of Olympus series and today millions of eager young fans will be able to see for themselves if his kids, editor, and agent are right. For those who don't yet know, kids really, really, REALLY love Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series. Many of them have already checked out the book's website, read the first two chapters, are planning to see Rick on his book tour, and attend one of today's webcasts (in which Rick promises to reveal some big news).
At a virtual press conference last week Rick told us that the story takes place right after the close of the previous series and we will be seeing Percy and friends again. Evidently Hera is going to make trouble and Festus may too. There are three new main characters who will be telling the story together --- three narrative strands similar to the two Rick employed in The Red Pyramid. Here are a few more tidbits from that press conference:
The new series, The Heroes of Olympus really allows me to cover some of the Greek and Roman myths that I haven't been able to talk about. There's so many. I mean after five books in Percy Jackson I thought that I would pretty much have covered everything but the mythology is just so deep the more I get into it the more I discover and the more I remember. And there were just so many stories I couldn't -- I couldn't get into the first series. Plus Greek mythology really has some built-in sequels to the story that I told in the Percy Jackson series. So it seemed only natural that I would follow-up with that content. And it gave me a different view of Percy Jackson's world too.
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I know the series is often touted as a series for reluctant reader boys. And that's great because I have reluctant reader boys at home and I'm perfectly satisfied to have the series promoted that way.
But when people say it's a series for boys I know that a lot of my female readers get very annoyed with that because there are a lot of them and they're quick to say this is not just a boy's series. And you see that right away if you go to one of my events I mean invariably the audience is exactly 50/50 boys and girls.
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It [Roman Mythology] is something that's addressed much more in the new series, The Heroes of Olympus and it allowed me to explore this idea that is first put forth in The Lightning Thief that the gods follows civilization around. They've jumped from Greece to Rome to Europe to the United States.
With The Kane Chronicles and this new series the man has his hands full, committed to writing two new books a year. Can he pull it off? Given his track record I'm very hopeful. As an adult fan of both series I must admit I too can't wait to begin reading The Lost Hero.
Also at educating alice.