Blood of Olympus

         The best book I read last semester had to be The Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan. This book capped off a magnificent spin-off series from the Percy Jackson books that I have followed from the beginning and it was a more than satisfying end to the adventure. The story tells of seven demigods, or half-human, half-God heroes, who are on the last and most dangerous leg of their quest to stop the evil earth mother Gaea from rising at the original home of the Greek gods, Mount Olympus, and unleashing absolute chaos.
          Between fighting corrupt gods and horrifying monsters, author Rick Riordan also shows how the relationships between the heroes, some more involved than others, were affected by the events and those prior to this part of the journey. From the start, the book has a fast-paced and humorous feel to it as we see the main one out of  several narrators, Jason, struggle up a huge hill thoroughly disguised as an old man in order to spy on a monster encampment in southern Italy. This cover, as would many other plans down the road, failed miserably, but they always have a big flying ship backing them up wherever they go to help get what they need and escape in the most hilariously violent way possible.
           At the same time, Greek and Roman demigods back in the United States were fighting over an ancient rivalry involving a 40-foot statue of the goddess Athena that was stolen from the Greeks during the early years of the Roman Empire. It was this statue that another narrator, Nico, was tasked with delivering back to the Greeks to end the rivalry so the sides could be able to co-operate against Gaea's forces. Being a child of Hades, he was able to teleport through the shadows, but it was incredibly taxing as it was; add a statue of that size, and the stress becomes ten times worse. Nico begins to slowly witness the essence of his soul draining away, and this brings on visits from old ghosts, literally and figuratively, including disturbing memories of a foggy past.
            The combination of these two story lines makes for a brilliantly laid out and perfectly illustrated tale that was only a classic example of what gave Rick Riordan a name in writing. One thing I will remember about this book and the author in general was his sometimes haunting sense of humor. The best example of this would be the death of a corrupted Roman leader named Octavian. The prophecy that gave the demigods an idea of their fate on this quest involved someone dying to accomplish a certain goal (which is all I can say without giving too much away). But these prophecies all have vague meanings, and one of the biggest factors of this story was the fear among the chosen seven about who was going to die, when it ultimately would not be any one of them; it would be Octavian. But the way he died at a cruel twist of comedy in it, because his final words before launching a very important catapult (still trying not to spoil it) were his boasting a about how he was going to be a hero, the savior of Rome, yada yada yada. What he didn't know, though, was that in his haste to load the catapult, he had entangled his robes with some of the payload that was about to be launched into the sky...
            This image depicts the excessive pride behind Octavian's thoughts and actions.

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