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Aug. 26th, 2010 12:23 pmI enjoyed The Lightning Thief, but I wasn't in-love-blown-away, although I kept hearing that later books got successively awesomer. And now I have read The Sea of Monsters and The Titan's Curse and, indeed, they do get successively awesomer! I am now pretty excited to read the last two.
Reasons that The Sea of Monsters and The Titan's Curse are awesomer than the first book:
1. Proliferation of ladies! The Titan's Curse, especially, is great for this - Annabeth is awesome, but I really like the variety of female characters and female heroism represented by the third book. I was wary of the handling of Artemis and her ladies when they first showed up, but I actually very much appreciate how they've been represented so far - even though teenaged boy Percy obviously doesn't get the appeal of joining an immortal celibate girl's club, the girls who do make that choice are treated with dignity by the narrative and their reasons presented as valid. Artemis herself probably gets the most respectful and wholly positive treatment of any of the gods we've yet seen. So that's pretty cool. I am also a fan of the treatment of Clarisse, who is still totally a bully, and also AWESOME.
2. The presentation of family, and the importance and difficulty of family bonds. I mean, there's always going to be an over-the-top element when you're talking about a camp full of kids whose parents are gods, but between Percy's relationship with [SPOILER], Annabeth's changing dynamic with her father and step-family, and the various ways that the characters deal with the attention - or lack thereof - of their deity-parents, there's a lot of really interesting stuff going on there.
3. The complication of the plot, in general. I am actually really interested to see what ends up happening in the end, because it's clear that Luke and assorted villains have reasons for what they're doing, and Rick Riordan recognizes that the gods-and-heroes system of Olympus is seriously flawed - he's been doing a lot in these books with questioning the heroic myth. But on the other hand the Titans probably won't be any better, and possibly worse.
4. Okay, this is a little thing, but I find the explanation that fast-food chains are actually hydras - cut off one head and seven more spring up! - so totally hilarious that I am 100% more willing to buy into Riordan's mythology. (And while the whole 'western civilization' thing is still problematic, it is less talked about in the later books and therefore I am better able to ignore it.)
( Spoilers! )
Reasons that The Sea of Monsters and The Titan's Curse are awesomer than the first book:
1. Proliferation of ladies! The Titan's Curse, especially, is great for this - Annabeth is awesome, but I really like the variety of female characters and female heroism represented by the third book. I was wary of the handling of Artemis and her ladies when they first showed up, but I actually very much appreciate how they've been represented so far - even though teenaged boy Percy obviously doesn't get the appeal of joining an immortal celibate girl's club, the girls who do make that choice are treated with dignity by the narrative and their reasons presented as valid. Artemis herself probably gets the most respectful and wholly positive treatment of any of the gods we've yet seen. So that's pretty cool. I am also a fan of the treatment of Clarisse, who is still totally a bully, and also AWESOME.
2. The presentation of family, and the importance and difficulty of family bonds. I mean, there's always going to be an over-the-top element when you're talking about a camp full of kids whose parents are gods, but between Percy's relationship with [SPOILER], Annabeth's changing dynamic with her father and step-family, and the various ways that the characters deal with the attention - or lack thereof - of their deity-parents, there's a lot of really interesting stuff going on there.
3. The complication of the plot, in general. I am actually really interested to see what ends up happening in the end, because it's clear that Luke and assorted villains have reasons for what they're doing, and Rick Riordan recognizes that the gods-and-heroes system of Olympus is seriously flawed - he's been doing a lot in these books with questioning the heroic myth. But on the other hand the Titans probably won't be any better, and possibly worse.
4. Okay, this is a little thing, but I find the explanation that fast-food chains are actually hydras - cut off one head and seven more spring up! - so totally hilarious that I am 100% more willing to buy into Riordan's mythology. (And while the whole 'western civilization' thing is still problematic, it is less talked about in the later books and therefore I am better able to ignore it.)
( Spoilers! )
