Bibliofreakblog

The Titan’s Curse by Rick Riordan

On page fifty of The Titan’s Curse, book three of the Percy Jackson city, is a paragraph that sums up my philosophy on Life, The Universe, and Everything…

One of the godlings asks Apollo how he can be the sun, how he can ride it across the sky.  Point blank, the godling says, “I thought the sun was a big fiery ball of gas!”  And Apollo says:

“That rumor probably got started because Artemis used to call me a big fiery ball of gas.  Seriously, kid, it depends on whether you’re talking astronomy or philosophy.  You want to talk astronomy?  Bah, what fun is that?  You want to talk about how humans think about the sun?  Ah, now that’s more interesting.  They’ve got a lot riding on the sun…er, so to speak.  It keeps them warm, grows their corps, powers engines, makes everything look, well, sunnier.  This chariot is built out of human dreams about the sun, kid.  It’s as old as Civilization.  Every day, it drives aross teh sky from east to west, lighting up all theose puny little mortal lives.  The chariot is a manifestation of the sun’s power, the way mortals perceive it.  Make sense?”

It’s a sort of Joseph Campbell thing.  In Thou Art That, Campbell says that something doesn’t have to exist or have happened to be true.  That’s what our stories are.

I’m not saying that that is what this series does…it doesn’t hit to the human core in that way.  But.  It does bring up that theme.  

In this particular installment, we meet our heroes during the school year, rather than the summer time.  I guess that Riordan is trying to cram more stories in before the climax of Percy turning 16.  You know, they run around.  They have adventures.  They have to save the day.  The gods fuck with them, and still want to kill them in the end.  Sucks to be them.  For reals.  

See…the plot doesn’t matter.  Because, you know, it’s the fun, and the overall sentiment.  That stories can be true, and not just stories.  And that friendship can triumph over evil.

Good lessons for both kids and adults.
Buy The Titan’s Curse on Amazon 

If you like this book/author, you might like:

(my reviews in blue)

Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths by Inri and Edgar D’Aulaire
The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Bulfinch’s Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch
Ruby and the Stone Age Diet by Martin Millar 

Other works by Rick Riordan:

The Lightning Thief 
The Sea of Monsters
The Battle of the Labyrinth 
The Last Olympian
The Demigod Files 
The Red Pyramid 
The Maze Of Bones
Big Red Tequila
The Widower’s Two-Ste
The Last King of Texas
The Devil Went Down to Austin
Cold Springs
Southtown
Mission Road
Rebel Island