“The Son of Neptune” by Rick Riordan

So. I have just completed Rick Riordan‘s new novel, The Son of Neptune, of the The Heroes of Olympus series. I was so excited to read this book. I marked the date on my calendar when this book would be expected in stores and showed up bright and early Tuesday morning (October 4th) to place the book on hold since I did not have any money to buy it at the time (you know, being a broke, unemployed, recent college graduate from a prestigious university and all). Anyways, I was totally excited and couldn’t wait to take a break from George RR Martin’s torture and enjoy some easy-going heroic adventures but I was let down.

Rick Riordan did not write up to my expectations this time. At one point I felt as if I was not reading Riordan’s work. Ok, that’s a bit harsh but I was upset. I decided to stop and re-read The Lost Hero to re-familiarize myself with the trend of the story and Riordan’s writing style. But when I went back to reading The Son of Neptune, I became disappointed again. The plot was great but the characters and pacing of certain scenes did not grab me. I just found the novel a bit rushed. I think that he was pressed for time and was unable to dedicate the time needed to fully develop the story and not make it sound so cheesy (in certain parts).

Percy’s personality in this story was a bit cheesy to me. He was too perfect. I mean, yes, Percy is a hero and yes, he is a good guy who is always loyal to friends and willing to help but sometimes that was a bit much and made him unbelievable. At the end of the day, the reader knows that Percy will sacrifice himself to save everybody but does it have to be so obvious? Anyways, the new characters – Hazel and Frank – I really liked them. I just wish that the same development given to the characters in The Lost Hero was also given to this book. In The Lost Hero, for almost every major situation, the reader was able to experience it from each character’s point-of-view (or at least get their opinions on it) but for this novel, there were some gaps, which made the reading experience a bit unsatisfying.

Anyways, I still enjoy Riordan’s stories and I do believe he has a great imagination to contort all these mythological stuff to fit the modern, techie, age.

##Pause## My favorite part, lol , was when Thanatos (Death) whipped out his pure-black i-Pad to check his infamous list for Hazel’s name. I don’t know why but that part was really hilarious to me.

Yea, Riordan’s mind seems like an interesting place. I can’t wait for the next book to come out (all the way in Fall of 2012, hopefully, I will have a job by then) especially since he ended this one with such a major cliff-hanger, which kind of pissed me off (in a good way) because the big reason why I took a break from George RR Martin was to get away from those pesky cliff-hangers, especially the major ones. But it’s okay. I will patiently await Riordan’s new book and hopefully he will spend enough time on it so that the story is not rushed and unfulfilled like The Son of Neptune.

The Mark of Athena (book 3) ->

<- The Lost Hero (book 1)