Rick Riordan – Percy Jackson & the Olympians essay

Part 1: A summary of the novel, including the main characters, setting, plot, and major conflicts. (1page)

Percy Jackson & the Olympians is a pentalogy that is a variation of the theme of the struggle of the Olympian gods for power. To put it more precisely, novels focus on the struggle of gods for power, while Kronos attempts to hold control over all the Olympians and the protagonist of the story, Percy Jackson, struggles against Kronos and his representatives. In fact, the pentalogy reveals adventures of the main character, Percy Jackson, who is a demigod and has supernatural power. The plot of the novels unfolds in two dimensions, the real one, which is the real world, where other people live, and the world of Olympians, where Percy commits his heroic acts and struggles against Kronos. The Olympian world remains unseen for other people but is evident only for demigods and those whom Percy confronts. In such a way, the novel depicts the regular life of a teenage boy in the US, who leads another life of a demigod, hidden from his mother and other people but evident for other demigods and Olympians. For instance, he has a girlfriend, Annabeth Chase, who is a demigod too. The best friend of the main character, Grover Underwood, turns out to be a satyr. They confront Luke Castellan the antagonist story, who is a bully in the real life, and turns out to be demigod, who gives his body to Kronos.

Part 2: A brief biography of the author (1 page)

Rick Riordan was born on June 5, 1964 in Texas, where he grew up. He graduated from Alamo Heights High School in 1982 and Texas State University at Austin in 1986. He obtained his majors in English and Social Studies. After that he taught English and Social Studies in Presidio Hill School in San Francisco for eight years. He has proved to be a successful teacher and he has reached a tremendous success in teaching. His contribution to teaching gained the public recognition and he was awarded St. Mary Hall’s First Master Teacher Award in 2002.

However, along with teaching, Rick Riordan was always dedicated to writing and he became a prolific author, who created series of books which brought him fame and public approval. First, he created Tres Navarre mystery series, intended for adults, that won many rewards. In addition, he created a series for children, entitled 39 Clues, which gained the huge popularity among children. Also he created a number of other popular books, among which it is possible to single out his The Maze of Bones, which was ranked the first in the New York Times Best Seller list. However, his probably most popular series of books was his Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the pentalogy revealing adventures of a teenage boy living in the modern America, who is a demigod. This series was particularly successful and the Twenties Century Fox purchased the film rights and released a film based on Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

Today, Rick Riordan carries on working as a writer. Being inspired by his success with the Percy Jackson series, he has started The Kane Chronicles which features a modern day Egyptian pantheon. At the same time, the author plans to create a new series dedicated to the Roman and Greek mythology that will follow the Jack Percy and the Olympians series.



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