Don’t read the Apollo series before the Heroes

There are 2 problems with Rick Riordan’s latest: you have to be familiar with both of his previous Greek-myth based series for everything to make sense, and the narrative viewpoint of Apollo turned human gets annoying too often. I have only read the Percy Jackson series, not the Heroes of Olympus books, so there were a lot of references to previous events and character relationships that I’m pretty sure I was supposed to understand but did not.

Making a god spend time as a mortal is not a new idea, so the culture shock etc was to be expected, and as expected was often played for comic effect. Apollo’s reaction to seeing a pregnant woman and being told that she couldn’t just give birth when she felt like it like goddesses would is on one hand vaguely amusing, and on the other kinda predictable and eye-roll inducing. Towards the end of the book, Apollo observes that “You humans change and grow and mature. Gods do not”. While this statement may not be totally accurate in terms of character (Percy responds that he thinks Apollo/Lester Papadopoulos has changed), it is very much true in terms of the God/human out of water trope that never lets up. The narrator’s lack of change while at the same time changing just rubs me the wrong way. Either change or don’t; kind of but not really gets irritating.

An example of the former problem near the end of the book I get the feeling should be funny, and the premise is, but the meaning is lost on me. A character named Leo suddenly appears, and the suggestion is that he is returning from a mysterious disappearance that takes place in a book I have not read. What is funny is the demigods at Camp HalfBlood literally line up to welcome back/hit their friend, and even Chiron joins in. But a lot of meaning is lost when you don’t know who Leo is or what he has done is the past. Apollo gives some hints, but I’m pretty sure this part would a lot better sense and possibly have more meaning if I knew the original situation.

Problems aside, most of the book is fairly typical of Riordan’s other books: clever and action packed. Apollo has been cast out of Olympus and forced to live as a human teen for reasons Apollo has trouble remembering and an unspecified period of time. He gets indentured to a human girl who saves him from some street thugs (her name is Meg). The only safe place Apollo/Lester can think of is to get to Camp HalfBlood with some help from Percy Jackson.

Of course getting to camp is an adventure, and once there several key facts come to light. Meg is a demigoddess who can summon Peaches, a guardian made of peach leaves, and all communication, including the oracles, has been cut off. Apollo being a (former) god of prophecy and Meg go looking for a source-solution to the problem. The problem, and set up for the rest of the series, involves a trio of ancient Roman Emperors. Apollo and Meg discover the identity of one of them, Nero. It turns out that Meg has a connection to Nero, and not long after the pair meets him, she disappears (set up for book 2). The other 2 emperors/members of the Triumvirate are still a mystery.

The humor and action are still there. When the demigods and Apollo must battle the Colossus sent by Nero to destroy them, Apollo manages to summon enough to power to curse an arrow and shoot the Colossus with it. The funny comes in as Apollo only has enough divine power for a plague of hay fever. The giant animated statue is defeated when it literally sneezes its head off. I can just picture the movie/tv version.

Overall, this book is not Riordan’s best but it’s enough to hold me over until the next Chase Magnus book comes out. I really like that series (so far only one book, but it was a really good one. Volume 2 is due out this fall). Maybe in the meantime I’ll try and get my hands on The Heroes of Olympus series to try and fill in the missing information.