The Lightning Thief
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| The Lightning Thief | |
| Author | Rick Riordan |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | John Rocco |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Percy Jackson and the Olympians |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | Miramax Books |
| Publication date | June 28, 2005 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) Audiobook CD |
| Pages | 377 |
| Followed by | |
The Lightning Thief is a 2005 fantasy/adventure novel. The first book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, in chronicles the adventures of Percy Jackson, a son of the Greek god Poseidon, and his friends on a quest to avoid a war between the gods.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Percy Jackson,12, a student with dyslexia and ADHD, is going home after Yancy Academy was over. Before he left, he mysteriously destroyed his pre-algebra teacher Mrs. Dodds. Oddly enough, nobody in the Academy recalls of Ms. Dodds after Percy destroys her. Percy and his mom go to spend a weekend in a cabin at Montauk. When his best friend Grover shows up, revealing himself as a satyr, everything starts to go wrong. His mother suddenly cancels their vacation and rushes to Camp Half-Blood, which Percy doesn't know about.
The minotaur suddenly appears during the trip, wrecks their car, and strangles Percy's mother, causing her to erupt in golden light, leaving her in the Underworld, but eventually Percy defeats the monster and carries an unconscious Grover to camp. Percy is faced with many challenges at Camp-Half Blood, where the children of Greek gods and mortals alike, called demigods, stay annually or for the summer for protection and training against monsters. He gets a new rival (Clarisse, daughter of Ares), and is officially claimed as the son of Poseidon. He is then offered a quest, which requires him to travel from New York City (where he lives) to Los Angeles. He goes on the quest with Grover Underwood and Annabeth, a daughter of Athena.
After blowing a hole in the Gateway Arch, Percy and his friends escape and contact camp (using an Iris Message), where Luke (a son of Hermes) tells them that they have been having problems. Later, he meets Ares, who tricks them, but eventually gives them a backpack of supplies. The group is then trapped in the Lotus Hotel in Las Vegas, a magic hotel that makes time speed up. When they escape, they find that they have one day to complete their quest. On the way, Grover reveals that he was the satyr who was supposed to bring Thalia (a daughter of Zeus) to camp. She had run away from home, and met Luke and Annabeth on the way. Thalia, Luke and Anabeth were being chased by an army of monsters and Thalia, who was already hurt, stood her ground on top of Half Blood Hill to give Luke and Annabeth time to get to camp. Zeus took pity on her, and turned her into a pine tree to prevent her from dying.(Thalia's tree now protects Camp Half Blood from monsters.)
When the group reaches the Underworld, they find that Hades thinks that they stole his Helm of Darkness. Later, when they escape the Underworld just in time, they find out that Ares had the helm, and that the lightning bolt was magically linked to the backpack that he had given Percy. After a battle with Ares, when Percy manages to wound Ares on his foot, Ares leaves and Percy flies in an airplane (which he normally wouldn't do, since Zeus is Poseidon's biggest rival, so Zeus would normally blast Percy to pieces if he flew) and delivers the bolt to Zeus.
Back at camp, while Percy tries to decide whether or not to live year round at Camp Half Blood, Luke attacks him with a scorpion (which could kill Percy in sixty seconds if it managed to sting him) and reveals that he was working for Kronos, the Titan lord, the whole time. After Luke mysteriously disappears, Percy is taken to the Big House, and is healed by Chiron, a centaur and the activities director. Percy finally decides to live at home during the school year (and only go to camp during the summer).
[edit] Characters
- Percy Jackson: a 12 year and a half-blood. He is the son of Poseidon. He is astounding at at sword fighting. Chiron gives him Anaklusmos, or Riptide, a sword said to be used by Hercules, partway into the book.
- Annabeth Chase: 12 years old, half-blood, daughter of Athena, has a Yankees cap that bestows the power of invisibility to the wearer. She dislikes Percy at first, but she eventually helps him to succeed on his quest. Annabeth is very intelligent and loves to read. She is very afraid of spiders: her mother's rival, Arachne was turned into one, and spiders have taken revenge on Athena's offspring ever since. She expresses an interest in becoming an architect to create the most magnificent building to honor the gods,one better than the Parthenon.
- Grover Underwood: A big-hearted satyr (half human, half goat), whose favorite foods are aluminum cans, apples, and cheese enchiladas. He is 28 years old, but has the appearance of a 14-year-old human due to satyrs' slower growth rate, though he is slower to mature than other satyrs. He receives winged sneakers from Percy who received them from Luke (which were actually cursed to drag the wearer into a deep chasm (Tartarus) when he/she got into the Underworld), and accompanies Percy on his quest. He is often asked to read things to Annabeth and Percy because of they are not able to properly read any language but Ancient Greek.
- Luke: Demigod, 22 years old, son of Hermes. He has a scar from a dragon under his eye. Apparently he stole the Zeus's master lightning bolt, and when Ares caught him, Luke, who was corrupted by Kronos, the Titan Lord, he told Ares of his plan to trick the "Big Three" gods Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades into war.
- Clarisse: Belligerent demigod, daughter of Ares, camp enemy of Annabeth and Percy. She possesses an electrically charged spear,until Percy snaps it in half during capture the flag.
- Chiron:a.k.a. "Mr. Brunner" (his pseudonym while teaching Latin at Percy's school), immortal as long as he is needed to teach demigods. He is a centaur, assistant director of Camp Half Blood. He has kept a sword called "Anaklusmos" ("Riptide") which is disguised as a ballpoint pen, and is later given to Percy. The sword always returns to its owner, no matter how far away. Chiron is also skilled at pinochle.
- Sally Jackson: Percy's mother. She makes blue food all the time due to an argument between her and Gabe Ugliano, her former husband, and she can see past the Mist. Gets taken hostage by Hades when fighting the minotaur. Turns Gabe into a statue with Medusa's head.
- Gabe Ugliano: (Smelly Gabe) Percy's stepfather, he smells so bad that it masks Percy's strong godly aura and monsters have a hard time finding Percy. His last name is an obvious pun on the word "ugly".
- Zeus: Lord of the gods, Lord of the sky
- Poseidon: Lord of the Sea, creator of horses. Father to Perseus "Percy" Jackson.
- Hades: Lord of the Underworld.
- Ares: God of war, a biker with a very bad attitude in human form. Aphrodite's boyfriend. He gets into a fight with Percy, loses, and puts a curse on Percy.
- Kronos: The evil Titan Lord, father of Poseidon, Zeus, and Hades. He was cut up into a thousand pieces and condemned to Tartarus by Zeus.
- Dionysus: God of wine, disgruntled and he is the director of Camp Half Blood, resembles a "cherub gone middle-aged in a trailer park. "Dionysus was banished to Camp Half Blood and temporarily banned from wine for a century by his father, Zeus, as a punishment for pursuing a beautiful wood nymph who was 'off limits.'" Dionysus hates his job, and now subsists on Diet Coke, which he can create as needed. He does not pay attention to the campers as much as he possibly can, and deliberately uses wrong names.
- --- Nancy Bobofit---: A young at age girl thats goes to the same school as Grover and Percy who is a school bully but never gets caught. She mostly picks on Grover because him or Percy couldn't do anything. Percy normally does something about her picking on Grover but when they go on their class trip he is on probation and she knows that so she bullies Grover.
- Mrs. Dodds: Percy's teacher who loves Nancy Bobofit, and is secretly a Fury
[edit] Film adaptation
In June 2004, Fox 2000 Pictures acquired feature film rights to the book.[1] The following November, screenwriter Joe Stillman was hired to adapt a screenplay based on the book.[2] In April 2007, director Chris Columbus was hired to helm the project.[3] . The film has gone into pre-production. An un-named writer has been brought on board, the budget hasn't yet been set, concept art is being created, and the script is being finalized.It has been announced that the tentative release of the film will be November 13, 2009.[citation needed] Recently, author Rick Riordan commented that Disney would be producing the film.
[edit] References
- ^ Claude Brodesser. "'Lightning Thief' strikes Maverick", Variety, 2004-06-23. Retrieved on 2007-04-18.
- ^ Claude Brodesser; Nicole Laporte. "'Lightning' to strike for scribe Stillman", Variety, 2004-11-17. Retrieved on 2007-04-18.
- ^ Peter Gilstrap. "Columbus struck by 'Lightning'", Variety, 2007-04-17. Retrieved on 2007-04-18.
[edit] External links
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