The Titan's Curse
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| The Titans Curse | |
 Book Cover |
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| Author | Rick Riordan |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Percy Jackson and the Olympians (Book 3) |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | Hyperion Books for Children |
| Publication date | April 1, 2007 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 312 |
| Preceded by | The Lightning Thief and The Sea of Monsters |
| Followed by | The Battle of the Labyrinth |
The Titan's Curse is the third book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. It was released in the United States on May 1, 2007. The book was released in the UK on April 1, 2007.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
The book begins when Percy Jackson gets an urgent distress call from his friend Grover. He immediately prepares for battle. To rescue Grover, he knows he will need his powerful friends Annabeth (daughter of Athena) and Thalia (daughter of Zeus), at his side, his trusty bronze sword Riptide... and a ride from his mom.
The demigods rush to the rescue to find that Grover has made an important discovery: two powerful half-bloods whose parentage is unknown, named Bianca and Nico di Angelo. The school that these half-bloods go to is a military school called Westover Hall in Maine, and it is hosting a dance. Grover tells them that the vice principal, Dr. Thorn, is a monster (the manticore) and has been considering attacking the half-bloods that Grover has been watching. Later at the dance, Percy sees the pair being taken out of the dance by Dr. Thorn. Acting on an impulse, Percy attacks Dr. Thorn and is promptly captured.
Percy, Bianca, and Nico are rescued by their friends, Annabeth, Thalia, and Grover; but the manticore is too quick for them. When they are almost about to die, Artemis and her Hunters come to the rescue. Annabeth is captured by Dr. Thorn, however, and she falls off a cliff with him. Percy thinks she might be dead. Bianca pledges herself to Artemis and joins the Hunters, forswearing romantic love forever. Artemis calls on her brother Apollo to take the half-bloods and the Hunters back to Camp Half-Blood while she goes alone to hunt the evil monsters of old.
Back at camp, Percy speaks with his brother Tyson, and has a dream in which his enemy Luke tricks Annabeth into holding up the sky. Later, Percy has another dream, in which Artemis takes Annabeth's place holding the sky to save Annabeth. In the dream, the General tells Luke to kill Annabeth, but Luke convinces the General to let him keep her alive until winter solstice, as further bait. Percy is called by Blackjack, a pegasus to rescue a marine cowlike creature called the Ophiotaurus, whom Percy names Bessie, not knowing what it is.
The Hunters stay at camp, and a capture-the-flag game is held in their honor. Percy strays from Thalia's plan during the game, and they start to argue. While they are fighting, however, the Oracle leaves the attic and speaks a prophecy. Zoe Nightshade (the huntress lieutenant), Bianca, Grover and Thalia leave on a quest, and Percy follows on Blackjack. They stop at a museum and from a distance Percy sees Dr. Thorn confirming that Annabeth is alive and that his dream was true. Dr. Thorn does not go into the museum with the rest of them and instead goes somewhere else. Percy goes into a place where, using Annabeth's invisibility cap which she dropped before being captured, he sees the General and Luke. There the General creates skeletal warriors, which are almost impossible to destroy, by putting dinosaur teeth, which is really dragon teeth, into soil . Their purpose is to kill Zoe and Bianca. The General is about to give them the cloth to get the Hunters' scent when Percy grabs it from his hand. The skeletons tear a chunck out of Percy's sleeve and inhale his scent. He searches for the group and after fighting and defeating the Nemean Lion, he joins the quest. They get followed by one of the General's helicopters so they leave the white van they were traveling in and run into the nearby subway. After changing trains at least twice they arrive at the end of the line where they meet a homeless man by a fire. They ask him how to go west and he points to a train carrying cars. It turns out that the man was Apollo.
With help from Apollo, they reach a small town in New Mexico. There they are surrounded by the skeletal warriors. Grover then senses Pan's presence and a wild gift from him, the Erymanthian Boar a giant boar, comes to carry them further on to San Francisco. It takes them to the junkyard of the gods, and Percy meets Ares and talks to Aphrodite. Eventually, the group enters the junkyard, where Bianca tries to steal something, an action figure for her younger brother, but she awakens a prototype Talos and enters via a maintenance hole in his left foot to destroy him. She succeeds in destroying the prototype Talos, but goes missing afterward. At this time it is undetermined if she is alive or dead.
They reach a river, where the group canoes to the Hoover Dam.They are attacked by the skeletal warriors and Percy meets a mortal girl who can see through the Mist, named Rachel Elizabeth Dare (RED). She saves Percy by confusing the skeletons, allowing Percy and his friends to escape. The group gets trapped on the dam but they fly off on giant angel statues built for Zeus by Athena.
Reaching San Francisco, Percy wrestles Nereus, the old man of the sea, and learns Bessie the Ophiotaurus is the monster they seek, for burning its entrails will give them power to destroy Olympus. Grover takes Bessie back to camp after Thalia is enticed to wield the power by Dr. Thorn, who attacks them on the pier. They manage to get an Iris message (a means of communication for the gods via a shimmering image, produced by throwing a golden drachma into a rainbow) to Camp Half Blood and see Dionysus, the Camp director. He saves them after Percy reluctantly asks for help.
They go to see Annabeth's father to ask for help and he gives them a car. They climb to the Garden of the Hesperides, where Zoe meets her sisters and is poisoned by the dragon, Ladon. They continue to the place where Atlas held up the sky, and they see Artemis taking on his burden. Annabeth is bound and gagged by Luke and Atlas. Realizing that the prophecy made by the Oracle involved him, Percy takes the burden--the Titan's curse--from Artemis. In the ensuing fight, Atlas kills his daughter by throwing her against rocks; she is turned into a constellation by Artemis. Artemis gets Atlas to take his burden from Percy, as only a Titan can be forced to bear the sky. In a battle between Thalia and Luke, Luke falls into a chasm; Percy assumes that Luke is dead, but it is confirmed by Poseidon that the traitorous demi-god had survived. They go to Mount Olympus via some pegasi, including Blackjack.
The gods keep Bessie on Olympus, and Percy learns from Athena that his fatal flaw is (excessive) personal loyalty. Thalia joins Artemis' Hunters so that she'll never turn 16, and the prophecy will never be about her. After partying with the gods, they go back to camp. Percy figures out that Nico's father was Hades after the skeletal warriors appear and Nico unintentionally splits the earth to swallow them up. Nico tells Percy that he hates him for not saving his sister and runs away. While Percy discusses this with Annabeth, Grover arrives, claiming he heard Pan in his mind saying I await you.
[edit] Characters
Perseus "Percy" Jackson: 14 years old, son of Poseidon
Thalia: 15 years old (1 day away from 16 by the end of the book), daughter of Zeus
Annabeth Chase: 14 years old, daughter of Athena
Grover Underwood: A large-hearted satyr, whose favorite foods are aluminum cans and cheese enchiladas. He is 28 years old, yet has the appearance of a 14 year old due to the satyrs' slower growth rate. However, his scrubby beard makes him look older. He wants to look for Pan, the satyr god of nature and the wild, who fell into a "deep sleep" due to the humans' pollution of the world.
Luke: Son of Hermes, betrayed his father and turned to Kronos.
Chiron : A centaur that will live for as long as he is needed to teach, trainer of demigods, assistant director of Camp Half Blood.
Dionysus: God of wine, disgruntled director of Camp Half Blood, skilled at pinochle, resembles a "cherub gone middle-aged in a trailer park". Banished to Camp Half Blood and banned from wine by his father, Zeus, as a punishment for taking a liking to a wood nymph that had been declared "off limits". Drinks Diet Coke, since he can no longer drink wine, which he summons out of thin air. He intentionally never gets anyone's name correct, and has twin sons who currently reside at Camp Half-Blood.
Kronos: A corrupted Titan, condemned to Tartarus. He is being resurrected through a gold sarcophagus. Kronos is the main villain of the series. He is not only the father of Zeus, Poseidon and Hades, but Chiron as well, which is why the Centaur would not go on the quest himself in the third book.
Zeus: King of the gods, Lord of the sky, Thalia's father. Slightly resentful of Poseidon.
Poseidon: God of the Sea, Father of Horses, since he created them, has black hair and green-sea eyes, Percy's father. Described as taking the form of a man in khaki shorts, Hawaiian shirt and nautical hat.
Hades: God of the Underworld and wealth.
Ares: God of war. Ares has been an enemy of Percy since The Lightning Thief. When defeated by Percy, though only a simple wound in the heel, Ares puts a curse on Percy. "When you need it most, your sword will fail you." This curse takes effect at the end of The Titan's Curse.
Aphrodite: Goddess of love, who encourages Percy's interest in Annabeth and warns against taking anything from the junkyard.
Athena: Goddess of wisdom, Annabeth's mother.
[edit] New Characters
- Zoë Nightshade: the lieutenant of the goddess Artemis's Hunters. She has dark hair and brown eyes and is very beautiful. She is the daughter of the Titan Atlas. Formerly one of the Hesperides, she was exiled from their garden when she helped the hero Hercules steal the golden apples of immortality. She was also once in love with Hercules, and gave him Riptide, the sword which now belongs to Percy. She is killed by a combination of her father's fury and a bite in her side given by Ladon the dragon, and is made into a constellation by Artemis, called Zoë the Huntress.
- Bianca di Angelo: the 12-year-old older sister of Nico, and the daughter of Hades, who joins Artemis's Hunt. She has olive skin, and dark brown hair. She apparently dies in the junkyard of the gods in a desert while fighting one of Hephaestus's defective creations, a prototype Talos. At the beginning of the book she is described as shy-looking, because she wears a floppy green cap as if she is trying to hide her face, but once she joins the Hunters, she changes, pulling her hair away from her face and becoming braver.
- Artemis: Artemis is the goddess of the hunt. She can change shape at will, but chooses to keep the form of a 12-year-old girl with auburn hair to fit in more with the other Hunters. She saves Annabeth's life by holding up the sky for about a week.
- Apollo: Apollo is the god of the sun, twin brother to Artemis. He is taller than Luke. He is very handsome, with blindingly white teeth, and he has a passion for poetry, especially Haiku ("Lord Apollo has been going through this haiku phase ever since he visited Japan. 'Tis not as bad as the time he visited Limerick." -Zoё). He acts like a teenager, and is described by Thalia as "Hot", to which Percy replies "He's the sun god." because he failed to understand it. He and Artemis bicker a lot, mostly because Apollo insists on flirting with the Hunters. He drives the 'Sun Chariot' across the sky, signalling sunrise and sunset. The chariot can take whatever form he wants, with the push of his security alarm button, but he seems to prefer a red convertible Maserati Spyder. The car also tends to glow due to its heat.
- Atlas: Atlas is called the General for most of the story, and he is the father of Zoё Nightshade. Atlas was forced to hold up the sky, but in this book is relieved of his burden by Luke, who tricks Annabeth to, and in turn, Artemis. At the end of the book he is forced into holding up the sky again.
- Dr. Thorn: a manticore with a French accent. He does not like answering to Luke. He also wants to prove himself to Kronos' side. Apparently killed by Dionysus.
- Bessie the Ophiotaurus: (turns out to be male, but still called Bessie) not really considered a character, but makes multiple appearances throughout the book. He is a legendary creature with the front half of a brown baby cow and the back end of a serpent. He becomes attached to Percy after being saved from a fishing net. It is said that whoever sacrifices he and burns the entrails as an offering will have the power to destroy Olympus and the gods.
- Prototype Talos: the guardian of the junkyard of the gods.
[edit] Conflicted Part
In the winter solstice council, Hades is not present, yet in The Lightning Thief it was stated that he appears at the winter solstice in Olympus.
[edit] External links
- http://www.rickriordan.com/children.htm - Review of the book
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