Percy Jackson, Time Thief

Friends, I've been to the land of Young Adult Literature, and I've come back bearing wonderful treasures. Behold, a Percy Jackson addiction!

There aren't too many young adult books I hound my librarians for. Percy has become an exception. I read the first book in the five part series two or three years ago and remember not being terribly impressed -- I didn't like the main character, the language was simple...

Just me being an elitist jerk of a reader again, in other words.

After news that the movie was going to be starring two of my favorite leading men:

I gave the books another try. I wasn't disappointed this time. I went with a totally different approach and a drastically different set of expectations, wanting a young adult book that might be appropriate for reluctant readers and might also be great for a unit on the greek gods and perhaps mythology in general, and I found all I wanted. Percy was nicely snarky and pre-teen and perfect for any students I might have who deal with ADHD. In my true fashion, I stalked the library and devoured the first three books in a matter of a week and a half. Now I'm waiting for returns on books four and five and I'm still excited.

To make all this age-unappropriate fangirling even worse, I carved out part of my Monday afternoon two weeks ago to go and see the movie. Sean Bean and Kevin McKidd aside, I was more than a little disappointed. So much of the material that I had really enjoyed in the books wasn't there. I realize that sometimes film has to cut material to keep time manageable. Observe Lord of the Rings. But re-writing the whole plot so you don't have to cast someone as Ares, introducing some teen romance and topping it all off with lamentably poor fight quality? Poor show, Chris Columbus, poor show. My movie-going buddy Mal and I enjoyed ourselves, though, because we hadn't gone to the movies to see a top-quality, oscar winning film; we'd gone to see a tween movie. That's exactly what we got. (We also got the whole theatre to ourselves -- BONUS!) Mal hadn't read the books, so she didn't have anything to be disappointed about. (She has also been woken up to the wonderful realization that Kevin McKidd is VERY good looking, so there were no complaints on the car ride home about that.)

After all this, I've also starting following Rick Riordan's blog, and I have to say, he sounds like a wonderfully approachable fellow. He's in the middle of writing another Percy-Jackson universe book and another series, based in Egyptian Mythology, is coming out this year. I read the first chapter and I'm not going to deny that I'm excited.

Riordan's PJO universe has sparked a few fanfic ideas, one of which I've already started playing with about a semi-major Greek deity he left out of his universe, the sea-goddess (and wife of Posiedon!) Amphitrite, and per my usual, I've begun following the incoming stream of fanfic on FF.net to get a handle on what kind of audience exists out there for this kind of thing.

Friends, that audience is big, it's bad, and it's all under the age of fifteen and incapable of writing anything other than Mary-Sues. It's scary and exciting at the same time -- I want to know what happens when someone introduces something that's not quite Canon (and hopefully better written) into the fandom pool. (All these Mary-Sues also make me want to send in Thursday Next and some Reality Rounds, but that's a fanfic for another time.)

On the subject of Canon, one of the other things I've noticed about Percy Jackson's fans is that unlike some other genres of young adult literature (Harry Potter comes to mind) PJO people are VERY concerned about adhering to Canon. We're talking "almost to the point of insanity" concerned. If you don't ship Percy-Annabeth, they don't want you there, period. I've read the books, and just as in Harry Potter, I know that a case for Percy being romantically involved with any number of other female characters could be made and written very well. I'm wondering if this narrow-mindness with the Canon is due to the relative youth of the fandom itself or the relative youth of the fans themselves. More observations might have to be conducted for me to find out.

Anyway, that's all that's new from the Wordsmithy.