Percy Jackson Retires

Rick Riordan wraps up the Percy Jackson and the Olympians story in book 5, The Last Olympian. (If you are SPOILER sensitive and haven't read all four of the previous books, I'd suggest you head on out of here right now. To keep you busy, I have a review of the first book, The Lightning Thief, here. Or check out The Lightning Thief movie teaser trailer here.)

When The Last Olympian opens, Percy is engaged along with the other Camp Half-Blood campers, in a war against the forces of the titan lord Kronos. Kronos has completely taken over the body of the traitorous Luke, and, intent on seizing Mount Olympus, leads a massive force of monsters in battles on multiple fronts. Poseidon, Percy's dad, is engaged in a losing fight under the sea while most of the other Olympians are attempting to stop the unstoppable monster Typhon from raging across the United States. Kronos/Luke still commands the demon cruise ship The Princess Andromeda.

This final volume includes some of the best of Riordan's writing. He's held onto some awesome monsters which now unleashes here, he provides a stage for some of the less flashy Olympians to reveal themselves. He gives the Oracle's prophecy a new quirky twist. And the battles, of which there are plenty, grow truly epic. Despite all the action and intrigue, what drives the story is what readers have come to love about the campers--their romantic escapades, their sarcastic dead panning, and their undying devotion to each other.

The Last Olympian does suffer a bit from last-book-itis. Riordan has too much to wrap up, too much that he's left for the final volume to deal with, and so he has to resort to some clumsy devices to fill in all the holes. For one, Percy does an awful lot of dreaming. Dreams have been important throughout the series and became rather central to the plot in book two when Percy's satyr Grover established an "empathy link," allowing Percy to see through his dreams what was happening to his distressed friend. This was already cheating a bit since an "empathy link" has no place, to the best of my knowledge, in Greek mythology and more and more throughout the series Riordan has been using the dream device, usually without any explanation, as a way of providing exposition. In The Last Olympian, though, the dreaming gets completely out of control. About half the book takes place while Percy is asleep and even with this cheat The Last Olympian doesn't answer all the questions that the story opens up. There remain a few niggling loose ends.

When Percy is awake, he is just as determined as ever to not let down his friends, whether he has to face gods, monsters or red-headed debutantes to do it. Ultimately, he doesn't disappoint readers either.

The Last Olympian is a 2009 Cybil Awards nominee.