Good books are contagious— a fact we amply evidence at our online library EasyLib.com. When we see a book being wait-listed or recommended by more than a dozen readers, we know it is the next big read. Lately, it is Rick Riordan racing up the popularity charts with his fantasy series featuring Percy Jackson and the Olympian Gods.

Riordan penned the first book in the series ‘Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief’ in 2006. The premise of the series is that there are Grecian Gods and other characters from Greek mythology such as Titans, Centaurs, and Cyclopes still living in the 21st Century. There are also demigods among us who have one parent for a God and the other for a mortal. Since the demigods have their brains wired differently from humans, they are often a failure at school and may also suffer from dyslexia and attention deficit disorders. As though these problems are not enough, these half-blooded children are hunted and devoured by demons!

Percy Jackson, the hero and the narrator of the series is a demigod son of Poseidon, the very powerful Greek God of the seas. After being endlessly bullied by friends and expelled from schools, Jackson discovers that he is a demigod and lands at camp Half-Blood.

The camp trains demigods to battle the demons baying for their blood. The series thus far has four bestselling books and a movie in the making. In the first book of the series, Percy Jackson is offered a quest as a reward for his stellar performance at the camp. The quest is for him to bring back the stolen lightning bolt, the very powerful weapon of Lord Zeus. Percy accepts the challenge and leaves the safe haven of the camp for an adventure filled with fights with dark forces and demons. Helped by demigods Luke, the son of Hermes and, Clarisse the daughter of Ares, Percy succeeds the mission as one can expect. The adventure in the series is sure to keep readers at the edge of their seats and pining to pick up the next book in the series.

What started as Rick Riordan’s bedtime stories for his son, have some uncanny resemblances with the Harry Potter series. If Potter had two best friends Ron Weasley and the super-intelligent Hermione Granger, Jackson has Grover and the very brainy Annabeth for his best friends! If Potter was the champion of Quidditch, Jackson is a champion charioteer. However, leaving these superficial elements aside, the setting created by Riordan is very modern and very witty. The hilarious interludes begin with Mount Olympus being on the 600th floor of the Empire state building and Hades living under Los Angeles! Riordan has come up with an ingenious way to popularise myths among children. Hopefully there will one day be a series that will have children clamouring for the vast and exciting myths from our own Indian culture.

Vani Mahesh

 Vani Mahesh is the proprietor of EasyLib.com, the largest online library in Bangalore