NEW YORK – After filming Season 1 of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians,” author Rick Riordan didn't know what to do with the Camp Half-Blood sets. Break them down? Leave them up? Repurpose them? After all, most of that season is spent questing outside of the grounds.
“Is there something that happens at camp when Percy's not around?” Riordan recalls thinking. “That got my head spinning.”
That question birthed a new Camp Half-Blood series. Across 20 years, the Percy Jackson books have raised generations of fantasy readers and sparked interest in Greco-Roman mythology. But the titular demigod takes a back seat in this new series. The first of four books, “The Wild Zone” (out now from Random House Books for Young Readers) instead follows what happens
after, as Riordan candidly puts it, Percy “did the lightning bolt thing.”
Back on Long Island, some campers are annoyed at the mess Percy is making among the gods. For others, he’s now as legendary as a Greek myth. At one point, campers quip he’s “so famous, he needed his own TV show.” You can thank coauthor Annabelle Oh for that breaking of the fourth wall.
All the while, a quartet of new campers face a difficult first week after entering the forbidden “Wild Zone,” where curses, secrets and monsters lurk. Each book centers one of the four and brings in a new coauthor. The first follows Katie Kim, a newbie with something to prove: her father is Ares, the god of war, and her mother is an Olympic sharpshooter. Even her mortal half-sister seems to be better at everything.
Subsequent books, released every six months, will follow Harper, a son of Aphrodite (written with Kyle Lukoff); Zuri, a daughter of Apollo (with Jade Adia) and Benny, an unclaimed camper (with Pablo Cartaya). Riordan originally pitched it to Disney+ with a series adaptation in mind.
“I don't know that that's ever been done where you have a series of four books about the same group, but each book is told by a different author, taking a different point of view,” Riordan says. “I’ve certainly never tried it before. It was an incredible challenge.”
This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.
Question: Annabelle, did you feel any pressure stepping into the beloved world of Percy Jackson?
Oh: Totally. The worst thing you could do is go on Reddit. No offense to Reddit in general, but the worst thing is just going on to forums, because people all have their own opinions. Everyone's just like, “Oh, I love Percy with Rachel,” “I love Percy with Annabeth,” “I wish these two characters –” “I wish there was more of this,” “I wish there was less of this.” And you're like, oh my gosh, you want to make everyone happy, but you know you can't, right? So now that I've read all that and set that aside and (I had to) be like, OK, what is going to be genuine to what the character needs?
Rick, do you read fan theories? Are you on the Reddit pages?
Riordan: Absolutely not at all. The way I see it is that's not my space. It's for the fans and that's fine. That's great. That's healthy, and let it be what it is. I don't need to insert my voice into that. Let them take it wherever they want to take it.
Tell us a little about Katie, our first protagonist in these new books.
Oh: Katie is one of those kids, and there are lots of kids and adults like this too, who feel like they have a lot to prove. Because she's overshadowed by a sibling who tends to be a lot better at her than most things, and a mother who is definitely better than her at some things because her mother is an Olympic sharpshooter. Katie is going into this camp with a lot to prove and a lot at stake. But she's trying to show off this confident face, and underneath is going to be where all of the adventures and the action and the mystery and the drama comes from – all the stuff that she's not showing everybody.
Percy, who has ADHD, helped a lot of kids reframe their learning disabilities as superpowers. What do you hope Katie will mean to readers?
Oh: I think this is also true for the other three main characters as well. There is a place for you and there is a family for you. You will belong somewhere.
Riordan: Being a hero is not about where you're from or where your parents are from or any of those background things. Those things are important. They shape who you are. But heroism is universal and you can see yourself. You can put yourself in this story and imagine yourself as the hero, no matter who you are.
You’ve been writing this series for 20 years. How has Camp Half-Blood changed for you?
Riordan: For me, it's kind of like mythology itself. It is sort of infinitely multifaceted and deep. The deeper I go into it, the more I find out about it. And with points of view, at any given time (there are) half a dozen to several dozen campers there, and each one sees camp a little bit differently, and their experience is their own and is its own unique story. So it can unfold to have as many dimensions as you want it to have.
What was it like writing around Percy?
Riordan: He has kind of passed into lore at this point. He's part of camp history, even though it was only a few months ago in their time that he did the lightning bolt thing.
It caused ripples. And to explore those ripples when he's not around was a lot of fun. But also, it's fun to know that life exists at camp even when Percy Jackson is not there. And what is that like? That gives some of the other characters room to breathe and room to act and maneuver.
How do you balance writing for longtime Percy Jackson fans and also trying to entice new ones?
Riordan: My go-to line is that if you still enjoy the stories, then you're the right age. If you feel that they're not for you anymore that's fine. I get that. As a former middle school teacher, that is always my north star. I am in my classroom with my sixth graders. I am trying to keep them engaged and tell them a really fun story that will also teach them a little bit about Greek mythology. That's what I'm going for. Having said that, I'm fully aware that all my readers are not 12 now. They're as young as 7 or 8 and as old as my age and older. Again, if you enjoy the story, fantastic. You are absolutely welcome to be in this world. But I don't try to consciously age it up.
It reminds me of a great compliment my students used to give me when they would graduate from sixth grade or seventh or whatever I was teaching. They would say, "Mr. Riordan, we want to bring you to high school with us, can you teach high school?" And I said, "I am so honored that you would want me to teach that. But this really is my space, and you all are going on to different and great things and that needs to be part of your experience." Something that the kids don't always consider is that I say there's always another group coming after you, and they need stories in their sixth-grade experience too.
Does writing for this younger generation feel different? They’re living in a very different, more online world than kids were when “The Lightning Thief” came out.
Riordan: I try just to do the best story I can in the most engaging way I can. If I try to second guess changes in audience behavior, I would just drive myself nuts. So no, it's not something I actively think about, although certainly I'm aware of the changes. I wrote a blog piece, which I don't do very often, but I posted it on my website and of course now there's an AI assistant, which I had not yet turned off. That's the first thing I do. Where's the AI? How can I burn it with fire?
But it said, “Oh, this sentence. Hmm. That's really long. It's 30 words. You really ought to break that down because people aren't going to understand it.” I'm like, are you kidding me? If they're not going to read one sentence, they're not going to read a book. So I got out my old man curmudgeon.
So yes, I'm aware of that. And yes, attention spans are changing and all that, but my hope is that reading will still speak to people. It's a really important activity. It's our number one indicator for success in life – if you read as a kid.
I still have to hope that we can find a way to give every child at least that one book that really sets them on fire and says, oh, OK, I get it now. Reading can be fun.
You mentioned you pitched these new books as a TV show. Is there anything you can share about that?
Riordan: All I can tell you, and all I know, is that it is under option with Disney+. But it just takes so much longer, and the decisions have to be made at so many different levels. It's unknown. But in the meantime, we're going to have a lot of fun with these books.
Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY’s Books Reporter, covering buzzy releases, chatting with authors and diving into the culture of reading. Find heron Instagram, subscribe to our weeklyBooks newsletter or tell her what you’re reading at cmulroy@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Rick Riordan expands Percy Jackson lore, just not the way you'd expect
