2023 will go down as the most historic year for the Percy Jackson franchise. This past May, author Rick Riordan released the first spin-off book in the franchise alongside co-author Mark Oshiro in the form of The Sun and the Star. This December, the titular demigod gets a new lease on live-action life with Disney+’s eight-episode Percy Jackson and the Olympians streaming series. Sandwiched right between those landmark events is another unprecedented feat for the franchise, as Riordan is releasing a sixth installment in the novelized Percy Jackson franchise: Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Chalice of the Gods.
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Rick Riordan Talks Percy Jackson: The Chalice of the Gods
While the character of Percy Jackson has had plenty of new adventures since his last self-titled book, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Last Olympian (2009), The Chalice of the Gods represents the first time that Riordan is writing in Percy’s voice in over 14 years.
“I didn’t know how it would be. I certainly was worried that after 14 years I might not be able to get back into that kind of mindset,” Riordan told ComicBook.com when asked about finding Percy’s voice again. “But as it turned out, Percy is so much part of me, so much a part of my family’s history. I spent so much time writing about him that it was really pretty easy, as easy as it ever is to write a book to get back into that voice. It was like a reunion with old friends.”
The Chalice of the Gods was officially announced this time last year. Riordan noted in a blog post that the idea for a sixth Percy Jackson book was with the hope of sweetening a deal to bring the stories to Disney+. As it turned out, he didn’t need to scribe another novel to get Mickey Mouse’s green light.
“‘Look, if you guys will think about this (Percy Jackson on Disney+), then maybe we can look at it from publishing too,’” Riordan recalled a conversation with Disney. “I came up with three ideas about these quests that Percy could do during his senior year, and I kind of just sketched them out in order and showed them to my editor. She thought they were great and we just kind of sat on them. It turns out we didn’t need them in order to get the TV show off the ground.”
While that initial motive of a sixth Percy Jackson book was to win over Disney, Riordan quickly realized that the true purpose of a new installment was to thank the fans.
“They were happy to do it anyway, but once that was up and rolling, those ideas kind of kept churning in my head and the editor was still interested,” Riordan continued. “Why don’t we do this? Why don’t I try to write this first one, The Chalice of the Gods, the one that I had sort of initially outlined as kind of a thank you to fans. It would be really an interesting challenge for me to write another Percy Jackson book after all this time. We’re here with the TV show reinventing Percy Jackson that way. Why not also go back to the roots and reinvent him in book form as a love letter to all the people that have been waiting all these years for a good adaptation.”
That love letter to the fans mentality is exemplified in The Chalice of the Gods‘s very first line: “Look, I didn’t want to be a high school senior.” These ten words echo how this expansive franchise first opened in The Lightning Thief (2005) when Percy remarked, “Look, I didn’t want to be a half-blood.”
“I just sat down and opened up the blank page. ‘Huh, how is this going to start? Oh, I know how it’s going to start!’” Riordan said of the opening line. “Because Percy’s like that. He’s going to give you the wink and the nod and he’s going to give you Easter eggs. If you have never read a Percy Jackson book, you might just read past that and not think much of it. But if you are a longtime fan, of course you’ll recognize the echo from The Lightning Thief and it’s just Percy’s way of saying, ‘Boy, here we go again. I’m a senior and I’m still dealing with this stuff!’”
This re-introduction to Percy, Grover and Annabeth comes just three months before that demigod trio comes to Disney+. As it turns out, Riordan’s process of scribing The Chalice of the Gods and executive producing Percy Jackson and the Olympians happened simultaneously.
“I found that they dovetailed very nicely. One informed the other,” Riordan said. “As I was writing Percy’s point of view in the book, it helped me remember the dynamics between Percy and Grover and Annabeth that were first explored in The Lightning Thief, which was helpful when I was reading scripts and thinking about the lines the actors were saying. At the same time, the show was sort of already kind of breaking down on the story into its component parts. I found it was actually a really good exercise to do both at the same time.”
Walker Scobell, Aryan Simhadri and Leah Jeffries portray Percy, Grover and Annabeth in Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Riordan has been part of their casting process every step of the way and has championed the trio, as well as the show’s greater supporting cast, as perfect depictions of the characters he came up with two decades ago.
“I don’t think I was aware of it at the time perhaps, but [my wife] Becky who read it first said, ‘Oh yeah, I can definitely tell that Walker and Aryan and Leah were kind of in your mind as you were creating these characters,’” Riordan said. “I think if nothing else, the kids on the show sort of lent me their enthusiasm and their energy. I really felt a renewed sense of excitement about Percy and all things Percy Jackson watching the kids get into these roles. The excitement kind of went both ways.”
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Chalice of the Gods is available in bookstores and online now.
