Sea of monsters
Percy Jackson is a twelve year old boy diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, who has been expelled from several schools. There are some twists & turns along the way, with clues, so an astute reader will have some foreknowledge, but it’s a very well done plot. The characters are well drawn & have excellent motivations. There are a half dozen main ones, just enough to keep things interesting, but not enough to get confusing.
The book starts of with Percy Jackson’s last day in a new progressive school, Meriweather College Prep. But for the bullies, the school has not been too bad. At least no monsters have attempted to kill him. Percy hopes that the last day goes without an incident and he can make his way safely back to Half-Blood Hill without being expelled (as he was from all his earlier schools) from this school. But of course something has to go wrong.
The night before, Percy has had a very disturbing dream about his friend, Grover the satyr. Grover, who is on a quest to find the god Pan, seems to be in danger. And Percy finds himself in the thick of trouble when strange things start happening on the last day at the school. A dodge ball game turns into a battle when a group of giant cannibals called Laistrygonians infiltrate the opposite team and attack Percy and his new friend Tyson. Tyson is a huge brute of a teenager who happens to be homeless and on a charity scholarship at Meriweather College Prep. Despite his size, Tyson is very sensitive and breaks down into convulsive sobbing when teased and bullied. However in the fight with the Laistrygonians, Tyson displays some unusual abilities. Despite Tyson’s heroics, he and Percy seem destined to be eaten by the cannibals when they are rescued by Annabeth who is the daughter of Athena and a friend of Percy’s from Half-Blood Hill.
The Essay on High School Graduation Day
Many people have experienced the over whelming excitement that you feel as you approach high school graduation day, and for me, that’s a day that I will never forget. The amount of emotions that you feel on graduation day is unbelievable, and I have yet to experience anything else like it. I can remember feeling anxious to celebrate the big day with my friends and family, while at the same time I ...
Percy and Tyson accompany Annabeth to Camp Half-Blood only to find that it too is under attack. The protective barrier around the camp has weakened considerably because of the poisoning of the pine tree of Thalia. Thalia, the daughter of Zeus, who like Percy was a half blood, had been changed into a tree some years ago to protect the other inmates of the camp from danger. Thalia, all through these years, has been a magical guardian of the Camp Half-Blood. But an unknown poison is now eating into her and killing her. Chiron is made the scapegoat and fired. Tantalus (who in Greek mythology steals Ambrosia and is hence punished the gods to be tempted with food and water but never be satisfied) takes over as Camp Half-Blood’s activities director. Tantalus takes an immediate dislike to Percy (and his friends Annabeth and Tyson) and does his best to torment him. He pays no heed to Percy’s increasingly nightmarish dreams about his satyr friend Grover. Percy’s nightmares show Grover to be imprisoned by the cyclops Polyphemus on an island in the Sea of Monsters (familiarly known as the Bermuda Triangle).
It is also revealed that the legendary Golden Fleece is on the same island and only the magical healing properties of the Golden Fleece can save Thalia and in turn Camp Half-Blood. Tantalus however gleefully assigns the quest for finding and bringing the Golden Fleece to Clarisse, daughter of the war god Ares. But with the help of the god Hermes (who has his own ulterior motives) Percy along with Annabeth and Tyson also sets off on a quest to rescue Grover and find the Golden Fleece. Along the way Percy and his friends (like on any quest of the old) contend not only with Clarisse, but also with an assortment of monsters, run into the sorceress Circe, encounter the Sirens, and fight with Luke (another half-blood, a traitor, and Percy’s sworn enemy).
They also have to deal with the machinations of the gods. And along the way Percy learns quite a few secrets, especially a prophecy about himself which threatens the very existence of the Olympian gods and their creations. The prophecy along with the reappearance of a pivotal, powerful character (that overturns all the calculations of the gods about the prophecy) make a great finish for the book and set the platform for a tantalizing third book.
The Essay on Born Of A God Theseus Human Book
The King Must Die: Is Theseus to Perfect to be a Human Being? To be considered a human being one must be subject to or indicative of the weakness, imperfections, and fragility associated with human beings. This definition separates us from any lower being, or for this book's concern separates us from any higher being. Theseus had endured a life that during sometimes showed to be like that of any ...
Like The Lightning Thief, Sea of Monsters is packed with compelling drama and hilarious adventures. And if you are even slightly familiar with Greek mythology you’ll have a blast reading Rick Riordan’s re-imagining of the Greek myths and the way he has updated the gods and their stories to fit them into the modern world and the world of Percy Jackson.
Sample this description of Aphrodite (goddess of love and beauty) given in the “Chiron’s Guide to the Who’s Who in Greek Mythology” appended at the end of the book:
Distinguishing Features:
She’s really, really pretty.
Now:
She’s more beautiful than Angelina Jolie.
Then:
She’s more beautiful than Helen of Troy.
Here’s how Riordan describes the Harpies who eat up the kids who break curfew at Camp Half-Blood:
“. . . Plump little hags with pinched faces and talons and feathery wings too small for their bodies. They reminded me of miniature cafeteria ladies who’d been crossbred with dodo birds.”
Rick Riordan has a keen sense of comedy. Chapter three, “We Hail the Taxi of Eternal Torment” describes the “Chariot of Damnation” driven by three sisters: Tempest, Anger, and Wasp, who between the three of them share one eye and a tooth. Its one of the most hilarious episodes in the book. The ride in the “Chariot of Damnation” is very reminiscent of Harry Potter’s ride in the Knight Bus in book three, The Prisoner of Azkaban (actually more reminiscent of the movie than the book), only this is infinitely more funny. Here’s an excerpt:
‘Wasp!’ the third lady said to the driver, ‘Give me the girl’s coin! I want to bite it.’
‘You bit last time, Anger!’ said the driver, whose name must’ve been Wasp. ‘It’s my turn!’
“Is not!’ yelled the one called Anger.
The Term Paper on The Tale of Captain Bookbeard: an Account of Book Piracy
The Tale of Captain BookBeard: An account of Book Piracy A bibliophilic stroll in the streets and lanes of Kolkata is bound to get across the cries of Captain BookBeard coming from the Sea of Poppies1, The Sea of Monsters2 and The Ship of Stars3, and as one starts to wonder about the whereabouts of this ever present, as almost in every pavementbookstalls, yet elusive pirate lord, a tale starts to ...
The middle one, Tempest, screamed, ‘Red Light!’
‘Brake!’ yelled Anger.
Instead, Wasp floored the accelerator and rode up on the kerb, screeching around another corner, and knocking over a newspaper box. She left my stomach somewhere back on Broome Street.
‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘But . . . can you see?’
‘No!’ screamed Wasp from behind the wheel.
‘No!’ screamed Tempest from the middle.
‘Of course!’ screamed Anger by the shotgun window.
I looked at Annabeth. ‘They’re blind?’
‘Not completely.’ Annabeth said. ‘They have an eye.’
‘One eye?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Each?’
‘No. One eye total.’
Like in The Lightning Thief, Rick Riordan comes up with some brilliant chapter titles. Apart from “We Hail the Taxi of Eternal Torment” there’s also “We Hitch a Ride with Dead Confederates” and “We Meet the Sheep of Doom.”
Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters is an outstanding book and a fitting and fantastic sequel to Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. All the characters have their own quirks and idiosyncrasies depending upon which part of the Greek mythology Riordan has pulled them out from. Luke, who betrays Camp Half-Blood, in the first book, emerges as a perfect antithesis to Percy, a strong and sure villain to the doubtful and flawed hero. Along with Kronos (the king of the Titans and the Voldemort of this series), he is the arch nemesis for Percy. Annabeth lives up to her genes and it is evident that she is indeed the daughter of the goddess of wisdom, Athena. The friendship that she shares with Percy is very deftly and interestingly handled by Riordan. Tyson, one of the new characters in the book, takes much of the readers’ sympathy for his simplicity and sweetness. It remains to be seen if he plays any role in the book to come.
Like the first book, the sequel is a rollicking page-turner. Readers would love the fast pace and the excitement of the adventures that befall Percy, Annabeth, and Tyson. There’s something dramatic happening on every other page and never does the pace falter. It’s the kind of book you compulsively read in a single sitting over a few hours. I started reading it after lunch and finished the last few pages over tea. The end of the book, as I have mentioned earlier, is a cliffhanger and will ensure that readers make a beeline to the bookshops when the next installment hits the market
The Essay on E-Books Are Better Than Paper Books
There are so many smart reasons to buy e-books rather than paperback books. How we read books has been changing over the years since the advent of the computer and other gadgets. People are reading online text at an astonishing rate. One of my websites has over 11 million page views. That’s 11 million pages of text I wrote that nobody would have read without computers because it wouldn’t have been ...
