The action picks up more or less where the last series finished, with Rachel Elizabeth Dare, now the Oracle of Delphi, issuing a new Great Prophecy:
"Seven half-bloods shall answer the call.
To storm or fire, the world must fall.
An oath to keep with a final breath
and foes bear arms to the Doors of Death."
**There is really no way to properly review this book without spoiling at least part of it, so, here's your official warning: SPOILERS!
A new series of course brings new characters. While some of the old characters, like Annabeth, Chiron, and assorted other campers are here, the three main heroes of this book are all new. There's Piper, a daughter of Aphrodite with the ability to charmspeak; Leo, a son of Hephaestus with the rare ability to manipulate fire, and Jason, an apparent son of "Zeus" with no memory of anything about his life before he 'woke up' on a bus with Piper and Leo, only to be attacked by monsters and taken to the refuge of Camp Half Blood.
To make a long story short, Annabeth's freaking out because Percy Jackson has disappeared. Piper's dad has been taken as well, and she's been having weird dreams about it. Jason keeps mysteriously using all the Roman names for gods, doesn't understand Ancient Greek, but knows Latin quite fluently. Oh, and Hera's been kidnapped. As Piper, Leo, and Jason embark on a quest, it is eventually revealed that (of course) all of those subplots are related to each other.
Our lovely heroes are able to (with some help from our good old friends the Hunters) rescue Hera, but that only buys them some time. A new enemy is stirring, Gaia herself, and the whole world is in an unfathomable amount of danger. Hera saw this coming, and, recognized that some old enemies need to be reunited. Therefore, she made an exchange: Jason (for presumably Percy). She plucked him out of the Roman camp, removed his memories (for his safety, as the Greek and Roman demigods don't get along) and now he has to find his way back.
A new series of course means new dangers, and Riordan has definitely upped the stakes. The seven greatest half bloods of the age must unite to stop Gaia from rising and destroying things, and in order to do that, centuries old rivalries must be over come, and Greek and Roman demigods must work together. It's quite poetic really, and has the potential to be completely brilliant, or completely terrible. Going off precedent, I'm assuming Riordan's going to be the former.
This book took some of my favorite mythological stories, and threaded them together seamlessly. And honestly, the way Riordan handles the fine distinctions between Roman and Greek gods is truly fantastic. There are subtle distinctions, different personalities if you will, to the Greek and Roman aspects of the gods. There's a wonderful scene, when Jason and Piper are talking to Boreas, one of the wind Gods. Boreas sees Jason's tattoo, a clear distinction of being a Roman demigod (though Jason doesn't know it at the time) and immediately transforms into Aquilon, his Roman counterpart.
And of course, it wouldn't be a Greek mythology based book with a main character named Jason if Medea wasn't involved somehow. She is, and the entire plot development with her left me speechless. Though I was honestly ashamed at myself for taking so long to realize that it was Medea (since Riordan didn't mention her by name directly for the longest time).
There are a couple of important changes to the general structure of the books that Riordan made. First off, the characters are older. In The Lightning Thief, Percy was a young boy of 12. Jason is 16 (presumably the age Percy is now....) Secondly, in the old series, we were in Percy's head, all the time. Now, with three main characters, the point of view changed back and forth between Leo, Piper, and Jason. It occasionally got a little hard to follow, if you forgot who's point of view we were in at the time. But, for the most part, it worked pretty well. The third person narration was a plus as well.
This was a fantastic start to a new series, that kept enough of the old series to still be relevant, but had enough new things to make it more than just a rehashing of the first. I definitely can't wait until Book Two: The Son of Poseidon comes out this fall!
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