A busy summer for the Riordans! We are still settling into
our new house in Boston, waiting for the last load of our stuff to arrive from
Texas. On top of that, I’ve been writing furiously. So what have I been working
on?
The House of Hades
is ready to go. My portion of the work is done. Now it’s being typeset,
proofed, printed, etc. -- still a long process to get it ready for the release
date, but the book will be out on time as promised, October 8, and I can’t wait
to share the story with you! The first chapter was made available with The Son of Sobek ebook, but we will be
releasing another sneak peek, free, later in the summer, along with some
character art reveals. Stay tuned for more on that!
I’ve just finished work on the rough draft manuscript for Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods. For many
years, I’ve wanted to retell the Greek myths. As a teacher, I always had
trouble finding a good anthology of myths to use in my classroom. As much as I
love Hamilton, D’Aulaires, Evslin, Graves and Greene, all these collections are
a bit dated. I decided to try recasting the original stories by telling them in
Percy Jackson’s voice. Rather than relying on the earlier anthologies listed
above, I set them aside and went straight back to the sources – Homer, Hesiod,
Nonnus, Apollodorus, Ovid et al. I let Percy do the talking in his usual snarky
way, with chapters covering the creation of the world, the war with the Titans,
and all the major Olympian gods. The result is a full-length book that I hope
is the most readable modern take on Greek mythology, and also the most complete
version available for young readers. I’ve covered the ‘greatest hits’ but I’ve
also provided deeper cuts from the myths, many of which are not typically
included in mythology books. Even better, the book will be illustrated by John
Rocco, the genius who does the American cover art for all my books. That’s
going to be awesome! I don’t have an exact release date for Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods yet, but you
can expect to see it in 2014.
I have begun work on the fifth and final book in The Heroes of Olympus. You will find
out the title of book five when you reach the end of The House of Hades (the same way I’ve revealed all the other titles
in this series). The book will be released in the fall of 2014. Will that be
the last story set in Percy Jackson’s world? It’s really too early to say, but
I’ve got a lot of other irons in the fire.
For instance: I’ve also been working on my long-anticipated Norse series. The first book in that
series is not due to be published until 2015, but I have the outline done and
I’m very excited to get started with it. As I’ve mentioned before, Norse
mythology was my first fandom. I started reading those stories in middle
school, along with The Lord of the Rings,
and the tales of the Viking gods had a huge influence on me as a reader and a
writer.
As you can imagine, the projects above have filled up my plate
pretty completely, but I’ve also made time to read a lot of great books over
the summer. I’ll give you a report on those in a separate post later on.
In the meantime, thank you all for being such great fans!
Because of you, The Son of Sobek has
spent the last six weeks on the New York Times middle grade bestseller list –
the first time this has happened for a short story, or an electronic book, as
far as I’m aware. I certainly wasn’t expecting that little story to do so well,
but I’m so glad you guys enjoyed it! Hopefully I’ll be able to continue that
story line, so you can find out what happens with Percy and Carter next, though
as I said, a lot of other irons in the fire . . .
Keep reading, and I hope you all enjoy the rest of your
summer!