Fans ofPercy Jacksonhave a lot to look forward to in the near future.
EW caught up with Riordan to preview Percy’s upcoming adventure.
Check out the conversation below, along with the exclusive reveal of the cover forChalice of the Gods.
‘Percy Jackson’ author Rick Riordan.Courtesy of Rick Riordan
And we started talking about what publishing could do to support the TV show.
It felt like the right thing to do to celebrate Percy Jackson coming home to a new adaptation.
And the story was just fun.
The cover for ‘Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Chalice of the Gods,’ by Rick Riordan.Disney Hyperion
So it’s been a lot of fun.
So yeah, it’s been a great amount of fun to do both at the same time.
You mentioned that the book will be following him in the college program process.
Lance Reddick, Walker Scobell, and Toby Stephens from ‘Percy Jackson and the Olympians’.Percy Jackson/Twitter
How has Percy changed or grown since the last time we saw him on the page?
Well, the poor guy’s still 17.
I’ve stuck him in time.
So he can’t graduate high school, at least not yet.
He’s starting his senior year.
This is afterThe Heroes of Olympusand beforeThe Trials of Apollo.
So it’s his fall semester, senior year, new high school again.
So they could conceivably have a normal adulthood, and that would be awesome.
But when you’re a demigod, you never take anything for granted.
So he’s older and wiser, to a point.
He has a lot of experience to draw on.
The Percy Jackson voice was the easiest thing for me to get back into.
It’s just so near and dear to me.
So you’ve done these other books, you’ve lived with these other protagonists like Magnus and Apollo.
What is still fun about Percy as a protagonist after spending time with these other characters?
I mean, Percy is my alter ego in a lot of ways.
He’s also my son’s alter ego.
So I mean, he’s really a member of my family.
I mean, you put them on and it’s like you’re at home.
It’s the easiest thing.
What can you tease about how college works for demigods?
How did you build that out in this world?
But at the same time, they will also be sort of dual-enrolling in a local mortal college.
So Annabeth is thinking UC Berkeley.
I don’t know if Percy can get in there with his grades, but that’s the idea.
She wants to study architecture and design.
Percy just wants to pass!
What Greek myths or characters were left over that you’re now getting the chance to explore?
The obvious one is Ganymede, who is the center of this story.
He’s lost his cup, and he’s the cupbearer of the gods.
That doesn’t sound good.
So it’s not one of those things you want floating around in the world.
You kind of want to know where it is.
That’s what it really is: It’s about bickering among the family.
It’s not so much about the scary monsters.
And then of course, they always need demigods to get them out of it.
Yeah, Hera’s not his biggest fan, if I recall correctly.
Annabeth and Percy, having had their fill of Hera, are hoping that she’s not behind this.
It’s a whodunit, really: Who stole the cup?
That has some resonances withThe Lightning Thief, right?
Because a whodunit is how this all started.
And Percy remarks on that inChalice of the Gods.
It’s like, “What is it with these gods?
They need tracking devices on their artifacts.”
They look like birds, and then maybe a snake or a hydra.
What can you tell us about these images?
A lot of those are sacred animals to various gods, so there’s a hint for you.
I love Victo Ngai’s art because it’s stylized, and it’s very symbolic without being over-representational.
The oldLord of the Ringscovers sort of had that vibe to them, and I really respond to that.
What does that mean?"
That’s what we want you to think.
You’ve become something of an expert in comparative mythology over the years.
The chalice is such an omnipresent image in world mythology.
It’s power, but it’s also warmth and family.
It can mean so many things.
So it was fun to play with that.
So do you think ofChalice of the GodsasPercy Jackson and the Olympiansbook No.
6, or is it, like you say, more of just a day-in-the-life adventure?
The characters would be familiar, the action would feel like a classicPercy Jacksonbook.
Now, in terms of plot, it doesn’t continue the story chronologically.
It doesn’t relate directly to those events.
This is, after all, a year or two years later.
So it’s more like a coda to thePercy Jacksonseries.
It doesn’t sound like you’re tired of Percy or anything.
Could you possibly come back for more in the future?
I mean, I had a good long break from writing the classic Percy novels.
I do think that going back to it now with the TV series made sense.
It’s my way of celebrating with them.
I got into Percy young, I think beforeThe Titan’s Curse.
That was the first new one for me when I was reading them.
It looks like they’re going to have a really great couple of years ahead.
I certainly hope so.
I mean, that’s a long good run, and every day just feels like gravy.
I feel very grateful.
We’ve been talking so much about Percy as a character, his viewpoint and his perspective.
What are you excited for people to see aboutWalker Scobell’s portrayal of him in the upcoming series?
Walker’s Percy is just totally spot-on.
I mean, I guess you could have a voice-over narrative.
Yeah, but it’s not the same.
It’s not the same.
And Walker has that sense of alchemy.
Everybody says this about him when they watch him perform: This kid is a superstar.
The screen loves him, and he is so good and so natural and so dedicated at everything.
It really is stunning, and he’s a huge megafan of the books.
I kid you not, he’s read the books more times than I have.
So he’s prereadingThe Sun and the Starright now.
He could not wait.
But that love of the series and the source material really comes through.
