When we last left Percy Jackson, he’d finished his first quest and returned Zeus’s lightning bolt to him, only to discover that there’s a bigger plot brewing: Luke Castellan, former senpai and son of Nathan Fillion Lin-Manuel Miranda Hermes, has turned to the dark side and wants to tear Western civilization down because he’s been spending too much time with Internet tankies Kronos, father of the Olympians, who’s plotting to break out of Tartarus and bring the world back to the Titanomachy. Which would be bad.
Percy’s best friend, Grover the satyr, has also recently left to search for the satyr god Pan, a long and arduous journey from which no one has ever returned…but we’ll be seeing Grover again, of course, because this is only the second book in a five-book series and all. In fact, Percy is seeing Grover right now! He’s having a vision-slash-dream that Grover is running from something bad, somewhere in Florida. Just as whatever it is catches Grover, Percy wakes up. He thinks he sees something outside his window, but dismisses it.
It’s the last day of school, and Percy — and his mom — are thrilled that he made it through seventh grade without any Greek monsters attacking him. As long as he makes it through today, everything should be fine! Percy is thrilled that he’ll soon be on his way to his favorite place in the world, Hogwarts Camp Half-Blood.
Unfortunately for him, his mom tells him to slow his roll — Harry Potter must not return to Hogwarts Percy can’t go to Camp Half-Blood just yet, because something is happening, and she’ll explain when he gets home from school, because there’s no way his adventure is going to kick off before 3 PM, right? Right?
Percy leaves for school and meets a new secondary character, Tyson. Tyson is a homeless kid who’s physically strong but quite childlike and easily scared; all the kids bully him and Percy by extension, since Percy is the only one who bothers to be nice to Tyson. Sally’s called CPS for Tyson multiple times, but every time they go to the alleyway where he lives, they claim they can’t find him. Hmm.
In school, Percy stares at a photo of Annabeth, as one does. The school bully steals it from him and everyone needles Percy over having a giiiiirlfriend, which gets Percy extremely bothered in a way that he’s not going to examine for another two books or so.
In P.E. class, Percy notices the school’s bully gang has swelled by several new kids, and said kids seem kind of big and hairy for twelve-year-olds. Heh. As a fellow Mediterranean, Percy, you should know it’s not that weird to have a mustache in seventh grade. Tyson notes that the new kids smell funny, right before Percy twigs that they’re monsters. They identify themselves as Laistrygonians and cackle that they’re here to play dodgeball and eat seventh-graders, and they’re all out of dodgeball.
A fight ensues; the Laistrygonians hurl giant flaming bronze balls at them (probably a reference to throwing rocks in the Odyssey?), but Percy and Tyson manage to kill most of them; Annabeth pops up out of nowhere and saves them from the last one. Percy realizes that she’s the mysterious thing he’s been seeing and is all embarrassed she saw him in his bedroom that morning. Heh. Priorities. Naturally, not really having seen the monsters, all the mortals are blaming Percy for the destruction and he’s like, “Welp, time to leave before I get expelled. Again.”
Outside, Annabeth explains to Percy (and the reader) what Laistrygonians are and that they’re from the north; Percy keeps derping “Laistry-what?” until Annabeth tells him to just call them Canadians. Heh. (Although the Wikipedia entry mentions that they’re considered to be from Sicily, but whatever.) Annabeth also acts rude to and disgusted by Tyson for some mysterious reason.
Annabeth tells Percy she’s been having ominous dreams — not about Grover, about whatever bad thing’s going on at camp right now, which we’re not going to explain yet. Sure, whatever. Percy explains to Tyson that Greek gods are real and he and Annabeth are demigods, and Tyson’s like, “Obviously.” Percy is confused that Tyson already seems hip to the jive, but let’s save that reveal for when we get to camp. Annabeth holds out her wand arm throws a drachma into the street, which summons the Knight Bus the Chariot of Damnation, driven by the Graeae.
One of the Graeae tells Percy that they know the location he’s looking for, and her sisters shriek at her that we haven’t gotten to that part of the book yet. Percy grabs their eye and holds it hostage until they tell him “30, 31, 75, 12”, which are clearly coordinates but Percy does not twig to this. (You might be like, “In fairness, he’s twelve”, but I will not be letting him off the hook because I’m pretty sure I knew they were coordinates when I was also twelve.) (Then again, I’d also been reading Midnighters at the time, so maybe I had an advantage over the dyslexic kid.)
They arrive at Camp Half-Blood and immediately see that it’s under attack by fire-breathing bronze bulls. We’ve all been there. Percy realizes that monsters are getting past Thalia’s tree, and he’s all, “Unpossible!” Blah blah fighting blah; Annabeth gives Tyson permission to enter the camp and he saves Percy from one of the bulls. Once the evil has been defeated, Annabeth tells Percy to really look at Tyson, and Percy realizes he’s been fooled by the Mist all year: Tyson is actually a Cyclops, which explains his strength, immunity to fire, and awareness of the existence of Greek gods. Annabeth is wary of Tyson, as Cyclopses are violent and uncontrollable and like to eat humans for breakfast; the wider demigod community is pretty prejudiced against them. Percy thinks that’s dumb and that Annabeth is being a fantasy racist, not that he says so out loud. (Shades of Harry Potter not being in touch with the wizarding community and not knowing he’s supposed to be prejudiced against giants, by the by.)
Clarisse and Annabeth reveal that Thalia’s tree has been poisoned (somehow) and now the camp borders are failing. Again, the camp was protected before she got turned into a tree, right? Can we not go back to doing…whatever that was? Well, whatever; Percy walks through the camp and notes that everyone is on-edge and training instead of having fun: The camp felt like a military school. And believe me, I know. I’ve been kicked out of a couple. Heh.
Percy goes to find Chiron, who’s been fired and is packing up to leave the camp. Zeus was furious that someone got into camp and poisoned Thalia’s tree; someone had to take the fall for it, and it wasn’t going to be the actual camp director Mr. D, you feel? There’s only one way the tree can be healed, not that we’re going to say what it is right now. Chiron is going into exile until it’s found, so peace out, good luck with the quest you’re inevitably going to be given and don’t call IM him because he is not going to pick up. I feel like he’s lacking commitment to Kindly Wise Mentor Motion here, but whatever.
Back outside, Percy gives us a rundown in the campers: we met Annabeth and Clarisse in the last book; this book also introduces Charles “Surname Only” Beckendorf, a kid of Hephaestus; and more Hermes kids, the Stoll twins (“Travis and Connor”). The Stoll twins love mischief and pranks, and have taken over the Hermes cabin now that Luke is evil. They had those elfish features all Hermes’s kids had: upturned eyebrows, sarcastic smiles, a gleam in their eyes whenever they looked at you—like they were about to drop a firecracker down your shirt. That doesn’t sound like any other twins from another middle-grade book series that I know!
With Chiron gone, Tantalus has taken over as the activities director. He’s cranky and bitter and hates kids, so he and Mr. D are getting on like a house on fire. He ever so subtly announces to the campers that he’s here to “torture, er, interact” with them, and his first order of business is to reinstitute chariot racing, which will replace Capture the Flag as our whimsical-and-dangerous sport of the book. Even Clarisse is like, “Uhhh, shouldn’t we be worrying about the existential threat to the camp instead?” and Tantalus is like, “Stop saying words.”
Then he announces Tyson’s presence and gets mega mythologically racist about how Cyclopses are all violent beasts, but he guesses they can take Tyson in, and where shall he sleep! Perhaps the stables? A field? The Hermes cabin? (The Stoll twins do not like this at all.) But then a trident appears over Tyson’s head, and everyone gasps that he’s Poseidon’s kid, which makes him Percy’s half-brother.
Everyone immediately starts making fun of Percy for having a monster for a brother, and Percy admits — in his narration — that he is ashamed of Tyson, and ashamed of himself for it. Aw. This is very realistic for a middle-schooler and I like that the book goes there instead of making Percy precociously confident and accepting.
Nevertheless, Percy isn’t so embarrassed by Tyson that he turns into a fantasy racist, and he calls Annabeth out for acting like an ass about Cyclopses. Annabeth starts to hint that she has some kind of traumatic backstory, but then she doesn’t, and she and Percy fight and refuse to work together for the upcoming chariot race.
With Annabeth and him on the outs, Percy tells us about some other stuff he does at camp besides hanging out with her: he gets a pegasus-riding lesson from Silena Beauregard, a daughter of Aphrodite; Tyson bonds with Beckendorf since Hephaestus works with Cyclopses in his forges and is cool with them; Percy does some swordfighting and thinks about how swordfighting is his special ability, but he’s still not as good at it as Luke. People always [compare] me to Luke, he thinks. They do? That would be an interesting thing to, you know, bring up more than once.
Percy goes to sleep and telepathically communicates with Grover, who tells Percy that he’s mentally linked them because he needs help: Polyphemus has “it”, and has been using whatever it is to lure satyrs to his cave, where he eats them — that’s why no satyr has ever returned from their quest to find Pan. Grover’s tricked Polyphemus into thinking he’s a “lady Cyclops” (are we implying Cyclopses fuck???) and they’re going to get married, and he’s been stalling him under the ruse of getting his wedding dress ready. Aw, I bet this whole bit with Grover in a wedding dress absolutely kills when you read it to nine-year-olds. Anyway, if Percy could find Grover in the “Sea of Monsters” and save him from certain death, that would be great! And if he doesn’t, uh, the mental link will leave Percy in a coma never to awake, not to pressure him or anything!
The next morning is the chariot race. Percy sucks it up and tells Annabeth about his dream, but she huffs that he’s just trying to distract her from winning. Blah blah chariot racing, blah blah part of the game is to play dirty and attack the rival Quidditch team chariots with your Bludgers demigod powers (Percy cackles that he loves how violent this sport is, as if we’ve ever seen him play or watch it before this chapter), blah blah ominous pigeons swooping down and attacking the campers — wait, what? Annabeth shrieks that they’re being attacked by Stymphalian birds and the campers have to fight them off. She has the brainwave that Hercules fought them off with noise, so she and Percy run to grab “the most repulsive” CD from Chiron’s music collection, and Percy blasts Dean Martin at the birds. Hey, leave Dean Martin alone! This is anti-Italian propaganda from the Greeks >:(((
Anyway, the kids manage to defeat the birds, and I guess Clarisse managed to finish the chariot race in the confusion, because Tantalus awards her the laurels. Then he punishes Percy, Annabeth, and Tyson, for attracting the birds to camp with their bad chariot driving to begin with, because he’s an evil authority figure, get it? (It’s even more obvious, because Annabeth was riding with the rest of the Athena kids because she and Percy were fighting, but only she gets punished.)
Annabeth and Percy make up over their shared hatred of Tantalus, and Percy tells Annabeth about his ominous, Grover-related dreams. Annabeth says that it sounds like Grover found the Golden Fleece — it radiates nature magic, so satyrs have been following its scent thinking that it’s Pan. The Fleece also just so happens to be the one thing that could heal Thalia’s tree. (Annabeth: “You do know the story of Jason and the Argonauts?” Percy: “Yeah, that old movie with the clay skeletons.” Heh.) Percy is all raring to go get the Fleece and save Grover and the camp, two birds one stone amirite, and Annabeth points out that it’s a little too convenient that the Fleece is the answer to all of their problems. Percy’s like, “Stop saying words.”
Moreover, if Polyphemus has the Fleece, then that means they’ll have to get to his island in the middle of the Sea of Monsters. Percy’s like, “What’s the big deal, it’s just the Mediterranean, are we half-Greek or not?” and Annabeth says that the Sea of Monsters moves, just like Olympus does. Right now, it’s in the Bermuda Triangle, blah blah danger, blah blah unlikely they’ll even find Polyphemus’s island in the middle of the ocean, and Percy’s all, “Excuse me, are you doubting me, the Son of the Sea God?”
He and Annabeth decide to bring the quest up to Tantalus in front of the entire camp, so that they can peer-pressure him into saying yes. It does work, but not in the way they’d hoped: Tantalus gives the quest to Clarisse, not Percy and Annabeth. The Athena kids protest, until Tantalus shuts everyone up by telling them a story: once upon a time, there was a Greek guy, not named Tantalus obviously, who was so beloved by the gods that he was invited to dine with them. He snuck out some ambrosia and nectar from the feast; the gods caught him; and everyone laughed, laughed! at him for losing their favor — even his own children! But This Guy Who Is Definitely Not Tantalus had his revenge — he invited the gods to dine with him and fed them Not-Tantalus’s-Children-Stew. And who knows, Not-Tantalus’s spirit might even be in the room with us right now…so let’s think about that next time we want to laugh at him. Greek mythology is fucked up, man.
Percy sneaks down to the beach, thinking that hanging out by the ocean always calms him down. Aw, me too, buddy. When my mom was sick and I was taking care of her, I used to go to the beach near her house and I would sit there for like two hours staring at the water and looping “Hypnotized.” It was a rough year. Anyway, Percy is happened upon by some random guy, and he’s weirded out but is somehow reassured that the guy’s not a creep. Some Guy pulls out a cell phone with two snakes on it (like a caduceus, hint hint), but Percy still doesn’t realize he’s Hermes until he introduces himself. Oh, Percy. (He also tells Hermes that Hercules is his favorite hero, because “because he had rotten luck. Even worse than mine. It makes me feel better.” Hee.)
Hermes nudges Percy to go on the quest, telling him that as long as he succeeds, he probably won’t be punished. He gives him some gifts — a Thermos containing the four winds, and some multivitamins to help Percy “feel like [himself] again”, should such a need arise. Percy’s like, “This is cool and all, but you’re like…not my dad, why are you helping me?” Hermes admits that he’s hoping Percy can save Luke from the dark side. Percy’s like, “No offense, but that’s kind of a lot to put on me, a seventh-grader,” and Hermes is like, “Too bad, you have about five minutes before the security harpies come and eat you, so hurry up and decide whether you want to try to save the camp, Grover, and my damaged family. Bye!” He points out a cruise ship on the horizon, saying Poseidon will help Percy get to the ship.
Annabeth and Tyson appear, saying that they heard Percy calling for help — which was Hermes’s doing, of course. Percy tells them what’s up and Annabeth’s like, “Well, obviously we have to go on the quest, how else is the plot going to progress?” Percy’s like, “But we’ll be killed, or worse, expelled!” and Annabeth’s like, “I’m the smart yet socially inept female character, that’s supposed to be my line!” Just kidding.
Anyway, no time to argue, and if they don’t save the camp, getting expelled is totally moot, so questing it is! Percy asks Poseidon to help them get to the ship, “like, before we get eaten and stuff, so …” (hee), and Poseidon sends some hippocampi to carry them over. The ship is called the Princess Andromeda, and has a bust of a terrified Andromeda on the bow, which Percy thinks is a little weird. He then detours into telling us about the myth of Andromeda and how Perseus — his namesake — saved her, and how Sally named Percy after him because Perseus’s life sucked generally less than most people in Greek mythology. My mom hoped I would inherit Perseus’s luck. Judging by how my life was going so far, I wasn’t real optimistic. Heh.
As soon as they board the ship, our trio immediately notices that something is wrong, but they’re like, “Eh, that’s a tomorrow problem,” and pass out.
Up next: It’s questing time! Percy discovers more of the plot, unlocks some of Annabeth’s backstory, and we see that Luke has become the ultimate villain of the 2000s: a prep.
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