Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about Mr. Rick Riordan’s YA novel ‘The Chalice of the Gods’ (2023). It had been rather overshadowed by everything else that had been associated with this author in 2023-4 (and beyond), but it is a good novel in its’ own right.
What it is about? Percy Jackson is moving on from
high school to college/university (eventually, hopefully), but he needs three
letters of recommendation from the Olympian gods to achieve this. ‘The Chalice’
deals with the first letter that PJ receives from Ganymede, the cupbearer of
the gods, (also the constellation Aquarius), for retrieving the titular
chalice, so there are probably another couple of novels in the works still.
‘The Chalice’ takes place before ‘The Trials of
Apollo’ series as well as Nico and Will’s standalone adventure in the
Underworld, as PJ’s baby sister is nowhere near even being born, (unlike the
first novel in ‘The Trials’). (Also, Jason is alive and perhaps even with Piper still). Fair enough.
The plot of ‘The Chalice’ deals with PJ’s,
Annabeth’s, and Grover’s… well, quest to find the chalice. They also deal with
the fact that they are changing – both literally aging, (because they are
mortal, unlike the Olympian gods), and by developing and transforming socially
as well: they are growing more apart now than how they were before, when they
were younger, and so they need to deal with it.
Two of the entities that the trio meets in ‘The
Chalice’ are literally connected to age: Hebe, the goddess of youth, and Geras,
her opposite, the god of old age. Spoiler alert: the latter is the main
antagonist of the novel, but PJ is able to defeat him, with some help from
Annabeth and Grover, by figuring out that aging is not so bad and that the
Olympians’ immortality is a rather crummy deal after all.
…Yes, PJ had to deal with this sort of thing at the
end of the first series – the Chronus’ war - already, but overall ‘The Chalice’
also feels like a soft reboot of the PJ franchise – it even talks about
nostalgia and a brief, temporary rejuvenation of the trio. Clearly, unlike the original
films about PJ and the lightning thief and the sea of monsters, the new TV show
is here to stay and prosper, and Mr. Riordan intends to benefit from it.
The other main non-Olympian deity PJ meets here is
Iris. He already met her in the second book of the second series, but now Iris
got remade for some reason, possibly to distance herself from the sexual
minorities, because of the obvious RL reasons. No, seriously, throughout ‘The
Chalice’ there are no mentions of sexual minorities, but plenty of heterosexual
couples with children instead – and then, of course, there are Percy’s mother
and stepfather, who are having a baby of their own – see above.
…Speaking of Iris? ‘The Chalice’ also introduced her
demigod daughter Blanche, who is apparently Iris’ opposite and so the two don’t
exactly get along? In addition, Blanche may or may not like Grover, who is
already in a relationship with Juniper, so drama! J-Ro, whose Ron Weasley also
had a robust dating life says ‘hi’.
No, seriously – PJ, Annabeth and Grover are a
variant Golden Trio, but we have talked about it already; anything else?
The way that PJ ‘infiltrates’ Zeus’s impromptu
branch feels like an Easter Egg for ‘The Lightning Thief’, but, again, Mr.
Riordan isn’t against an occasional throwback or reboot – as it was said above,
‘The Chalice’ feels like a soft reboot of some sort; also, no one gets hurt too
seriously, (though yes, Percy may disagree), so this book is decidedly
child-friendly too, even though it seems to be more aimed at a young adult
audience instead. Therefore, in conclusion, it can also be safely said that ‘The
Chalice’ is a good book to read a couple of times, and be left after this –
nothing more.
For now, too, this is it for us. See all of you
soon!
