93. Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (01)

Title: Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (01)
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy, Mystery
Year: 2010

Summary: Percy Jackson is a twelve-year-old boy, diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, who has been expelled from six schools, the latest being Yancy Academy. During a school field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, his pre-algebra teacher, Mrs. Dodds, attacks Percy, revealing that she is one of the three Furies. Percy's mother Sally allows his stepfather Gabe Ugliano to mistreat them both because Gabe "takes care of them" economically. To get away from Gabe, Sally takes Percy on a trip to Long Island for a three day vacation.

In the middle of the first night, Percy's closest friend and former classmate at Yancy Academy, Grover Underwood, who is revealed to be a satyr, warns him that the "Kindly Ones" (The Furies) are trying to kill him. Sally drives them both to Camp Half-Blood, a camp for demigods where they can train. On the way there, they are attacked by a Minotaur, which grabs Percy's mother by her throat. She dissolves into a golden shower of light, while Grover and Percy narrowly escape and enter the camp. There, Percy passes out and is taken care of for a few days.

Percy is moved into the Hermes cabin (each of the 12 Olympian gods have a cabin) under the care of Luke Castellan, the cabin's counselor. The Hermes cabin is established to be the place where all demigods with unknown parentage are placed. Clarisse, a daughter of Ares, says newbies at camp have to have their heads dunked into a filthy toilet and tries to dunk Percy's head into a toilet with her friends. However, the water responds to Percy and Clarisse, her buddies, and Annabeth are drenched instead. For revenge, during a camp game of Capture the Flag, Clarisse and her siblings attack Percy. He steps into the adjoining river and is healed by the waters while Poseidon's trident appears above his head, revealing him to be the son of Poseidon. Unfortunately, it also means that Poseidon has broken an oath that he, Hades and Zeus took after the Second World War to refrain from having any more children with mortal women, as the children can become too powerful and become a threat. Such an example is demonstrated when Chiron mentions the story of Thalia Grace, an unfortunate daughter of Zeus. Percy is granted a quest to find Zeus's master bolt which Chiron, one of Percy's tutors at the camp, believes Hades has stolen. Zeus however, believes Poseidon had Percy steal the bolt.

Percy has ten days before the summer solstice to find the bolt and is given magic flying shoes by Luke before leaving on the quest with Annabeth and Grover. Percy decides to travel west to reach the entrance to the Underworld in Hollywood, Los Angeles.

The trip is not uneventful, instead turning out to be one with a large number of encounters with Greek monsters. A fight with the Furies on board a Greyhound bus causes an explosion inside the Lincoln Tunnel. Trying to find a place to eat, they visit a roadside curio shop some ways away, but the owner turns out to be Medusa. After an attack that nearly kills them, Percy cuts off Medusa's head, which he mails to the gods. Percy, Annabeth and Grover eventually find a lost poodle while camping out in the woods nearby. They turn the puppy in for reward money, which allows them to buy train tickets that get them as far as Denver. During a stopover in St. Louis, they visit the St. Louis Arch, where the Echidna attacks them, also blowtorching a hole in the side of the arch. When they stop over in Denver, they have a run-in with Ares, the god of war, who tells Percy that his mother is alive and also requests that they retrieve his shield from an abandoned water park. When Percy, Annabeth and Grover visit said water park, they nearly get consumed by Hephaestus's robotic spiders and their activities broadcasted to Olympus on TV. That night, they stow away on an animal transport that takes them to Las Vegas, Nevada. After Grover releases all of the underfed and mistreated animals in the back of the truck, they start looking around, and wander into the Lotus Hotel and Casino. They nearly end up forgetting completely about their quest but are saved when Percy finds people who think they are in the 1970s. They also find out that they have spent five days in the casino due to the fact that time passes quickly inside the building. After taking a taxi to Los Angeles, they nearly get stretched out by Procrustes on waterbeds. They go to a place called "DOA Recording Studios" and find that it is an entrance to the Underworld where dead people wait to be transported to the Underworld. Despite the fact that they are not dead, they manage to bribe the person in charge, Charon, with drachma. They are transported across the river Styx and enter the Underworld, where they enter the Fields of Asphodel.

As they approach Hades' palace, Luke’s shoes try to drag Grover over the edge of the Pit of Tartarus, but he manages to slip his hooves free. Percy confronts Hades, who also believes Percy has stolen his helm, an object that allows him to become a shadow. Percy discovers that the bolt had appeared in his backpack and flees from the Underworld with his friends using the three pearls he had received from a water spirit, forced to leave his mother behind. He then fights and defeats Ares by stabbing the god's heel.

Percy fights Ares, the God of War and wins, getting the helm in return which he asks the Furies, who witnessed everything, to return and give it to Hades. Percy flies to New York, risking getting blasted by going into the sky, the realm of Zeus. He arrives in New York City to give the master bolt to Zeus at level 600 of the Empire State Building, where Olympus is now located. Zeus accepts the master bolt and Percy returns to camp. Luke reveals that he stole the bolt for Kronos and summons a poisonous scorpion which stings and nearly kills Percy. Chiron cures him and Percy leaves to attend another school that his mother has found. Annabeth returns to live with her mortal father and Grover embarks on a journey as a "seeker" to try and find the great god Pan. Percy heads home and gives his mom Medusa's head, which she presumably uses to turn Gabe into a stone statue that she sells in order to make enough money to buy a new apartment. It is revealed that the only reason Percy's mother married Gabe is to disguise Percy's demigod stench with Gabe's filthy smell.