Percy Jackson - Thieves in Olympus
Percy Jackson - The Lightning Thief (Original title: Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief ) is a fantasy - novel of US writer Rick Riordan and the first part of the Percy Jackson book series. The English first edition was published in 2005. The German translation by Gabriele Haefs was published by Carlsen Verlag in 2006 . In 2010, the film of the same name was released in cinemas.
action
The 12-year-old Perseus "Percy" Jackson lives in Manhattan with his mother Sally Jackson and his unloved, disgusting stepfather Gabe Ugliano . His real father disappeared shortly before he was born. Percy is dyslexic and has ADHD . He is considered a problem child and has been expelled from school every year up to now. He is currently in sixth grade at Yancy Academy boarding school, where he leads an inconspicuous life with his weak and handicapped best friend Grover Underwood.
In May, the class goes on a trip to a Greco-Roman museum. In addition to Percy's favorite teacher, Mr. Brunner, who is dependent on a wheelchair, the malicious math teacher Mrs. Dodds is present as an accompanying person. After an incident with Mrs. Dodd's favorite student, the teacher - who wanted to talk to Percy in private - turns into a fury and attacks him. With a ballpoint pen that belonged to Mr. Brunner that turns into a sword, Percy smashes them to dust. Nobody seems to have noticed, and the students and Mr. Brunner even claim that there never was a teacher named Mrs. Dodds. Instead, another woman taught mathematics the whole year, and she came with me on the excursion.
Other incidents occur as the school year progresses. Shortly before the final exams, Percy overheard a conversation between Brunner and Grover about him. At the beginning of the summer vacation - Percy has been thrown out of school like five times before - he travels back to New York with Grover. On the way they see a fruit stand where three old women are knitting huge socks and staring at Percy. This scares Grover as if it were a bad omen. Since he can no longer stand the strange behavior of his best friend, Percy disappears while Grover is in the station toilet.
During the holidays, Percy visits a beach house with his mother for a few days, which is near the place where Sally Jackson met his father. She tells Percy about a summer camp his father wanted to send him to. That same night there is a storm and Grover shows up at the house. He wears no pants and shows his true identity as a satyr with the lower body and legs of a goat. Percy is only now telling his mother about the strange incidents at Yancy Academy, which seems to be a red flag for her. All three immediately set off to drive to the summer camp Sally mentioned. On the way there they are attacked by the Minotaur , who apparently kills Sally. Percy, in turn, can defeat him with his own horn and then passes out.
Percy comes to on the terrace of the main building in "Camp Half-Blood". He meets Grover, Mr. Brunner, a girl named Annabeth Chase and the camp leader Mr. D. He learns that Greek mythology corresponds to reality and that the Olympian gods control the world. Mr. D is Dionysus , god of wine, who was transferred here by Zeus as a punishment. In truth, Mr. Brunner is the centaur Chiron , who has trained young heroes and demigods for thousands of years. The Camp Half-Blood is a training center for such “demi-deities”, who come from love affairs between the gods and ordinary mortals. Annabeth, for example, is a daughter of Athena . The children of each deity live together in one of twelve huts. Since his divine father is unknown, Percy is first assigned to the Hermes hut. There he met the somewhat older Luke Castellan, who became his friend.
In the days that followed, Grover told Percy the story of Thalia, a daughter of Zeus who was born a few years ago. Since the "Big Three" - Zeus , Hades and Poseidon - took the oath after the Second World War not to father any more half-mortal children - they considered them simply too powerful - Thalia was actually not allowed to exist at all. On the run from monsters to the camp, Thalia saves her friends - a protective satyr and two other half-bloods - by facing the monster horde. She was killed in the process and was transformed into a magical spruce by Zeus . Through the sacrifice Thalia made for her friends, the tree protects the boundaries of the camp from monsters.
In a war game called “Capturing the Flag”, Percy develops unusual fighting strength when in contact with water. After the game, a hellhound appears and tries to kill Percy. A little later, the hologram of a trident appears over Percy's head , which means that Poseidon is his father and has recognized Percy. Percy is transferred to the Poseidon hut, which has been vacant by then.
From Chiron he learns that the ruler's lightning, Zeus' most powerful weapon, has disappeared. Zeus believes that Percy was instigated by Poseidon to steal the theft and demands the lightning back in ten days by the summer solstice . Chiron suspects that Hades stole lightning to play Zeus and Poseidon against each other and gain power. Chiron wants Percy, Annabeth, and Grover to bring the lightning back to prevent a war of the gods. But first he should ask the oracle about his fate. The oracle has the following prophecy to make:
"You are going west, to the God who has turned
. You put what is stolen in the right hands.
A friend betrays you that hurts bitterly
And you fail precisely where your heart is concerned"
So Percy sets out with Grover and Annabeth to reclaim the lightning bolt from Hades and hand it over to Zeus. Chiron gives him the sword anaclysmos (spring tide), which can be disguised as a ballpoint pen. He receives a pair of winged shoes from Luke. Then they set off to find the entrance to the underworld in Los Angeles .
After a short time, the three on the bus are attacked by the Furies, but they are able to overwhelm them. They are temporarily seeking asylum in Tante Em's Gartenzwerge-Emporium, a shop for garden statues on the highway. The caring owner turns out to be Medusa , a snake- haired Gorgon who turns people to stone when they look into her eyes. Percy decapitates her after a fight and sends the still functional head to Olympus by post .
The following night Grover tells Percy about the mysteriously disappeared nature god Pan , whom he desperately wants to find. However, no satyr has ever come back alive from the search. Percy, in turn, confesses that he only undertakes the adventure in the faint hope of being able to free his mother from the underworld. Later he dreams of a pit out of which a dark voice tries to manipulate him. Thanks to the reward for a poodle, the three of them can travel on by train the next day.
.jpg)
While visiting the Gateway Arch in St. Louis , Percy is attacked by Echidna and the Chimera and has to save himself by jumping from almost 200 meters into the Mississippi . He realizes that he can breathe underwater and stay dry. He meets a nereid who forwards Poseidon's request to visit Santa Monica Beach .
Percy is now a celebrity, being searched for across the country. Journalists speculate that Percy was a mentally ill criminal who carried out attacks on the bus and the Gateway Arch. Gabe appears on television and supports this theory.
In Denver the three friends meet the god of war Ares . He wants them to get his sign from an empty water park, where he forgot it after meeting Aphrodite . Once there, Percy and Annabeth get caught in a trap by the blacksmith Hephaestus , which should serve to blow up Aphrodite's love affair with Ares. However, you can bring the shield back to Ares and get a ride as stowaways in a transport of animal smugglers as a reward. Ares also reveals that Sally Jackson is not dead, but is being held hostage by Hades.
Percy dreams again of the voice in the pit, which this time seems to be talking to an accomplice. Grover now confesses that he was the protective satyr Thalia, and that the other two demigods were Annabeth and Luke. During a truck stop in Las Vegas , Percy, Grover, and Annabeth release the abused animals and end up at the Lotos Hotel & Casino shortly afterwards. There they are assigned a luxury suite and have unlimited use of the play facilities. Percy notices that there are people from the 1970s and 80s here, and he realizes that the casino is there to keep visitors entertained and to make them forget about time. The three friends managed to escape, but they have spent five days at the Lotos Casino and are therefore only one day before the summer solstice. They arrive in Los Angeles by taxi that same evening.
At the Santa Monica Pier , Percy receives three pearls from his father's messenger, with which she should be able to escape from the underworld. On the run from street thieves, the three get into the waterbed shop in Prokrustes , but are able to outsmart him. They then arrive at the DOA film studios, which are the entrance to the underworld. You bribe the ferryman Charon and can also outsmart the gatekeeper Cerberus . But before they can speak to Hades, Luke's winged shoes go into business for themselves and drag Grover to the abyss that Percy knows from his dreams. This is the Tartaros , the deepest and oldest part of the underworld.
Hades denies the theft, claiming that Percy stole the ruler's lightning on Poseidon's behalf and has now come here to threaten him, Hades. Percy also stole Hades' helmet of darkness. Hades' theory seems to be confirmed when Percy finds the ruler's lightning bolt in his backpack. Hades reveals to the heroes that their pearls allow only three people to escape from the underworld. Percy must either do without his mother or one of his friends, or stay here himself. So that all four can flee, Percy has to give the god lightning and helmet. Percy decides to leave his mother here and promises to help her soon.
On Santa Monica Beach they meet again on Ares, who now admits to having stolen lightning and helmet to play Hades, Zeus and Poseidon against each other. The backpack he gave Percy in Denver was so enchanted that the ruler's bolt appears in it when it reaches the underworld. Even if he pretends to act independently, the god betrays himself with the words "I have no dreams!" Which Percy suggests that he was instructed by the being in the pit. Percy challenges Ares to a duel for Hades' helmet, which the latter accepts. Since Percy can now use the powers of the water, he manages to wound Ares. For better or for worse, he has to surrender the helmet and declares himself Percy's enemy. Percy hands the helmet over to the Furies, who bring it to Hades. The god then releases Sally.
The trio flies back to New York, where Percy reaches Mount Olympus alone via a magical elevator in the Empire State Building . In the throne room of the gods he meets Zeus and Poseidon, to whom he tells the truth and hands over the lightning bolt. The gods suspect that the creature in Tartaros who gave Ares the orders is their common father, Kronos , who was cut into pieces after the fall of the titans and banished to the underworld. Kronos penetrates the dreams of people and gods and tries to win them over. When Zeus leaves the room, Percy is alone with Poseidon, who tells him, among other things, that Sally has returned from the underworld.
On his return, Percy finds Medusa's head in his room, which Poseidon sent back to him. Sally turns the obnoxious gift into stone and sells it as a sculpture to a museum. Percy spends the rest of the summer at Camp Half-Blood. During an apparently friendly meeting with Luke in the forest, the latter threatens Percy with a scorpion and reveals that he has entered Kronos' service and stolen the magical artifacts for Ares. Luke hates the gods - especially his father Hermes - and wants the titans to rule the world again. Percy survives the scorpion sting, but when he regains consciousness, Luke is gone. Thus, the oracle's line that a friend would betray him has come true.
At the end of summer, Grover goes out to find Pan. Both Percy and Annabeth decide to stay with their families until next summer.
expenditure
- Rick Riordan: Percy Jackson in: Thieves in Olympus. Translated from the English by Gabriele Haefs. Carlsen, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 978-3-551-55417-8 (first edition).
- Rick Riordan: Percy Jackson - Thieves in Olympus. Translated from the English by Gabriele Haefs. Carlsen, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-551-31058-3 (revised edition).
- Rick Riordan: Percy Jackson - Thieves in Olympus. read by Marius Clarén, Bastei Lübbe, Cologne 2011, ISBN 978-3-7857-4005-7 (audio book).
- Rick Riordan: Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book One: The Lightning Thief. Hyperion, 2006, ISBN 978-0-7868-3865-3 (original edition).
Awards
- 2005: Notable Book of the New York Times
- 2005: Inclusion in the School Library Journal's annual top list .
- 2005: Best Book 2005 (Child Magazine)
- 2006: Bluebonnet Award from the Texas Library Association (nomination)
- 2008: Mark Twain Award
- 2009: Rebecca Claudill Award
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ German edition published by Carlsen Verlag
- ↑ Trevelyn Jones, Luann Toth, Marlene Charnizon, Daryl Grabarek, Joy Fleishhacker: Best Books 2005 . In: School Library Journal, December 1, 2005.
- ^ The Texas Bluebonnet Award Reading List