Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters is the second thrilling volume in the wonderful series of heroic fantasy stories by author, Rick Riordan. In the first book, Percy discovers he is a hero. Not an everyday life, safe a dog from drowning hero, but a hero like Hercules or Achilles from the sagas of ancient Greece. You see history mistakenly records Zeus, Poseidon, Hades and company as the Greek gods, where in fact they were the gods of Western Civilization. As such, when the centre of Western Civilization shifted, so did they. It seems they have resided in Rome, France and England, but are currently living in Manhattan! Mount Olympus is now situated at the top of the Empire State Building.

As a hero, Percy is given quests and in the first installment we saw him travel to the depths of the underworld in an effort to find Zeus’s master thunderbolt before the gods descend into all out war. In book two, however, he is told that under no circumstance is he to go on a quest. Camp Half Blood is under attack by monsters. It seems the only thing that can save them is the Golden Fleece that Jason and his Argonauts searched for many centuries ago. Where is it now? On an island in the Sea of Monsters, of course! And where might that be? Well let me see … where do most boats and planes mysteriously disappear due to unknown circumstance? Ah yes, the place I’m currently writing about! The Bermuda Triangle.

Will Percy listen to the warnings and ignore the quest? Of course not! This is another mind-blowing adventure with monsters at every turn. Good monsters (yes there are some good ones in these books) bad monsters and downright evil monsters look to kill, capture or otherwise harm our worthy hero at every footstep. This is action adventure on an epic scale.

As I’ve said before, I think it is one of the best series of fantasy books around at the moment. If you’ve not tried one yet, then it’s best to start at the beginning with Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. Any book that starts with a chapter entitled: The Day I Accidently Vapourised My Maths Teacher gets my vote of confidence!

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