Percy Jackson: The Lighting Thief – Rick Riordan – Episode 24
The Buddies bolt into book one of the Percy Jackson series, The Lighting Thief, by Rick Riordan. It was the first time reading this young adult adventure novel for the Buddies, and it had them reminiscing about capture the flag, peanut butter and (Heinz) ketchup sandwiches, and the true definition of a satyr. No episode would be complete without a plethora of Harry Potter and Austin Powers references, which this episode provided in spades.
Intro: (0:00-3:32)
Favorite Scene (3:33-6:31)
Stock Up/Down (6:32-24:43 )
Favorite Character (24:44-28:43)
Love/Hate (28:44-42:43)
Reader Email (42:44-45:13)
Casting the Movie (45:14-46:36)
Conclusion (46:37)
Next Book: GOOD OMENS by: NEIL GAIMAN & TERRY PRATCHETT
Transcript for SEO purposes 🙂
All right. Welcome Buddy Book Club. I’m Dylan here with my Seder and protector, a God in my eyes. Keith, what’s up, buddy? Hey, how are you doing? I’m doing great. I’m really doing great. I love a Good Friday pod. It makes me happy to call me a Seder, and I have a tidbit later about that. I’m pretty happy about it, so I will definitely get into that. I hope we have the same tidbit. It’s not TID, and it’s not that we’re on the same page. Well, here at the Buddy Book Club, we’re breaking down some best sellers. And this week we’ll be discussing Rick Ryrdon’s The Lightning Thief, the first of Percy Jackson and the Olympian series. If you like to recommend a book to us or reach out to us about any past episodes, you can visit our website Buddy Bookcloud.com or slide to our dams on Twitter or Instagram. Buddy Bookclub Podcast. You can listen to us on itunes and Spotify, so please don’t subscribe. Let’s get to Prism Jackson, how did you decide to recommend this book to us? So on Reddit. I followed the popular book channels on that. As a producer of this podcast, that’s a good thing to do. Yeah. And you know that the Dragon I’ve always been chasing is the next Harry Potter is finding that I’m constantly on the look for that, and I can never catch it. I thought it was heroin, but I’m glad you’re chasing a different Dragon ball. Well, yeah, you can be both. No, but yeah, I kept on seeing this recommended as, like, what’s? Something that’s similar to Harry Potter and everyone would be like Percy Jackson and vice versa. I don’t know if that would be how I would describe this book necessarily, other than him, like, kind of having magic otherwise. I described. This book, though, is like a kids version of American Gods. It’s basically traveling across the US, interacting with different instead of just American gods, Greek gods. Along the way, there was a similar naivetivity. Is that the word naivete? Naivete? Navativity is the scene where Jesus is born. Nativity. Yeah, same difference. But anyways, that’s kind of what I felt like it was like. And that’s the pod. Thanks for checking in, guys. Talk to you next time. Well, I guess before we get ahead of ourselves, we’ll get into the summer. I really have no idea what Percy Jackson is because he said at the beginning, if you’re reading this book and you think you might be one by meaning a half blood, my advice is close the book right now. So that’s what I did. I didn’t read the book. And butterfly landed on me one time, so I’m definitely part God. I’m presumably Artemis, God of nature. So, yeah, I didn’t even read the book. Keith, you have to tell me what the summary is. I have no idea. But Percy is a half blood similar to Harry Potter. So there you go. There’s another similarity. And he goes on a quest to return. Lightning Bolt story ended. All right. Well, we’re going to get into some stock up, stock down some love hate listener mail. We’re going to maybe recast the movie. But before we get into that, we like to do a little libation so that everyone can listen along and enjoy an adult beverage, perhaps as we do, especially as Friday. Like I said, I mean, it might not be Friday when you’re listening, but hey, it’s Friday somewhere. I think that’s the phrase, right? Yeah. So you go with some red wine in honor of Mr. D, aka Dionysus. Seems like that’s low hanging fruit like a grape. Low hanging or low hanging like a Seder. Got it. Kid book. I don’t want to be drinking any kids book. That just sounds rude. So I’m going to drink a tea. Iced tea. Twisted tea. I forgot what I was talking to, but they were like, man, I really wish they made twisted teeth, non alcoholic version. And I was like, that’s just tea. They do. It’s called iced tea. What was your favorite scene from this book? Quickly, though, before we get into it, this is not only a young adult book, but it’s like a middle grade book, I guess is what they would call it. So even though we’ve read some young adult a lot of young adult books on this podcast, it’s closer to like, Holes than anything else. And Holes is our first episode. I don’t even know if it’s doing Spotify. It’s got really shitty audio, but maybe it is. And we’re probably going to shit on this book a little bit. But that’s because we are adults and we’re reading a children’s book. And I have a tough time putting myself back into my eleven year old self. So I think that it’s just kind of like a Disclaimer because the things that we’re probably going to talk about are stuff that an eleven year old might not notice. So if you’re listening for some reason and your kids wants to listen, wants to read Percy Jackson, don’t be like, well, these idiots hated it. So don’t read it because they would probably love it. But there we go. I would say this is similar to Holes and Hatchet. And then you didn’t really like Holes and I didn’t really hatch it, but it was probably because I liked Holes because I read it when I was young. And you really hatch it because you read it when I was young. I bet people that like Percy Jackson when they’re younger still appreciate it now. Exactly. This is our first time reading it for both of us. If we both read this when we were kids, I’m sure we would have a different opinion towards it than we do now. All right. I didn’t really have one that really stood out, but I just think anytime Aries was in any scene, he kind of stole the show. I really appreciated that. He immediately made everyone around him, like, more aggressive and angry and ready to fight. This dude kind of brings the party with him. He rode around a motorcycle like flaming eyes. Percy Jack, who always doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s kind of reacting to everything rather than being the aggressor, starts talking shit to him, and he’s like, you won’t fight me a little bitch. I’m like, oh, all right, Percy. I kind of like you around this Aries guy. I’m with you there, and he’s in a diner scene. If it’s a diner, something good is going to happen. I mean, you’re talking Goodfellas. The movie, the diner. Great stuff, Fargo. American Gods is a very diner heavy, too. Yes, both very similar. Like I said, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ryarden was a big gaming fan for my favorite scene. Like, maybe the Oracle scene. I love a good Oracle scene. 300 The Matrix. It always gets me. I feel like more movies should have Oracle scenes, just throw one in there. But they always have the you will be betrayed by a friend and, like, the first time thinking is like, no, not Grover. Not Grover can’t be Grover. So I just like a good Oracle scene. Or potentially, when they go to the underworld, that just whole different places people can go and the people that were waiting to be judged and kind of like Dante, different levels of hell kind of thing. And they also referenced Elysium, which is from one of my favorite movies, Gladiator. Sounds actually great. So I’m down for going to Elysium. Stock up, stock down. Let’s jump into it. The stock market, the real stock market is all over the place. But here we’re dealing with commodities, derivatives, all sorts of high level stocks that people don’t even know are available to trade. What are you buying? What are you buying this time around? Stockup. Magicalswordsstabbingpeople. I don’t know if that’s that two stock or is that one? Well, I wanted to say stabbing people. And I was like, well, you kind of need to give a caveat here. We have a ton of listeners. I don’t want people going out there stabbing people unless you have a magical sword. So Percy Jackson gets a magical pen, which turns into a sword whenever he pulls it out and uses it, which kind of gives new meaning to the phrase the pen is mightier than the sword. But, yeah, you like that. I only know that because of celebrity. The penis mightier. Yeah, celebrity Jeopardy. Celebrity jeopardy with penis is mighty. But anyways, the sword only kills gods and half Bloods. In fact, he tested out against some young rich thugs. I guess they were that tried to intimidate him, and he was just out there ready to snatch lives, just stabbing kids. They were, like, circling around him, and he disposed of the sword out and starts stabbing people. And he’s like, oh, I guess it doesn’t work. It’s like, wait, you were about to murder, like, four or five kids over this. But that’s neither here nor there. I’m a big fan of the free Snatch lives. He was ready. He was ready just to start snatching. But here’s my question. Why was he not doing this to everyone? Someone looks at him funny, sword comes out, stab him. Someone is on the bus. He doesn’t know if they’re a God or not. Stab him. Medusa when she’s like, yeah, come eat my food. Stab her. Why was he not doing that every time? Yes, we’ll get into this later, but pursue wasn’t the brightest. Yeah, that’s true. I also always think that Star Wars should have incorporated this, where once you create a lightsaber, it’s yours and it only responds to your hand and only it can go through your skin. It doesn’t affect you in any way because it also would have made Darth Maul way cooler with a double lightsabers where he could have, like, stabbed through himself to stab someone else. Yeah, see, that’d be cool, right? That’d be wild. It’d be, like, kind of hard to follow and explain in video form, but no, I get it. You’re like, oh, this is my lightsaber. It can’t hurt me. I do think the idea of they already have pistols, like weapons that read your finger grip and will only activate if you’re using it. Why wouldn’t they have that with a lightsaber? It seems pretty standard. Really. Pretty standard, really. There you go. My first stock up is peanut butter and ketchup sandwiches
Participant #1:
parking. Well, the stock, I’m pretty sure is, like, nonexistent, like, might be trading for micropennies, so I think I’m going to buy it, considering. Well, Nancy Boba Fett tosses one at Grover’s Head, and I can’t say I’ve ever partaken in a peanut butter and ketchup sandwich, but as long as it’s Hines on there, I’d be down to try it. I’ve had some weird sandwich concoctions in my youth. The coverage dry, but you got some bread. So what are you going to put on it? I was wondering if you had tried any. I mean, you’re famous for creating a sandwich at the place we used to work together. The Everyman. Is that what it’s called? I forgot. I think it was called the every, man. It was the Turkey and cheese bacon. I put honey mustard, so the Turkey, cheese and honey mustard. But have you tried any weird kitchen concoctions in the sandwich variety? A staple for me. I’d come home and get a piece of bread and warm up a hot dog and put ketchup on it. So it’s kind of a sandwich. Yeah, I will argue with a hot dog bun. Yeah, I will argue that hot dog buns are overrated and just, like, a piece of white bread is delicious with a hot dog. Okay, we’re on the same page then. I remember when I first did the Costco thing. Like, Costco first became like a fad for my family, at least when I was like twelve or 13. And they had microwaveable bacon, which technically all bacon is microwavable, but it was like par cooked. So it only took like a minute. And so we had that in the freezer. I was like, hell yeah, I’m going to do this. And we also had the Costco giant sized fluff that would just never go out. I would make a good bacon and fluff sandwich and it was delicious. I would push everyone out there who has fluff in the cupboard and some bacon to really try it. I mean, that sounds amazing. Yeah, that’s the perfect element of sweet and salty. It sounds perfect. You can also dip bacon in a Hershey’s chocolate syrup. That’s another one I did, but I was a sick child. I mean, you could do literally bacon with everything. You put it in vegetables. Honestly, you put it in vegetables? Yeah. You like sprinkle bacon pieces on anything that’s vegetable. It’s like, oh, yeah, I guess that’s the thing. They do have like, shakeable bacon bits, which is weird. What else you’re for? Stock up, Vegas. Stock up, really? Vegas for kids. Okay, there you go. Let me reclassify it. But the Lotus casino, can we talk about the lowest casino and how amazing that sounded? We sure can. I guess you waste your life away living in there, but it’s wasting your life away when you have unlimited free money. It sounded like things were constantly getting updated. The best of everything, the most fun games. And it’s a time machine. You don’t age. So let’s say we’re in a couple of bad years. You’re like, alright, let me just go to Lotus, you know, waste a couple of years in here, come back when the future is a little bit better, have the best time in my life for three or four years. But a bang. I don’t know. It seems to me the one thing about this book definitely getting kids addicted to gambling early because it was talking about like, yeah, this is awesome. Vegas is amazing. You should go there. Yeah, I’m there for those casino as well. It sounded super great. He was like, oh, there’s some kid who’s there from the 70s. So that kid has been bunging jumping, eating ice cream, like playing video games for 30, 40 years, and he’s going to get out of here at some point and still be a young kid. And now he has computers. And when he went in there, he didn’t have computers. Like, yeah, I’m all for it. It sounds amazing. I don’t know. I mean, Percy is the real dink for pulling everyone out of there. It’s pretty selfish, honestly. Although I think Vegas, it’s not like the movie casino where it really wasn’t kid friendly. Now it’s pretty kid friendly. So you’re buying a blue chip stock here. That’s a blue chip stock you’re buying. My next stock up is Capture the Flag. Really just is there a better game? But I feel like people don’t play Capture the Flag anymore. It’s not a thing, but maybe I’m just not a child anymore and I can’t play Capture the Flag. But there are like, adult softball leagues. There are adult volleyball leagues. Why isn’t there an adult Capture the Flag League? Because, like, strategy one of my favorite board games. It’s just Capture the Flag. That’s all it is. But you don’t have to move. But real Capture the Flag is phenomenal. I mean, even if you’re paintballing, the whole point of paintballing is usually Capture the flag. I’m serious. Is there a better gym outdoor game to play? The nerves you felt remember when in gym class when you were doing cash to fly? The nerves you felt for that? I can still feel them right now. Yeah. That was the most exhilarating thing you can do as a kid. I think the only thing that’s close I can think is when you’re playing dodgeball and you’re like the last person on your team. Yeah. Just left and right, Dodge and duck. If you score that flag when you’re young and you’re basically getting eight days after that class real quick. Too much. Well, you’re definitely the first of the bubbler. Like, you get to call first dance of the bubbler because you captured the flag water fountain for those outside of England. Yeah, the blah blah. Although the one concern with this book was shouldn’t Aries have team have dominated Capture the Flag? It’s basically a war game. I mean, what the book should have just turned into is just captured flag the whole time. That would have been great. But yeah, you’re right. They should have definitely won that. Who’s captured the flag? Balls and pretty much be like Hunger Games. And also I watched the movie for this, and I don’t know if you have, but I watched the movie just for research, and it was similar to the book, and they had to capture the flagship, but it was like war. And I think that’s what the book was, too. They had live swords and stuff like that, and you can kill people with these swords. So I didn’t really understand how more children were just, like dying during Capture Flag, which I am not for. I want a very casual capital flag. I don’t want life and death on the line. But this seemed like some serious, dangerous Capture the Flag. A person didn’t hit that water, he would have been screwed. Like, they would have just stabbed him to death. That’s a good point. I didn’t think about that. Okay, get your shield, get your armor. And it’s like Greek armor. So it’s chin guards and a chest plate. Pretty much. So you could very imagine the parents being like, I’m sending my kids to camp. Like two weeks later, a letter comes home. Like, no your kid is dead. He was playing capture the flag, and he went after two. Give him that juice there. That tastes like cookies. The blue juice. Yeah, whatever that was. That sounds amazing. Okay, yeah. Talk down. What are you selling this time around? Talk down. My lifestyle choices or my lifestyle just in general. So the worst person in the book is a stepdad Gabe. And let me just list off what Gabe likes to do. Loves sports, loves gambling, loves drinking. He’s Balding. He’s overweight. Loves a good layered dip. That’s just me. Just describes what I am. And then at the end, they kind of infer that because he does all those things. He starts beating his wife. And I was like, Jesus Christ.
Participant #1:
Yeah. But also, though, would have killed person. Give Gabe an apology for ruining his pride and joy car. Come on. Right? Yeah, no big deal. Percy, just come on. You just ruined his car. And he gets back and he’s like, James being mean to me. You just ruined his car. But, yeah, my lifestyle choices stock down, apparently because of this book. Okay, I can dig it. My first talk down is law enforcementjournalistic integrity. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? I mean, Percy is all over the news for, like, young boy wanted for bus explosion. Young boy does crazy stuff in New York City. And a minor, too, isn’t he? Why? Barbara Walters isn’t on it. She’s going to lose her pee buddy award. Like, everyone is just slandering Percy Jackson’s name all over the place. This is a 1213 year old kid. You just assume that this kid is just all of a sudden became a terrorist. He’s just deciding to blow up busses. You don’t figure that there’s probably something else going on? It made very little sense to me that none of the cops were like, oh, I don’t know. Maybe this isn’t just as what it seems that it’s 13 year olds blowing up buses. Plus they have forensic teams that are looking like there was no wires, there was no device. Where’s the FBI in this? They’re not doing anything. And on top of that, how can you not catch this kid? They’re legitimately not doing anything to hide. It’s not like, okay, let’s change our appearance. Or the other thing. It’s three kids going around the United States alone that are 13. It probably wouldn’t. And every time they’d be like, oh, there’s a sign for us, or someone on the news is saying something, and they’re like, in a diner, just like, having eggs. Like, my eggs are a little overdone. What about yours? And no one there is like, oh, that guy on the TV is that kid that’s sitting right there. No one cares. I guess the law enforcement. No one cares. So I’m selling my law enforcement stock. Yeah, I’m bored with that. What else do you ever stock up? Being curious. Stock down. It seems like the whole book. Percy is kind of asking reasonable questions about what’s going on, and people are just like, yeah, Percy, shut the fuck up. You should know this stuff. It’s like what he gets right to the camp. His mom dies, Mr. D is being complete dickhead to him. Why is this guy being so mean to him? And Percy is asking questions, and they’re like that. You should know this stuff. You should know this stuff. And you think there’d be some sort of empathy, considering that all these kids at the camp have gone through the same thing. So when he gets there, they should be like, I always want this kid, and you kind of give him a little bit of a heads up. We get none of that. He just immediately told, like, how dummy is the whole book. It’s like, all right. I feel kind of bad that this guy’s been even curious about this stuff because he’s just going to shit on it for it. Yeah, maybe stock up for Luke, because Luke was the only one that was nice to him, even though he kind of screwed him over, obviously, at the end. But he’s the only person that was like, oh, you can play with our team. And no sweat. Oh, here’s how this works. Here’s how this whole camp thing works. Everyone else is in the same boat as you. This isn’t like a horrible orphanage. It’s like, all over. Twist all over again. My next talk down was being a loving, caring mother and sacrificing your happiness for your child people. It’s not worth it. It is not worth it, because when Percy’s mom died, he did not give a fuck. She’s everything he has, not only when she immediately dies, he’s like, oh, my God, my mom, she’s dead. Then he’s like, oh, this camp is pretty cool. Like, what’s going on here? I got to win this capture the flag game. Yeah, I guess capture the flag is way more important than my mom. And then people are like, hey, pristine feelings like, cool. I just got these new shoes. Everything is great. Even when he’s in the underworld. Well, first he’s like, I’ll just grab her out of the underworld. No problem. This is not a big deal. I’ll just get her. But what is this? Is this what Dreams May Come? Starring Robin Williams? It’s not that easy. And then when they get down there, Grover, because they only had three ways to get out, and there are four of them. Grover is like, I’m cool. I’ll take her place. No sweat, brother. We’re fine here. And it’s not going to be as bad for me because I’m a Seder. Whatever the case is, Grover is literally going to sacrifice himself. Way to take one for the team, bud. And then Percy is like, no, you know what? I’m going to leave my mom here because that makes way more sense. And I’m way more aligned with you, Grover, because we just met and things are cool between us. I mean, at least within the movie, they did change that. And Grover did stay and he took his mom. It didn’t really matter in the movie whatsoever. Nothing happened. But I just didn’t understand how he. I mean, he was obviously upset that his mom died, but it wasn’t talked about after that. It was just not discussed. It was like, whatever. Harry Potter spent seven books basically being like, my parents. My parents. He barely even knew his parents. Right? Yeah. I’d like a happy medium in between the two. At one point, the girl in the series or whatever, I forget her name. Annabeth. She’s just like, hey, Percy, how’s it going? It’s like, well, I mean, I’m glad we’re on this quest together, but I’ve been pretty upset. My mom is dead. Just something along those lines would have been fine for me. Yeah, I think the whole thing was like, she’s not really dead yet. He was pretty certain he was dead for a while, and instead he was like, what bunk am I in? Do you have any other stuck down last one kissing and telling stock down. There’s something honorable about kind of keeping things private. Not bragging too much. But come on, if you’re hooking up with a God, are we not telling everyone about this? What are we talking about here? Annabette’s dad right. Hooked up with Athena, who is the goddess of beauty. Yes. And he’s like, I don’t really want anything to do with her. I don’t want to really talk about her. You hook up with a God? I’d be like, hooking up with a Victoria Secret model and being like, not a big deal, like, whatever, but even more prestigious than that. And then Percy’s mom doesn’t talk at all about hooking up with, what’s his dad’s name? Poseidon. Poseidon. Yeah. Wouldn’t you be proud of that? Wouldn’t you be bragging to everyone about that? Yeah, I’d be like a bang to God. Like a literal God. Pretty cool to have that on your little black book. Yeah. She’s out to dinner grabbing a cheap red wine with a friend. Why are you with Gabe? Well, I bang this God and nothing else came to it. So it doesn’t matter who I bang after that, because it’s not going to match this God I banged. He literally is a God. I’d be dropping dimes. I’d be dropping dimes. I’d bring it up. Every conversation I could possibly bring up. Well, that kind of actually reminds me of that time. It has nothing to do with it. It would be coming up right away. Yeah. Shagged a God. My next stock down in last is science. After we just read a book all about science. I’m surprised Mr. D, aka Dionysus, makes an interesting point. He pretty much says, what will what you think is science be viewed as in 2000 years, some dumb, Neanderthals, all shit so you might as well just not do science. That seemed pretty blatant to me. It’s like all this stuff we think is groundbreaking. And it’s like, oh, wow, we have nanotechnology in 2000 years. People are like, oh, these guys are idiots. Like, look how much further we’ve gotten. So I think you just put the kibosh on it like, now make this a peak of science and don’t go any further. It’s always Sunny scene where he slaps the thing on Galileo and he’s like, Bitch, have you seen that? I have, yeah. Didn’t you use that in a blog for the buddy book haul?
Participant #1:
Sometimes science is wrong. Or as a liar. Sometimes. Yeah, exactly. It’s just that, yeah, your blogs are great. We got to somehow we can. Let’s get into pick your character. Who do you got? I think you might have the same one as me here, but I went with Grover. Grover is just a good dude. You already mentioned it. He was willing to sacrifice himself. The only thing he said he would be offended by is someone calling him a goat, which the rest of the book, they proceed to call him goat multiple times and keeps on calling them Coat Boy. I think he was like, don’t call me a goat. I’m so offended by that. And they’re like, all right, Coke Boy sounds good. No, it’s like squeak in baseball. And he’s like, I swear, if you guys rag on me twelve or 13 more times, I’m out of here. Exactly. But the real reason is he’s a Seder, which is Seder. I think you alluded to this earlier is a male nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse as well. D man as a prominent exaggeration. No, permanent. A permanent fuck. I can’t read. Damn it. Permanent. Exaggerated erection. So, yeah, that’s obviously why he’s my favorite. The one question I had about him, though, was, why is he always eating metal cans? And is that just to distract people from his raging heart on like, hey, I’m eating cans again, but do we know why he was doing that? Okay, let me write this down for you. For one thing, Rick Ryarden don’t really appreciate your Seder. The way you’ve explained to Seder seders have changed from my understanding from the classical Greek version, which is what you’re referencing here, the ears and tails resembling a horse to more of a fawn like goat creature. So they used to have legs. Now they more often have goat hooves and goat legs, thinking like Mr. Tumnus from Lying, the Witch and the Wardrobe. But Rick decided to go with this newer version, as opposed to the older one, which I don’t appreciate because I wanted Grover to have not only horse ears and tail, but a horse cock.
Participant #1:
Also, just in terms of accuracy sake, for Rick here, if you’re going to go the goat thing, I know that in the original Disney cartoons and stuff. They showed goats eating cans. Yeah, that’s the thing. But goats don’t actually eat the cans. What they do is they lick the glue that’s on the can. Goats like glue. So when they had Grover eating cans, I was like, Come on, man, at least have them just be like, Leo, let me get to that glue. Let me get that glue. That glue is the good shit. He doesn’t need the can itself. Get it together. My theory was that it wasn’t a can. It was a bottle, and it was a bottle of Viagra. And he was just continually eating them the same rock card the whole time. That’s how he did it. That’s how he did it. He was the only one in this thing that actually had a level head. He’d be like, I don’t know, I smell monster. And I’d be like, no, don’t worry about it. It’s super chill. Like, no, but monsters are chasing you guys because they smell you. It’s like, no, don’t worry about it. I did have Grover in my character. I was wondering, though, is Chiron our first multi book character crossover on the Buddy Book Club? Yeah, it’s a good question, because when I heard that name, I was like, that sounds familiar. Song of Achilles. I always enjoy good Chiron. I mean, a Sage Centaur that is great with the bow. Sound amazing. Although they cast Pierce Brosnan as Chiron in the movie, it was so bad, and I’m a big Pierce Brosnan fan, but, like, who is right? Yeah, it was tough. It was a tough look for him. Also, I’m a big fan of Hephaestus because they described him as not good looking but married to Aphrodite. So it’s like, how did he get married to literally the most beautiful person, but he’s not good looking. Well, he’s clever with his hands. So good for you, bro. All right, let’s jump into love hate. What did you love about this book? I didn’t have too many here. I did love the Percy Jackson ready to mention snatch lives, just murder people in the street for no reason. I really did. Like, the Austin Powers callbacks one was when he is in the tower of the St. Louis arch there and the woman’s like, Whatever you do, don’t jump into the water and save yourself. Like, that would be so dumb. Don’t do that. Whatever you do. And then the second one was your boy Luke leaving before he actually sees person get killed. He’s like, all right, I’m out of here. Can’t you just wait until he died? No, I’m out. See you later. I’ll grab my gun. I’ll go and grab my gun, and we can shoot them both. Exactly. Close the doors. There was another Austin Powers called back on that, but I forget what it was. Shoot. I get so many quotes in my head, but it was not the control of volume of my voice or something. Might be warm, liquid goofy. I don’t remember. But anyway, you love the Austin Power callback scene. Percy Jackson. I’m sure that’s just what Rick Ryarden is going for. The probably the most serious note of this podcast so far. The thing I love about this book was that they give like for kids, right? So I don’t know. I’m not a huge Greek mythology person. We’ve obviously read a couple of books here. I love all those stories, but they were always kind of too complicated. Too many characters. Like when you were learning them in school, kind of there’s just like too much going on. Like, wait, who does what? I feel like you almost learned better playing like God of War, like the video game or something to actually know what these powers are. And considering this book is written for middle school kids, I like that they give all the attributes of the godslike characters before saying who they are. So like Kyron, for example, Percy sees a big shadow and a bow. And here’s who’s clipping. So if you were reading this as you were learning it, you’d be like, oh my God, it’s Chiron. That’s Chiron, right? Like from class that we learned, or Dionysus, they say, loves wine and treats and Grover versus slave. And Dionysus is like the King of the seaters or like the head of the seders. So it was something that you were like learning, even Medusa, like Auntie M and she wears this headdress. So you’re kind of doing the work yourself and going, oh, shoot, that’s Medusa. You’re going to see some crazy shit right here. I just really liked how he didn’t say who they were at first and kind of let you figure it out. If I was a 6th grade teacher, I would probably have this book and we’re doing great mythology. Like, we would read this book after we did it, or this would be summer reading or something like that. So I think it’s just a good way to learn the basics of Greek mythology, even in general. If you didn’t know any of this stuff, like without playing the WHOIS, it kind of game, he does a fun way for kids to learn some level of Greek mythology. If I even me as an adult who has the mind of a middle schooler, after reading this book, I definitely know more attributes of Greek gods than I did before. So for that, I think I don’t remember ever learning Greek God stuff in any school for really it was mostly, yeah, I don’t know. Did you? I only really learned it from media sources. So like video games and movies and different things like that. Maybe because I wasn’t in those advanced reading classes, but I don’t remember ever learning that stuff. So I was like, oh, it’s been really tough to know. Like, oh, Madison is kind of this badass turn you to stone type person. But I was like, would they know that. You know what? I’m not sure if I did learn this in school or if I learned it all from the Hercules TV show starring Kevin Sorbo. Yes, Kevin Sorbo taught me and Zena warrior Princess, of course, Lucy Lawless. Both of them taught me way more about Greek mythology than I had ever known before. And I fucking have great memories of that TV show. Kevin Sorbo is Hercules with his mate Eolis. Great times. Really good times. What else do you love about it? Did you listen to the audiobooks? I did at the end. Jim Dale’s voice coming in at the end after kind of that. Did you not hear that part? No, I didn’t hear that part. Oh, wow. I mean, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the audiobook narrator. He was kind of more of a kid’s voice. I don’t want to say it wasn’t like he was bad at reading. It was just meant for kids, boys. Yeah, I guess that’s fair. But then Jim Dale comes in like the Stone Cole, Steve OS, another rock coming in at a wrestling event. I was like, Holy shit. Oh, my God, it’s him. Thank God. Jim Dale, what is he rates Harry Potter? No, of course I know Jim Dale. He comes in, he’s like, I can’t even do a British accent. But he’s going to be he was like, you, your children are into reading books like this. It’s great to get kids into this. I’m doing an Irish accent or something. I don’t know where I’m at. I need to hear a British accent. Then I could do one neither here nor there. So he did like the digital production by Penguin, Random House, that thing. Or he was in the book itself. He was like talking about getting your kids into more into reading. He’s like, Audiobooks are a great way to get more kids into this. I don’t know why I can usually do an Australian accent. It’s a part of the picky fucking scientist. It’s the last accent I’ve heard. I did leave a little note there. I said, I got a little Satan up here in Jim Dale. Come in. I’m a full blood. The other thing I loved about this book was the history behind how he wrote it, which I found to be endearing. So basically, Rick Ryder and his kid has Dyslexia and ADHD, and he wasn’t interested in school, but he liked Greek mythology like he was in second grade, like Greek mythology. And so Rick Ryder would just pretty much tell him bedtime stories of Greek mythology because he was a 6th grade teacher and knew this stuff. And so kind of taught his second grade kid and way to keep him interested in school. Suppose this is a story where he ran out of ideas, ran out of stories like Greek mythology stories. His son was like, I want more. And he’s like, well, that’s what I got. And he said, well, make one up and he just made it up about a kid. Basically made up Percy Jackson, like telling his kids bedtime stories. And then according to Rick here, his kids pushed him to write it down. It was like we should write a book about it. And he was already an author, like 6th grade teacher, but also an author
Participant #1:
maybe. And it took him a while to write it. He actually sent it to Editors or whatever like the publication companies under pseudonym. He didn’t want it to be associated with his other books, which to me means like some of us kind of like sucked. But either way, obviously this became like a huge hit. There’s however many books, there’s a musical, there’s movies. So him and his kids will always have that. And I found that to be quite endearing. Wow. I really appreciate that. That makes me now feel bad that I made any sort of jokes around that. That’s heartwarming. It really is. Yes. Imagine he’s telling his second grade get a bedtime story and he’s like, so here comes Grover. Dick dragging on the ground. It’s just not going to work. You’ve got to do a different version. You got to do a different version. He’s fully erect the whole time. I don’t know. Dicks on the ground. Well, I guess unless if you’re four legged, I don’t know, whatever with the love, there is some hate. So let’s get into hate. What have you got for hate? Well, I think I mentioned earlier, but it’s tough to compare anything to Harry Potter. It’s got the place in the mantle, right? So once you compare anything to that, you’re setting yourself a pretty tough bar. It is very much a kids book. Harry Potter, you reread today. The plot, the twist, you don’t really see them coming. This one, you kind of saw everything coming in the terms of the storyline. Whereas Harry Potter I think is like you still don’t see things coming and you still think the plot is very strong despite it being kind of meant for a young adult audience. And the big thing about Harry Potter too, which I had a problem with this book is that the best part about Harry Potter is the world building and the mundane classroom hallways, interactions with the students. That’s what built the world. It wasn’t him fighting Voldemort or sorry, he Who Must Not Be Named. They talk about this book too. It’s like don’t say their names. He’s like, what do you mean? A Festus Hades? It’s like a thing from Goodfellas or The Sopranos. It’s like, no, don’t say his name. Say the little guy or something like that. Don’t say his name over the phone. It’s a little guy. It’s not bring Voldemort into this. Excuse me, humans not being named. I’m not scared, Voldemorte. But yeah, that’s the best part for me. Harry Potter, the world building within the classroom and the setting where this is pretty much one action sequence to another, action sequence to another, one to another one just wasn’t as interesting to me as one big world building story that at the end you fight like a big bad guy. Yeah, I’m with you. And my two hates are in the same vein. For the first one, there’s no montage moments. Percy has these powers because they are ordained to him from his father that he was born with them. But outside of one sparring session with Luke, there’s no like, how do you Hone his powers? He’s just going out there like fighting. And I know that’s a big gripe for people with Harry Potter is like Harry Potter just uses expelliarmis the whole time. And I understand that, but we have thousands of pages of Harry practicing Expelliarmus and doing all sorts of different stuff. He just goes out there and starts he kills a Minotaur in the first 50 pages and it’s like dumb luck. But then everything else is dumb luck. And it’s very Harry Potter esque in that sense where people say, oh, Harry Potter just got lucky or whatnot. But I wish there was some way we saw Percy grab onto his powers and learn how to improve on things like Avatar, the Last Airbender kind of thing, like learning how to use the water and stuff like that as both. Just like looking at a bubbler when he’s in a Museum and using that to hit some Dragons. Like, wait, how did he get there? How did he understand that he could do that? And maybe even just saying what he’s doing with his mind? Something along those lines. And I know once again it’s a kid’s book, but there’s a whole middle part, like you said, where it’s like them fighting one thing after another after another when I feel like they could have spent more time at camp half blood and honed his powers and shown that he’s like learning and improving and just that would have been like a great montage moment. And they didn’t even do that in the movie. I figured they’d do a montage moment, but no. So yeah, I’m with you there. And then it kind of ties into my other hate, which the kids are pretty dumb. I mean, have they never heard of don’t talk to strangers or don’t take candy from strangers or something? Percy’s mom was a good woman, especially because there’s like monsters hunting him. She definitely told him like, hey, be weary out there, even without monsters hunting you. And having learned about Medusa, how are these dumb kids still alive? Like a creepy old lady tries to take a photo of you. What? Like, oh, come into this warehouse. I have food. No, like hard pass. Like, what? And then also Harry Potter thing on TM didn’t take off her headdress. They said the very quarrel of her. Very quarrel. But yeah, it was just like there was one thing after another where they just kind of went into something, like, really stupidly. And then somehow Percy got them out of it, and it was like, Wait, what? They know monsters are hunting them. Why are they just going and taking food from some woman that, you know, that’s bullshit. You were never like, Harry, don’t do that. What are you, an idiot? You’re always kind of like, I guess it kind of makes sense what he’s doing, right? Like, most of the stuff where this is like, Percy, like, figure it out. But come on. The other thing, too, that I just had a gripe with is I completely agree with you. I think they should have spent way more time just at the camp establishing that the camp was so cool. The camp was so cool. Like, there’s all sorts of houses and different things. And I’m like, oh, the dynamics. You’re going to start to play. And they’re like, and we’re gone, Wait, what? The thing, too, is so the beginning of the book, which I think they should just got rid of. They should have started him out on the car trip. They should have started that. Yeah. And then he shows with the camp and the camp seems much longer is what I would have done. But the fact that he killed his teacher early on. Right? And you said it was like, basically luck but kills that teacher, and then they just put a mist over everyone and everyone’s like, Nah, what are you talking about? We didn’t have this teacher, but then they crashed the car and every single media outlets covering it and have his face on, like, posters and shit. I’m like, why didn’t they just do the exact same thing? Like, get the men in black up? What are we doing here? The only thing I was thinking, Men in Black. I was trying to think of the song, and the only song that came to is Wiki. Wiki. Wow. Wow.
Participant #1:
Desperado. It was a little weird, but hey, once again, it’s for kids. So I tried to suspend disbelief here. This is possible, but it was a little tough. It was a little tough. So the last thing I had was I’m just not a huge fan of the Narrating style or the way the book was written in that sense, like, hey, I’m Percy, and this stuff happened to me. Let me tell you about it. It wasn’t my preferred method. I like more of a third person kind of vibe. But, hey, that’s just me, nitpicking. And I think because I listened to the audiobook, it was worse because it was like he was telling me his story as opposed to me reading it. So, yeah, that was it, though. Okay, let’s jump into some listener mail. I got listener mail this week comes from Glenn in Iowa. You’ve got mail? Sorry. I didn’t mean to say Glenn like that. I apologize. Glenn. Good guy. I’m sure. Thanks for writing. Why did Percy’s mom get with Gabe because of his stink? I know it was to protect Percy, but couldn’t she just have rubbed shit on the walls? Wouldn’t that be better than an abusive husband who also stinks? Also, how did she seek out a stinky mate? Where does one go for that? How did their courtship work? I have so many questions, but I’ll hang up and listen. Thanks. Asking for a friend. Yeah, great question. What I thought about it was a weird aspect of the book because it was like, okay, so she’s with this horrible, abusive man, and she’s taking this stinky all day because he smells and they can smell half Bloods in general. But then Percy just goes on this quest with another half blood who also would smell to the monsters. And that’s chill. But also, he’s not at home. He always gets shipped away. This really seems directly stolen from Harry Potter, where it’s like, oh, no, he needs to be in this house. But instead of it being like, there is a protective spell because it’s family and the whole love thing, which was wonderful. This is because he smells bad. Legitimately. And how bad does one have to smell? I think it’s supposed to be like, he’s the most human person ever. He’s so far away from half butter God that he smells. No, they literally said he stank. Even at the beginning, Percy is like, oh, my God. Like, Gabe pushed them against the walls. Like, oh, my God, you smell so bad. And also like, sorry to all the Halitosis people out there, like, what is it? Is it his breath? Does he not shower to Glenn coming here? If I was her, I would not have been with him. I would have been like, Sorry, Percy, we’re cooking hot sardines every night for dinner. That’s just what we’re going to do. Also, she’s a human. Yeah. Why doesn’t she just not bathe? Wouldn’t that be better? I’m just not like, my mom smells horrible. She loves me, but she smells horrible. No, she smells like a candy store. That’s her problem. She smells too good. Yeah, I just don’t understand it. Just do the opposite. Leave rotting food out. All right, let’s recap the movie. This was a serious Alist cast in this movie. I don’t know if you looked into this or whatever. Alexandra DiDario plays the lead, the actress, the young girl. She’s the one from
Participant #1:
everyone. Oh, yeah. My God. Pierce Brosnan, as I previously mentioned, is Chiron. We have Rosario Dawson, Uma, Thurman Joe Pantaliano was Gabe, Sean Bean, and Zeus, which I love. I mean, this movie took $225,000,000 at the box office. I’d never even heard of his movie. 225,000,000 at the box office. I mean, all these guys, all these actors and actresses, they were like, very small roles. Well, except for Dedard. But who would you recast? I didn’t have anyone for him. I just really saw the movie. I couldn’t recast it. I didn’t know. I just didn’t. The only one I’m going to cast then is Grover. Nick cage. Grover bringing Nic cage back. That’s what we need to do. Nic cage could have been Poseidon. Let’s be serious. That would have been the move. He could have been a lot. He should have been all the gods. Yeah, I come in all different forums, but this is what I look like. Yeah. Just like have Nick cage be all of the gods but just like different hairdo’s and whatnot. Well, let’s get into our final thing here. Would you recommend this book to people that may have not listened or read? No, I think I mentioned it earlier. If I had read this when I was younger, I probably would have had a much bigger appreciation for it. This just wasn’t for me. Yes. I think the key here is that we’re not, like, snobby towards young adult books. That’s our wheelhouse. That’s like a lot of what we read. I love holes. Yeah, holes was this kind of same thing where the story was better and like the characters, the friendships were better. In my mind, this was a little bit slapped together. I would recommend this book to, like I said, someone in 6th grade, like learning about this stuff and I’m sure they would have a completely different take to it than I would. And I also think it was written in a way that it kept moving. So if you, like, get bored with books or something like that, you wouldn’t be too worried about that because instead of going in and explaining what’s happening, It just moves on to the next action scene. Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. I think I would recommend this book to a very smart nine to a very dumb 20 year old. I think a young kid in middle school wouldn’t do it. So that’s where and hey, that’s Percy Jackson lightning thief. There are many other books if you want to check those out. I don’t think we will be on this podcast, but what do we have for next week? Good omens by oh, we’re going back speaking American gods by maybe you’ll gamin and it’s by Terry Terry. Yes, I’m excited. But until next time, buddy book club out. Bye now.
