The Mark of Athena: The Heroes of Olympus, Book 3

I continue to find great joy in Rick Riordan's books. The Heroes of Olympus series builds significantly on his Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. In this third book, the demigods of Camp Halfblood must join forces with the demigods of Camp Jupiter on a world-wide quest. The Greeks and the Romans must work together, which is no small task as they were not even aware of each other! Moreover, an incident in the beginning of the book causes war to break out between the Greeks and Romans. Seven demigods (from both camps) are chosen for this quest: Percy, Annabeth, Jason, Piper, Frank, Hazel, and Leo. In this quest, the demigods work to fight the rise of Gaea and save Nico di Angelo. In addition, Annabeth must go on her own quest to follow the Mark of Athena in the hope of finding and saving the Athena Parthenos. It is believed that this statue will help bring peace to both the Greeks and Romans by uniting Athena with her Roman form, Minerva.

There is a lot going on in this story, and it takes the characters all over the United States, across the Atlantic Ocean, through the Straits of Gibraltar, and on to Rome. In the past, I have frequently given Riordan's books five stars. I'm giving this one only four stars for one main reason: the number of characters is starting to get a bit challenging because its not always easy to remember who is Greek and who is Roman. In addition, the relationships between and among the demigods are becoming rather complex. The only way I could remember which demigod was which was by thinking about who he or she was dating--or not dating. In some ways, this caused the book to slip a bit into the teen romance genre, which is not what I enjoy about the series. While I understand it's a common part of growing up, I am hopeful that there will be just a bit less emphasis on it in subsequent books in the series.

No, I don't re-listen very often, and Riordan does a good job of making the marking events memorable especially as you read next entries into the series.

Great historical tie-ins and doesn't give us the "lite" versions of mythology. The characters get to shine in seperate moments, allowing more of their personality to be revealed. I just wish I knew more about Jason!

He keeps things moving and engaging, He has fun with the voices, even if they aren't all that dynamic (you can always tell it's Swanson, you never get the feeling he "transforms" into his characters) He make distinct differences between his characters (with maybe the exception of the giants, but that is understandable) Swanson also handles all the difficult names and locations which could easily get butchered.

Simply because the book is relatively short, yes I would listen in one sitting. But the book isn't so engaging or edge-of-the-seat that I felt like I "couldn't put it down".

As a series, the Heroes of Olympus is not as good as the original Percy Jackson and the Olympians, but is fun, and continues the stories of the main characters, and the story is good enough, you want to know what happens next.

Clearly not Riordan's best work, but not all that bad. The contrivances felt a touch heavy handed, from the quasi-comic insert-a-villain to the plot speeding helpful mortal on the street. It had the aroma of segue all over it.
That said, there is some interesting character growth from a few or the characters and a nicely executed tie in of the Leo/Sammy conundrum.
Most importantly it has captivated my interest for the next installment!

Its childish considering the characters are teenagers not fifth graders.

Yes! The end keeps you waiting and you cant stop there!

He sounds like 34 different people!

Well of course! I mean what else are you supposed to do during a five hour drive?

No

We waited what seems like forever for this last in the series to come out.

Percy Jackson series

yes, and love them

all of them

Coach Jackson was awesome.

This is the first book of Riordan's I have gotten on Audio. I love his writing style and cannot wait for the next one in the series. This book did not disappoint. The reader was fantastic. Thank you.

Engaging, Captivating and Imaginative!

It explained things from the other books that were left hanging.

He was clear, easy to follow and voices not over done.

I laughed out loud a few times.

Once I started listening it was hard to stop. I have listened twice so far and will listen again. The story was entertaining and action packed.

I did not like his performance in the first book of this series, but I think he has really improved.

Yes! It was very good!

Fantastic story line. I loved seeing both Anabeth's and Percy's point of view.

I have listened to all of the Percy Jackson books and I have pretty much lost steam at this point. Each book is more and more similar to the previous one. Sometimes that works, but in this case, there is almost no innovation to each book. I originally thought the premise of the stories was clever -- why create new stories when you can just borrow from Greek and Roman mythology? Genius! -- but it is as though the author is on auto-pilot. I made it through because I listened to it at 3x speed and even then didn't really have to pay attention to get through it. I'm not planning to read any more Percy Jackson books.

All in all this was a great book. It had some great points where each of the characters developed in some way or another. It had lots of good action and was a great read. I wish the ending hadn't been such a cliff hanger but that just makes me look forward to the next book that much more. I will definitely listen to it again.

The two other Heroes of Olympus books were read by Swanson and I've like them all so far. His reading is great and his voice is so much easier to listen to that the guy who read the original Percy Jackson books.