Every Percy Jackson Book, Ranked
Jennie Richardson is a TV Features and Lists Writer for Collider, and a graduate student pursuing an MFA in Fiction Writing. In other words, she really loves stories.
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Now over two decades since the first novel in the series was released, Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series is still a beloved and timeless story. Season 3 of the series' television adaptation, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, will premiere next month. It will follow the events of the third book in the series, The Titan's Curse. In the meantime, the first two seasons of the hit fantasy series are now on Netflix, and the show only continues to gain more viewers ahead of its upcoming new season.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians has since branched off into multiple sequel series, and its television adaptation has been thriving, but it all started with the five-book series chronicling five pivotal years of Percy Jackson's life. The series starts with the summer where a 12-year-old Percy learns that he's the demigod child of Poseidon (and the only living one at that), and ends with the summer where a 16-year-old Percy has to try to stop a prophecy that spells the possible destruction of Olympus. Every book in the series is absolutely phenomenal. This is all of them, ranked.
5 'The Sea of Monsters' (2006)
The second book in the Percy Jackson series, The Sea of Monsters, follows Percy's second summer at Camp Half Blood. Grover has been away searching for Pan, and through their empathy link, Percy learns that he is in trouble. Meanwhile, Percy is alarmed to find out how much the camp has changed when he returns to it this summer. When Luke and his allies poison Thalia's tree to weaken the barrier at Camp Half Blood, a quest is in order to get the Golden Fleece and heal the tree. When Percy is barred from going, though, he sneaks off on his own quest to go save Grover. With him, he brings Annabeth and Tyson, his Cyclops half-brother.
The stakes of the Percy Jackson series don't start to truly escalate until the third book, so the first two in the series are lighter and focused primarily on Percy's goal of going on a quest to save someone he cares about. The Sea of Monsters is an enjoyable and quick read that primarily utilizes stories and monsters from The Odyssey. It also has an amazing and jawdropping cliffhanger ending that changes everything for the series going forward. The other books in the series are more memorable for their heightened stakes and deeper emotional conflicts, but The Sea of Monsters is still a solid fantasy novel and a strong follow-up to The Lightning Thief.
4 'The Lightning Thief' (2005)
The Lightning Thief is where it all began, and it is absolutely the perfect origin story. At the start of the book, Percy Jackson is an unhappy 12-year-old who can't seem to do anything right. After getting kicked out of yet another school due to a combination of his learning disabilities and a string of strange occurrences, Percy is excited to get away to Montauk for the summer with his mother, Sally. Instead, the two of them are chased by monsters, and Sally becomes determined to get Percy to Camp Half Blood. She and Grover get him there, but she is taken. Percy is then thrown into this new world where he learns that he's not just the son of a Greek god, but that he's the only living child of one of the three Eldest gods — Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. Percy's very existence broke an agreement made a long time ago, and now, Zeus is accusing Percy of stealing his Master Bolt.
The Lightning Thief has phenomenal world-building, expertly setting up the existence of Greek gods in the modern world and weaving their presence into nearly every aspect of society. The novel also has excellent characterization for all of its main characters, especially Percy, setting up his arc for the next five books. Percy just wants to be normal and not get into trouble all the time, but instead, he's forced to lead a quest and be a hero before he's ready. His true motivation, though, is just saving his mom. The quest itself cleverly weaves in a number of core stories from Greek mythology, while also developing two of Percy's most important dynamics in the series: those that he has with Annabeth, and with Grover.
3 'The Battle of the Labyrinth' (2008)
The penultimate novel in the Percy Jackson series, The Battle of the Labyrinth, is heavily inspired by the story of Theseus in a lot of ways. The end of The Titan's Curse is a major turning point for the Percy Jackson series, and the last two books are particularly heavy and intense. For starters, this is Percy's last summer before he is set to turn 16 and set off the prophecy that spells the possible end of Olympus forever. On top of that, Luke and his allies are more dangerous than ever, and there's an entrance to the labyrinth at Camp Half Blood that could put everyone there at risk. Annabeth is chosen to lead her first quest, where she will go into the labyrinth to find its creator, Daedalus, before Luke does. Quests are typically only done in threes, but with her, she brings Percy, Grover, and Tyson.
The Battle of the Labyrinth is fast-past, emotionally complex, and utterly gutwrenching. It throws a number of obstacles at the group throughout their quest, and while they're all as compelling as usual, each one of them has a deeper emotional weight to it. The Battle of the Labyrinth takes the heightened emotional and physical stakes set up by The Titan's Curse and doubles down in all the best and most painful ways. Emotional conflicts come to a head in The Battle of the Labyrinth that are not resolved by the end of the book. Additionally, a horrifying reveal at the end of the book sets up the series' emotional ending and shifts the series into a dark and more mature tone. It's the perfect setup for the final book in the series, and it also contains some of the most crucial moments of Percy's character arc.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes What Fantasy World Do You Belong To? Middle-earth · Grand Line · The Continent · Camp Half-Blood
Pick your magic, your crew, where you want to wake up and who you would rather be fighting, and we will tell you which world you actually belong in. Four are open to you: an ancient kingdom living through its last good age, an endless sea full of pirates, a continent that pays people to kill monsters, and a summer camp where the Greek gods are extremely real and mostly a nuisance.
💍Middle-earth(Rings of Power)
👒Grand Line(One Piece)
🐺The Continent(The Witcher)
🔱Camp Half-Blood(Percy Jackson)
01
What kind of power do you want? Every one of these worlds runs on a completely different sort of magic.
02
Who is travelling with you? Nobody gets through any of these stories entirely on their own.
03
Where do you want to wake up tomorrow? The best fantasy is usually just somewhere you would genuinely like to live.
04
How are you making a living out there? Even in fantasy somebody has to pay for the horse.
05
There is something in the woods. What do you do about it? All four of these worlds keep something unpleasant out there in the dark.
06
Who is the villain of your story? The enemy tells you far more about a world than the hero ever does.
07
What do you actually believe in out there? Every world hands its heroes one rule and asks them to hold onto it.
08
A thousand years from now, how are you remembered? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your world.
The Map Is Drawn Your World Is…
Four worlds and four completely different ideas of what a good life looks like. This is where you belong, what it would ask of you, and what you would get back in return.
Middle-earth
You belong somewhere old enough that the mountains have names and somebody can still tell you who gave them. Middle-earth is for people who think the right thing is worth doing even when it will not be finished in their lifetime.
- This is the only world on the list where doing good is understood as a very long defeat, fought anyway, by people who will never see how it ends.
- You are drawn to grandeur, to white cities and deep forges and the sense that almost everything you touch is older than your entire family line.
- The Rings of Power is set in the last good age before it all goes wrong, which gives every quiet scene in it a slightly unbearable weight.
- You would take the hard road, and you would take it on foot.
The Grand Line
You want the sea, a crew, and absolutely nobody telling you where you are allowed to go. The Grand Line is the world for people whose main ambition in life is finding out what is over there.
- One Piece has run for decades on one very simple engine, which is a group of people who each want something impossible and have decided to go and get it together.
- You collect people. Your ideal crew is a set of misfits who were each written off somewhere else before you turned up and offered them a better idea.
- The world is enormous and deliberately ridiculous, and the emotional gut punches land harder because of that rather than in spite of it.
- You would set sail knowing the map runs out, which is more or less the entire point of it.
The Continent
You would rather be feared and useful than liked and useless. The Continent is a world where the monsters are the straightforward part of the job and the people are where it all gets complicated.
- Witchers get paid to do what nobody else will and resented for existing at all, which is a trade most people would refuse and you would probably accept.
- You have no real illusions about which side is the good one, largely because on the Continent that question tends to have a disappointing answer.
- The best of these stories are not about the fighting. They are about somebody with a rigid code being repeatedly cornered into caring about people.
- You would take the coin, finish the job properly, and be out of town before the story got told wrong.
Camp Half-Blood
You want the myths to be real and loose in the actual world, and you want to find out at about thirteen that you were never anywhere near as ordinary as everybody kept telling you.
- Percy Jackson takes the oldest stories we have and drops them into car parks and diners, which makes the gods considerably funnier and a great deal worse.
- You would be the kid every school gave up on, who turns out to have been built for something nobody thought to test for.
- The series is genuinely about friendship rather than destiny, and it says so out loud every time a prophecy tries to get in the way.
- Camp Half-Blood is the real fantasy here: a place where the thing that made you difficult everywhere else is the thing that makes you belong.
2 'The Titan's Curse' (2007)
The Titan's Curse is the midpoint of the Percy Jackson series, and it does a phenomenal job of marking the shift in both Percy and the stakes at play in his story. While this world has always been dangerous, The Titan's Curse starts with a quest that promises two major character deaths by the end of the book. Rather than having Percy and his friends somehow find a way out of it, two major characters are lost by the end of the book, and their deaths are absolutely devastating. Percy, meanwhile, is spiraling throughout the book after Annabeth is taken. Desperate to get her back, he breaks the rules to get out on a quest, and he finds himself butting heads with both Thalia and the Hunters of Artemis at every turn.
The Titan's Curse has its fun and lighter moments, but it is a heavier book than those that came before it, and it sets up this change in tone for the rest of the series. Percy has to deal with lasting consequences in a new way, and he is hit with a number of shocking reveals that change things for his world forever. The Titan's Curse is a novel of transition in nearly every way. It pushes Luke past the point of redemption and into full villainy. It pushes Percy to let go of his childhood and step into the role of a tragic hero way before he's ready. It also puts Annabeth in an impossible position, as she's forced to let go of her hopes of ever getting back the family that she once had with Luke and Thalia. The Titan's Curse is a captivating and suspenseful read, but it's also very emotional, and it flawlessly shifts the series into a heavier and more intense place.
1 'The Last Olympian' (2009)
For a series as beloved as the Percy Jackson books, a satisfying ending that also managed to surprise readers should have been an impossible task, but The Last Olympian absolutely delivers. For the duration of the series, the prophecy lingers over everything, leading Percy to worry that he will be the downfall of Olympus once he turns 16. In the final book, Percy has to make some major sacrifices and impossible choices in preparation for the upcoming battle against Luke, Kronos, and their army. The battle itself is intense, heartbreaking, and the perfect payoff of everything that came before it.
The Last Olympian is a fitting culmination of the first four books. The physical stakes are impossibly high, and every moment once the battle starts is nailbiting and full of suspense. Most importantly, though, The Last Olympian delivers phenomenal emotional payoff. It is a heartbreaking novel that doesn't shy away from the consequences and losses that come from this final battle and the buildup to it, and it also has a beautiful, nuanced, and bittersweet ending.
Percy Jackson & the Olympians
8 10
- Release Date
- December 19, 2023
- Network
- Disney+
- Showrunner
- Jonathan E. Steinberg, Dan Shotz
- Directors
- James Bobin
-
Walker Scobell
Percy Jackson
-
Leah Sava Jeffries
Annabeth Chase
- Writers
- Joe Tracz, Andrew Miller
- Franchise(s)
- Percy Jackson & The Olympians
- Main Genre
- Fantasy
- Seasons
- 3
- Producers
- John Catron
- Creator(s)
- Rick Riordan, Jonathan E. Steinberg
- Story By
- Rick Riordan
- Streaming Service(s)
- Disney+
- Executive Producer(s)
- Rick Riordan
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