Of course, Annabeth wouldn't be able to breathe, but at the moment, that seemed like a minor problem.

Hey Grover! Thorn's kidnapping us! He's a poisonous spike-throwing maniac! Help!

As for me, I did the stupidest thing in my life, which is saying a lot. I attacked the Titan Lord Atlas.

Getting eaten by a giant crocodile was bad enough. The kid with the glowing sword only made my day worse.

My eighth grade teacher, Mrs. Pabst, had done her master's thesis on Tolkien. She showed me how the trilogy was patterned after Norse mythology. She was also the first person to encourage me to submit stories for publication. The idea of writing a fantasy based on myths never left me, and many years later, this would lead me to write Percy Jackson.

A legacy that powerful does not disappear. Next to the Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans were babies. Our modern nations like Great Britain and America? Blinks of an eye...The very oldest root of civilization, at least of Western civilization, is Egypt. Look at the pyramid on the dollar bill. Look at the Washington Monument—the world’s largest Egyptian obelisk. Egypt is still.......very much alive.

Oh, dear Hazel.” Aphrodite folded her fan. “Such optimism, yet you have heartrending days ahead of you. Of course war is coming. Love and war always go together. They are the peaks of human emotion! Evil and good, beauty and ugliness.