StarkHOUTx asked Rick Riordan:

Hello! Long time obsessive reader, first time writer. In 2006 when the first book takes place, Percy Jackson is twelve. However, he seems to be 17 still in 2020 in that Christmas special you wrote (unless I’m wrong.) How is time passing differently for characters? Is this a Marvel’s Shifting Timeline Scenario? Thanks for indulging in my overthinking.

Rick Riordan I've said this before, but the way I think of the books, they do not happen in any specific year. Book time is not tied to real time. So just because the first book was published in 2005 doesn't mean the action happened during that year. Yes, time passes more slowly from book to book for the characters. It has to, since it takes a lot longer to write the books than it does to live that amount of time. For instance, The Heroes of Olympus only covers one year of time (roughly) but the series took five years to write. The characters are always living in a vague 'present day.' That's why no exact years are ever mentioned in the books, no birth years are ever given, and poor Percy is still 17.

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