Jayson’s Reviews > The Son of Neptune > Status Update

A few thoughts:
(1) I don't know if Riordan's a fan of "The New Teen Titans," but these demigod superpowers seem awfully familiar.
(2) This has one of those super-obvious couplings everyone knows about and roots for and that's milked over the entire book. Like Ron and Hermione after "Order of the Phoenix" but minus the fun conflict.
(3) Riordan seems to be doing his best Rick Steeves impression, getting all touristy.

A few thoughts:
(1) There's a lot more real world in this book than ever before. References to TV shows like "Friends" and companies like Amazon, instead of using fictional, soundalike analogues, really embeds this story into reality.
(2) When Riordan describes the Amazons as wearing black suits, I imagine them looking like the music video girls from Robert Palmers "Addicted to Love", with swords in place of guitars.

A few thoughts:
(1) I'm enjoying all the Easter eggs. Whether it's call-backs to adventures past or slight digs at Harry Potter (scoffing at the idea of magic trains, for example), it's fun stuff.
(2) Riordan does the whole "honorable heroes from evil houses" thing much better than The Cursed Child.
(3) This book features small monsters. They come off much creepier than the giant ones of previous books.

There's a civilian community here called New Rome. I find it interesting for a few reasons. It seems directly governed by the military leadership of the adjacent camp. That's somewhat ironic as the government looks less like a republic and more like a military junta. Also, teenagers are in charge, which makes a certain amount of sense if only teens can join the army and you want the rulers to literally fight battles.

A few thoughts:
(1) This new character Frank is from Vancouver, and he's teased in school for being Chinese. Well, I'm from Vancouver, the real one, and I can say this simply wouldn't happen: because in Vancouver most kids are Chinese.
(2) These first two books feature characters with superpowers, more or less, which makes sense if they're forming a kind of Justice League/all-star team. I guess Annabeth's the Batman.

I'm enjoying this, slow start notwithstanding. Camp Jupiter seems like a real place, in a way that Camp Half-Blood never really did. It helps that the book has a camp map. I love maps. There's a real Hogwarts feel, with mascot ghosts, communal buildings and its own Hogsmede-like community. It helps that military camps, historically, were more or less permanent, still are, whereas summer camps are by nature transient.

The book's been good so far. I like that the Romans have a military camp and not a summer camp.

Also, Google and Microsoft robbed me of valuable reading time. I get a Gmail message saying I should deny access to unsafe apps, which seemed reasonable, but that included Outlook. I figured out the link too late and after hours of pointless tinkering causing more harm than good, I'm back to status quo ante bellum.