While touring in 2018 for their first novel Anger Is a Gift, author Mark Oshiro needed to de-stress, and a friend recommended they read the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.
So Oshiro picked up the first book in Rick Riordan’s Greek mythology-inspired series for middle-grade readers. The books follow a modern-day demigod and his friends as they fight fantastical forces, and Riordan later built a franchise from that world with two more series and standalone books. Instead of reading it over the weeks-long tour as planned, Oshiro finished The Lightning Thief in just four hours. In seven days, they finished all 14 available titles in the Percy Jackson universe.
“Like many of you, I made Percy Jackson my personality for a solid two to three months,” Oshiro joked during a June 25 talk at the American Library Association’s (ALA) 2023 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Chicago.
Oshiro—an award-winning author of works for young adults and middle-grade readers that center queer youth—and Riordan joined forces on the latest title in the Percy Jackson universe, The Sun and the Star, A Nico di Angelo Adventure. It is the first book either author has cowritten, and it was a project Oshiro said they could never have dreamed a possibility. “But I was born to write this book,” they said.
The Sun and the Star follows Nico, the son of Hades and a franchise “fan favorite,” and his boyfriend Will as they travel to Tartarus in the depths of the Underworld to rescue a friend. At the same time, Nico must face his own inner demons. Because Nico is gay and Will is bisexual, Riordan said he wanted to partner with a queer author.
“I felt that to do the story justice, I might not have the right toolset, sense of authenticity, nuance, and understanding of what Nico and Will’s journey might be,” Riordan said.
The two sent outlines and later drafts back and forth, filling them up at each pass with new ideas for story and character structure, jokes, and—in true Percy Jackson fashion—mythological monsters for the couple to defeat.
“It was really fun to sit back and watch the characters do their thing in your voice,” Riordan said to Oshiro. “You brought so much emotional depth to it. I’m a plotter. I don’t always take the time to let the story breathe… But the way you approached the characters was so tender, so empathetic, and so right.”
Oshiro acknowledged the pressure they initially put on themselves during this project, particularly with stepping into another author’s beloved universe.
“It took me about halfway through the manuscript where I just let go,” they said, crediting that release with the “beautiful chaos” that emerged in the final product. “You have to just create and become as unhinged as possible,” Oshiro added. “Because you’re going to Tartarus, like, come on!”
Riordan talked about other projects in the works, including the Percy Jackson series coming to Disney+ in 2024, for which he’s an executive producer and coauthor of the pilot. (Riordan was largely uninvolved with the film adaptations of his first two books in 2010 and 2013.)
In conjunction with the show, Riordan wrote a new Percy Jackson and the Olympians book—the first he’s written from the perspective of the three original protagonists, Percy, Annabeth, and Grover, in over a decade. He describes Percy Jackson and the Chalice of the Gods, due in September, as a “thank you” to the fans.
“It’s not like it’s a world-ending event this time,” he said of this new addition. “But it’s almost as bad: They’re trying to get Percy into college. Standardized testing, recommendations from the gods, it’s going to be tough.”
