I'm willing to bet that most of you are familiar with Percy Jackson and the Olympians, or at the very least you've probably heard of it. Conversely, I'm willing to wager that not all of you are familiar with DJ MacHale's Pendragon series; also known as The Pendragon Adventure and Pendragon: Journal of an Adventure Through Time and Space. With that in mind, I'll do my best to summarize the Pendragon series.
Pendragon follows the adventures of a boy named Bobby Pendragon, who discovers that he's a member of an organization of known as the Travelers. Travelers use the tunnel/wormhole things known as flumes to travel to other worlds known as Territories. Territories are other planets, located in other star systems, in other universes. The Territories are part of Halla; all of existence, or the multiverse if you will. Territories sooner or later reach a critical turning point, and it's the Traveler's job to insure that all goes well. Or, to put in in Traveler terms, insure that this is the way it was mean to be. The Travelers are opposed by Saint Dane; an evil shapeshifting Traveler who wants to remake Halla in his twisted image.
Each of the Territories is unique and has a different flavor to it. Part of what I love about the books how this means there's something new to discover in each book. We've Medieval and snowy Denduron, the tropical ocean world of Cloral, virtual reality addicted Veelox, jungle and cat dominated Eelong, the tribal warrior world of Zadaa, corporately controlled Quillan, and last but not least Ibara. There are three Earth Territories, each representing Earth in a different time period. First Earth in 1937, Second Earth in the present day and Third Earth in 5010. The Travelers relate their adventures as a series of journals they send back to friends on their home Territories, known as acolytes.
Now, at this point I feel I ought to warn you that from here on we're going to handle some potential spoilers for Pendragon, spoilers for my fanfic and possibly a few for Percy Jackson as well, so if you don't like that sort of thing I suggest that you stop reading this post right now.
People who want to avoid spoilers gone? Good, now then, let's get on with it. Keep in mind, this was from a few years ago, there are spelling mistakes and the writing isn't as polished as my writing these days.
So, my fanfic combining Percy Jackson and Pendragon is called PenJackson: A Traveler for Camp Half-Blood. It follows Silena Beauregard, minor character and daughter of Aphrodite, as she discovers one night, after she meets Bobby Pendragon, that she is a Traveler. How is this possible? You see, there's been shifts in Halla. Series of sub-territories have opened up; Territories within Territories, if you will. As such, these new sub-territories have there own Travelers, and Silena is the traveler from Second Camp Half-Blood.
This was the fanfic I really came into my own, and still remains one of the pride and joys of my fanfiction career. It gave me experience writing from a female perspective, and I know it do sound a bit stereotypicaly girly at points, but Silena is a daughter of Aphrodite, and I had I made sequels like I intended that would have gotten smoothed out thanks to character development.
I also feel I absolutely nailed it with the balance between the Pendragon and Percy Jackson elements. The majority of the story is Pendragon with Percy Jackson elements added for flavor, while the bits set on Second Earth are Percy Jackson with Pendragon elements added for flavor. The characters from both series find themselves in strange new worlds they don't fully understand, but they take it in stride and do their best to figure it out. Both series serve to compliment each other without one overwhelming the other. I also loved how I tied the series together with each other. I had Beckendorf be from Stony Brook and know Mark, Courtney and Bobby from school. I set the series after Battle of the Labarinth on the Percy Jackson end of things, and between The Quillian Games and The Pilgrims of Rayne on the Pendragon end of things.
Besides monsters from Greek Mythology appearing across Halla, perhaps the biggest tying between the series was when I revealed that Aja Killian is a demigod; specifically, a daughter of Athena. I figured she had the personality of an Athena-girl, and she always did kind of remind me of Annabeth. Plus, her being an orphan let me conveniently avoid any issues with parentage. Hey, if it happens on the Earth territories, why not on the other Territories?
I had plans for at least two sequels, one titled Silena the Great and other titled The Half-Bloods of Halla (might have had to have split that one in two). I got some of Silena the Great done, but I didn't like the direction it was going, and I never got around to fixing that. We'll talk more about what could have been in future posts.
Are there bit I wish I'd written differently and thing could could have been improved? Is the writing not as polished as my writing now? Sure, and there's spelling and grammar errors, but overall I'm very pleased with how A Traveler for Camp Half-Blood turned out. At the end of the day, that all a fanfiction writer should really hope to achieve. At the end of my day I could be happy with how it turned out.
I've been gushing enough, but you should check out PenJackson: A Traveler for Camp Half-Blood. Next time we'll talk about the other pride and joy of my fanfiction. See you then.
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