Flag of Buddhist Vandalia

It's been a while since I posted one of my flags.  Let's do something about that:

This is the flag of Buddhist Vandalia.  It comes from a world where Buddhist missionaries made their way to Europe during the days of the Roman Empire. The Buddhist quickly won converts among the poor and the disadvantaged, and spread throughout Rome like wildfire.  Christianity still developed, but it's growth was considerably stunted, and it remained a somewhat minor religion. Christianity's failure to become a major religion meant that Islam was never established.  

As in our world, the Roman Empire eventually collapsed, though the Western half managed to hold out for slightly longer.  The Western Empire split into a series of Germanic kingdoms.  By now, most of the former Roman Empire had embraced Buddhism.  However, due to Buddhism's penchant for syncretism, the people of these new kingdoms still worshiped many of their old gods.  The Eastern Empire continued on as usual, but unlike our world, it didn't attempt to rapidly reconquer the lands of the former Western Empire.  

That brings us to Vandalia.  It managed to survive due to a combination of the Eastern Roman Empire's more prudent approach to expansion, and the lack of any Islamic conquest.  The Vandals were able to expand into Spain, and a bit of Southern France, but North Africa remains the heart of their territory.  Over the years, it has become a major hub of trade and commerce, and in more recent times, it has become a leader in technological innovations. Vandalia's closest allies are the Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italica and the Kingdom of Angleland.  

Vandalia is a major destination for Buddhist pilgrims from across the Mediterranean and beyond.  The nation contains several stupas that claim to possess several items that belong to The Buddha himself.  Due to the flexible nature of Vandalian Buddhism, temples and shrines to gods ranging from Woden to Ba'al can also be found in Vandalia.  This is in stark contrast to Byzantine Buddhism, which is much stricter and only focuses on the veneration of Buddha and his teachings.  Thankfully, the two nations manage to get along...for now.

Vandalia is a land where modern universities and centers of technology exist side-by-side with centuries-old Buddhist monasteries.  It is a deeply spiritual nations where the past collides with the present.

The main body of the flag a dark blue square surrounded by lighter blue borders with slight stylization.  Within the center of the flag is a rainbow-colored Wheel of Rebirth, an important Buddhist symbol.  Buddhist symbolism is also present on the multi-colored tails on the side of the flag.  They are miniature Buddhist prayer flags, and are said to carry the hopes and prayers of the Vandalian people on the winds.

Riordan Retrospective: The Lost Hero

Welcome once again to my Riordan Retrospective. For those of you just joining the fun, this is my look back at the works of Rick Riordan.  That means we're taking a look at Percy Jackson, its sequel series and its spin-off series. This is less of a formal review, and more of a look back, along with my thoughts and observations.  Last time, we began our look back at The Kane Chronicles with The Red Pyramid.  As I previously explained, we're going to be doing a bit of alternation between The Kane Chronicles and The Heroes of Olympus.  On that note, we're also beginning our look back at The Heroes of Olympus in this edition.  

Today we're taking a look back at The Lost Hero, The Heroes of Olympus book 1.  As usually we're going to kick things off with a brief summary.

Jason Grace is on a class trip to the Grand Canyon, but he has no idea how he got there.  Piper McLean claims to be his girlfriend, and Leo Valdez claims to be his best friend, but Jason doesn't recognize either of them.  In fact, he can't remember much of anything.  After surviving any attack by angry wind spirits, the three learn that they are demigods and a whisked away to Camp Half-Blood, summer camp and refuge for children of the Greek gods.  Percy Jackson, the legendary son of Poseidon and hero of the pervious series, has gone missing and nobody knows where he is.  Even worse, the goddess Hera has been captured, and she wants Jason, Piper and Leo to find and free her.  They'll seek answer, but also find new questions.  Perhaps the biggest question of all is, just who is Jason Grace?

There's going to be plenty of spoilers, as per usual, but even more so in this case.  The Heroes of Olympus is the sequel series to Percy Jackson and the Olympians, so this is to be expected.  Turn back now if you don't like spoilers.

Everyone who wants out gone?  Good, let's begin the discussion.  

When Rick Riordan announced that he was writing a sequel series to Percy Jackson and the Olympians everyone, myself included, was very excited.  There was a lot of speculation about just what the series would be like.  For my part, I assumed it was going to be Percy Jackson: The Next Generation.  I though, based on comments from Riordan, that the characters from the original series would be a bit older, and would be serving as mentors to a new generation of demigod heroes.  Obliviously, it did not workout like that. 

I'll get more into my overall thoughts on Heroes of Olympus when we get to The Blood of Olympus.  For now, I will say that it doesn't quite have the charm of the original series, and isn't without flaws, but there are still plenty things to love.      

As far as The Lost Hero goes, I'd say it is probably the weakest book in the series.  I should point out here that this is different than being the worst book, but we'll discuss more on that when we focus on the series as a whole when we get to The Blood of Olympus.  So that having said that, I'm not sure if The Lost Hero was really the best start for the series.  

The first problem is that old characters get the shaft in favor of the new characters.  Now, I understand that Rick was trying to do.  It was a new series so he wanted to try new things, but he spent the entire previous series getting us to care about the old characters.  He could have eased the new characters in more organically, say having Annabeth, Grover or even Clarisse join them on their quest.  Instead, the characters we've grown to know and love get demoted, while the new characters, whom we've only barely gotten to know, hog the spotlight.  Though, ironically, Will Solace actually gets a big more screen time here than did in the original series. 

We'll delve more into this when we get to its retrospective, but The Son of Neptune did a much better job of introducing new characters in a way that felt natural and organic.   

Alright, let's talk about those new characters.  Jason is really more of a plot device than a true character.  He spends most of the book as an amnesiac, so we don't learn much about his personality.  We'll talk more about his personality in future installments.  Anyway, it was pretty obvious that Jason had a connection to the Roman gods.  Also, at one point Jason insists that he doesn't worship the gods, only respects them.  However, in later books, we see that New Rome has temples and shrines to the gods, and regularly give sacrifice and hold festivals to the gods.  Jason, quick question, if that's not worship then what is it? 

Yeah, this was still at the point where Riordan was still hesitant to have his characters openly engaging in pagan religious rituals, but he got better about that with time.  This is also kind of humor because, when Riordan taught middle school social studies, he once rented a barbecue pit where his students could make sacrifices.  For those wondering, they were studying Ancient Greece at the time.  From what I've heard, he was a pretty fun teacher.  When he and his students studied the Zulus, for example, they played a game where they pushed watermelons uphill with broom handles.

Also, turns out Jason is Thalia's long-lost brother, despite her not even hinting at his existence before.  She claims it's because his disappearance was so traumatic, but considering all the other horrors she suffered in life, that doesn't hold water for me.

Let's move on to Piper.  The first thing of note is that she is Native American, specifically Cherokee.  You don't often see Native Americans in fiction, though that's largely due to the fact that they only make up between 1-2% (depending on how you count) of America's population.  So I found that aspect of her to be somewhat intriguing.  I will say that, for all the problems I would come to have with Piper, her heritage was never one of them.  It's not the only aspect of her personality, unlike certain other characters, but we'll get to Magnus Chase eventually. 

My main issue with Piper is that she is whinny and an ungrateful brat.  Her father is a rich and famous movie star who is most famous for staring in The King of Sparta, an obvious stand-in for the movie 300.  He tries his best to connect with Piper, but she always rebuffs him because she doesn't want to be rich.  She wants to be normal because...actually, we never get a good reason.  Like I said, she's totally ungrateful.  Jumping ahead, but by The Trials of Apollo she gets her wish.  Let's just say it doesn't go quite how she would have liked.  

Anyway, wouldn't you know it, she has the super-rare Aphrodite power of charmspeak.  Charmspeak is the ability to command anyone to do anything using only the user's voice.  So kind of like Jedi Mind Tricks.  I'd long theorized that Aphrodite kids had something like that.  Also, apparently Aphrodite kids can speak French, because it is the language of love.  We learn this when Jason, Piper and Leo go to Quebec to meet Boreas, god of the North Wind.  He speaks French and English because he lives in Quebec, and gods apparently speak the language of wherever it is that they live.  I found that a bit odd since I always assumed the gods were omniglots.  

Another issue I had was just how quickly Piper rises through the ranks of Aphrodite Cabin.  Even since Silena Beauregard's untimely death, Aphrodite Cabin has been under the iron heel of Drew Tanaka.  Everyone is clearly miserable and unhappy with her tyrannical rule, so why did none of them tell Chiron?  He's much more on the ball than most adults in fiction, surely he could have picked someone else as head councilor?  Isn't there some sort of protocol to remove a head councilor for either incompetence or abuse of power?  

I guess you could say that Piper was able to gain support because everyone was so terrified of Drew that they were willing to latch onto anyone who challenged her rule.  Still though, were there seriously no better qualified Aphrodite campers?  For that matter, how exactly did Drew become head councilor in the first place?  She had the power of charmspeak, but it still seems odd.  We also discover that Aphrodite Cabin has a right of passage where they have to break someone's heart.  Apparently, only Silena and Piper have ever refused to go through with it.  Really now, in the entire history of Camp Half-Blood, only those two ever objected? 

Let's shift gears and talk about Leo.  When I think of Jason and Leo, I think of them as starfish characters of Percy.  What I mean is, if you cut a starfish in half, the two halves will regrow their missing half, and you get two starfish.  Jason got the serious man-of-action aspects of Percy, while Leo got Percy's silly goofball aspects.  Leo's joking and wisecracks could be a bit gratuitous at times, but for this book at least, not terribly bad.  Yeah...the honeymoon did not last long on that one.  

Leo turns out to have a super-rare Hephaestus kid power: the ability to control fire.  Apparently, the last time a child of Hephaestus had that power was in 1666, which caused the Great Fire of London.  This also explains the tragic death of Charles Beckendorf.  He didn't have the power, so he didn't survive the explosion aboard the Princess Andromeda.  Also, Jake Mason has replaced Beckendorf as head council of Hephaestus Cabin, despite being somewhat incompetent and not really wanting the position.  What makes this especially odd is that Nyssa Barrera seemed way more competent as a leader, and is far more mature than Leo.  Why wasn't she head of Hephaestus Cabin?  I mean, she is temporarily after Jake hurts himself, but why not before that?

For that matter, just how are head councilors determined at Camp Half-Blood. It can't be age, Annabeth was head councilor for Athena Cabin when she was only twelve, because she was the most experienced.  From the looks of it, it seems to be determined completely at random.  Do they just draw straws or something?

Another issue I had was that the parents of our new trio of heroes are all from the twelve major gods.  One of my big hopes for The Heroes of Olympus was that the children of the minor gods would finally get their chance to shine, given that they were largely absent from the original series.  Despite some tantalizing cameos from potentially interesting minor characters, we don't get any of that.  Such a shame, such a majorly missed opportunity.  Speaking of that, I found it odds that Annabeth had to have the differences between the Greek and Roman gods explained to her by Clovis, a son of Hypnos, the god of sleep.  It just seemed out of character for how smart and knowledgeable Annabeth is.

Really, when you really get down to it, the whole book feels like one giant prologue for The Son of Neptune.

I don't want to be entirely negative, so I will now focus on some positive aspects.  I really loved how Riordan connected his short stories to the main plot.  For example, Festus, the titular bronze dragon from Percy Jackson and the Bronze Dragon, plays a major role as our trio's mode of transportation.  I thought it was kind of clever that the wind spirits, including Aoleus, all live in Chicago.  Chicago is called the Windy City as a reference to corrupt politicians, but if people believe it is literally windy, that's where the wind spirits will go.  I also enjoyed how Aoleus lampshades how nobody is sure if he's a god, spirit or something else.

Also, we finally get our first major scene outside the US when you heroes go to Quebec.  Well, first if you don't count the scenes in the Bermuda Triangle in The Sea of Monsters.  Also, as further proof that Rick doesn't believe in underestimating his audience, D-list goddess Khione, goddess of snow, plays a major role during those scenes.  Furthermore, the book sets things up for the seven heroes of the prophecy to journey to Italy and Greece.  

There's only one cover, but let's analyze it anyway.  We see Leo, Piper and Jason riding on Festus with Chateau Frontenac in the background.  I should also have mentioned before that Heroes of Olympus departs from the rest of the Riordanverse by using third-person narration rather than first-person narration.  You get two chapters from Jason's perspective, then two from Piper's, follow by two for Leo, and repeat.  

The audiobook also sees a shift as Jesse Bernstein departs with Joshua Swanson.  Jesse was tied pretty closely to Percy Jackson and the Olympians, so perhaps a change of narration was in order.  Overall, I'd say Joshua does reasonably okay, but I'm not entirely sure if I'm sold on him as a narrator. 

Overall, The Lost Hero was a bit of a rocky start for The Heroes of Olympus, but if nothing else it got the ball rolling.  For me, the real start of The Heroes of Olympus came with The Son of Neptune.  However, before we can get to that we have to pay another visit to our friends Carter and Sadie Kane.

Join me again next when the Riordan Retrospective takes a look back at The Throne of Fire.  I will see you all then.