Published: 26 September 2023 (print)/26 September 2023 (audio) 
Publisher: Puffin/Penguin Audio
Pages: 288/7 hrs and 5 mins
Narrator: Jesse Bernstein
Format: Audiobook
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
★ ★ ★ ★ – 4.5 Stars
Percy Jackson, modern-day son of Poseidon, is just trying to get through high school. After saving the world multiple times by battling monsters, Titans, and giants, Percy is now settling in at Alternative High School in New York, where he hopes to finally have a normal senior year.
Unfortunately, the gods aren’t quite done with him yet. Poseidon breaks the bad news that if Percy expects to get into New Rome University, he will have to fulfill three quests in order to earn the necessary three letters of recommendation from Mount Olympus.
The first task is to help Ganymede, Zeus’s cupbearer, retrieve his golden goblet before it falls into the wrong hands. You see, one sip from it can turn a mortal into a god, and Zeus would not be pleased with that result. Can Percy and his friends Grover and Annabeth find the precious cup in time? And if they do, will they be able to resist its special power?
The timelines of the Percy Jackson novels is often one I need to consult a chart for because while they can be their own series, there is a chronology to them where you can slot them into one another and have some sense of time.
This new book fits in between the events of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, but before Trials of Apollo. While we know the end result if you’ve read Trials of Apollo, it is still a good read and a nice chance to revisit the original trio and see a different less dire side to this real and mythic world mix.
Being the start of a new series it is connected to at least two other novels, but Riordan has written it well enough that it can also be your very first introduction to the Percy Jackson world. There’s a lot missing, but you don’t need a full series back read before diving into this new one which could be a plus for latecomers.
Percy needs three letters of recommendation from gods to get him into New Rome University so this is the point of this new series. I enjoyed the story and this unique aspect. The balance of the myth and the realities of life playing off one another was fun. The mission the trio are sent on was interesting, it’s always nice to bring in some minor gods while still skirting around with appearances from the main lot.
It’s interesting because while it is a full length novel, it somehow feels like a short story, a little extra addition to join onto the main series and not its own fresh piece. Riordan has stated this is able to be read as a standalone so that might be why, but even so the plot is simple and feels like a fast read, despite the almost 300 pages and seven hours to listen. Not to mention it ends on an unfinished mission so not much to stand alone there. It might be the simplicity of the plot, which doesn’t take away the enjoyment, but it is a different approach to a Percy Jackson book.
Percy, Annabeth, and Grover are great as always, their mini missions bringing back the feeling of the early Lightning Thief days, but being older, wiser, and with more experience behind them. The mission in question is a lot more low stakes than saving the world, but the simplicity of it is often where a lot of the fun and chaos lies. Instead of world ending catastrophe, there’s favours and grudges to work through, not to mention temperamental minor gods you don’t want on your bad side.
It was a joy to revisit this world again, as much as I love and miss the wider group of demigods I’ve come to know and love, it was good to have the original three back again.
You can purchase The Chalice of the Gods via the following
Wordery | Blackwell’s | Angus & Robertson
Fishpond | Amazon | Amazon Aust | Audible
