Rick Riordan

Richard Russell Riordan Jr. ( ; born June 5, 1964) is an American author, best known for his Camp Half-Blood Chronicles, which includes the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, The Heroes of Olympus series, The Trials of Apollo series, and The Nico di Angelo Adventures series. Riordan's books have been translated into 42 languages and sold more than 30 million copies in the United States. 20th Century Fox adapted the first two books of his Percy Jackson series as part of a film series, which Riordan was not involved with. Riordan currently serves as a co-creator and an executive producer on the television series adaption of his Percy Jackson series that was released on Disney+ in 2023 and for which he won two Emmy Awards. Riordan's books have also spawned other related media, such as graphic novels and short story collections.

Riordan's first full-length novel was Big Red Tequila, which became the first book in the Tres Navarre series. His breakthrough was The Lightning Thief (2005), the first novel in the five-volume Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, which placed a group of modern-day adolescents in a Greco-Roman mythological setting. Since then, Riordan has written The Heroes of Olympus, a sequel to the Percy Jackson series; The Kane Chronicles, a trilogy of similar premise focusing on Egyptian mythology; and Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, a trilogy of similar premise focusing on Norse mythology. Riordan also helped Scholastic Press develop The 39 Clues series and its spinoffs, and penned its first book, The Maze of Bones. In 2021, he published Daughter of the Deep. His fourth spin-off series set in the Percy Jackson universe, The Nico di Angelo Adventures, began on May 2, 2023 with the release of The Sun and the Star, co-written with author Mark Oshiro. Originally planned as a standalone novel, positive critical reception lead to the publishing of a sequel The Court of the Dead in 2025.

Life and career

Rick Riordan was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. Riordan's family came from Cork, Ireland. He graduated from Alamo Heights High School, and first attended the music program at North Texas State University, wanting to be a guitarist. He transferred to the University of Texas at Austin and studied English and History. He received his teaching certification in those subjects from the University of Texas at San Antonio. He taught English and Social Studies for eight years at Presidio Hill School in San Francisco. In 2021, Riordan completed an online master's degree in Gaelic literature offered by the University College Cork.

Riordan has created several successful book series. Tres Navarre, an adult mystery series about a Texas private eye, won the Shamus, Anthony, and Edgar Awards.

He conceived the idea for the Percy Jackson series as bedtime stories about ancient Greek heroes for his son Haley. Haley had been diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, inspiring Riordan to make the titular protagonist hyperactive and dyslexic. Riordan published the first novel in the series, The Lightning Thief, in 2005. Four sequels followed, with the last, The Last Olympian, in 2009. Prior to Percy Jackson, Riordan had written the Tres Navarres series, a series of mystery novels for adult readers.

His Percy Jackson & the Olympians series features the titular twelve-year-old who discovers he is the modern-day son of the ancient Greek god Poseidon. 20th Century Fox purchased the film rights and released two feature film adaptations between 2010 and 2013. Following the success of Percy Jackson, Riordan created The Kane Chronicles, which features a modern-day Egyptian pantheon and two new sibling protagonists, Sadie and Carter Kane. Riordan also created a sequel series to Percy Jackson, The Heroes of Olympus. He also wrote the introduction to the Puffin Classics edition of Roger Lancelyn Green's Tales of the Greek Heroes, in which he states that the book influenced him to write his Greek mythology series.

In 2022, Riordan co-wrote the pilot for the Percy Jackson and the Olympians TV series on Disney+ and serves as an executive producer for the show. Disney had earlier acquired Fox in 2019, allowing it to gain the rights to adapt the Percy Jackson novels. He won an Emmy Award as an executive producer when the show's first season won Outstanding Young Teen Series, and a second Emmy as a writer when the pilot episode won Outstanding Writing for a Young Teen Program at the 3rd Children's and Family Emmy Awards.

Mythology Riordan's works of children's literature center around an adaptation of mythology for modern readers and for children. He has used Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Norse and combinations thereof in a total of five separate novel series. The mythology used in his works possesses elements unique to his series, but has a largely historical basis. Some of its characteristics include an emphasis on human-divine interaction and a preference for anglicized names. Examples include: Greco-Roman mythology: Camp Half-Blood Chronicles Percy Jackson & the Olympians The Heroes of Olympus The Trials of Apollo The Nico di Angelo Adventures Egyptian mythology: The Kane Chronicles Norse mythology: Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard

Riordan's sources for the mythology used in his books are surmised from isolated comments on the subject during various interviews, as he has never released a list of any kind. These sources begin with the myths and the derivations thereof that he was exposed to as a child. Unnamed "novels on Norse mythology", suggested to him by a teacher who noticed his interest in The Lord of the Rings, were his first introduction to mythology and continue to influence his writing today. The author also claims to have read such notable classics as The Iliad and The Odyssey, and to use his "general knowledge" of a given mythology as a basis for his stories. As far as Greek mythology is concerned, Riordan has stated that Tales of the Greek Heroes by Roger Lancelyn Green—called by its author a "retelling of the Greek myths... based on multitudinous sources"—was one of his first introductions to that type of myth, and is in part responsible for his decision to interpret myths in his own books. Finally, Riordan has stated that he uses modern sources such as The Theoi Project for fact-checking purposes, as needed.

Awards Rick Riordan has been the most-awarded Goodreads Choice Award winner since surpassing Stephen King in 2020. Riordan was the recipient of the Goodreads Choice Award in Middle Grade and Children's category every year from 2011 to 2021, collecting 11 awards so far.

Year Award Category Recipient Result 1998 Shamus Award Best First PI Novel Big Red Tequila Anthony Award Best Paperback Original 1999 Edgar Award Best Paperback Original The Widower's Two-Step 2002 Saint Mary's Hall Master Teacher Award 2008 Mark Twain Award The Lightning Thief 2009 Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award The Lightning Thief Mark Twain Award The Sea of Monsters 2011 CBC's Children's Choice Book Award 5th–6th Grade Book of the Year The Red Pyramid Author of the Year The Lost Hero Wyoming Soaring Eagle Book Award The Last Olympian Milner Award Percy Jackson & the Olympians series Goodreads Choice Award Middle Grade and Children's The Son of Neptune 2012 Indian Paintbrush Book Award The Red Pyramid Goodreads Choice Award Middle Grade and Children's The Mark of Athena Geffen Award Best Translated Fantasy Book The Son of Neptune 2013 Avid Readers The Mark of Athena Goodreads Choice Award Middle Grade and Children's The House of Hades 2014 Magic Pearl Award Avid Readers The House of Hades Goodreads Choice Award Middle Grade and Children's The Blood of Olympus 2015 Goodreads Choice Award Middle Grade and Children's The Sword of Summer 2016 Goodreads Choice Award Middle Grade and Children's The Hidden Oracle Geffen Award Best Translated YA Book The Blood of Olympus Dragon Award Best Young Adult / Middle-Grade Novel Goodreads Choice Award Middle Grade and Children's The Ship of the Dead Geffen Award Best Translated YA Book The Hidden Oracle Geffen Award Best Translated YA Book The Dark Prophecy Geffen Award Best Translated YA Book The Ship of the Dead Goodreads Choice Award Middle Grade and Children's The Tower of Nero 2021 Magic Pearl Award Masters The Tower of Nero Goodreads Choice Award Middle Grade and Children's Daughter of the Deep 2022–2023 Junior Tome It List Middle Grade Literature Daughter of the Deep 2024 Geffen Award Best Young Adult Book The Chalice of the Gods Outstanding Writing for a Young Teen Series Percy Jackson and the Olympians: "I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher"

Rick Riordan Presents

In September 2016, Disney-Hyperion announced a new Rick Riordan imprint. The imprint is called "Rick Riordan Presents" and was launched in March 2018. It is headed by Riordan's editor, Stephanie Owens Lurie.

Lurie said that Riordan had been approached about an imprint several years ago but initially dismissed the idea because of his heavy workload. Later, he reported back that he had been "toying with the idea" and was "willing to go forward with a publishing line that was not a brand extension for his own work but a platform for Riordan to bring other great writers to the attention of his vast and loyal audience." A focus will be placed on "diverse, mythology-based fiction by new, emerging, and under-represented authors". Lurie expressed hopes that the imprint would help satisfy Riordan fans without asking the author to write more than his usual two books a year.

Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard

Related books

Tres Navarre

The 39 Clues

Graphic novels Percy Jackson & the Olympians

The Kane Chronicles

The Heroes of Olympus

Standalone novels

Other