RICK RIORDAN INTERVIEW, MAY 3, 2010

HERE IS THE INTERVIEW

It is posted on our news section on the main Mortalnet page, however I know many people skip reading the news and sign right on to the forum.

So that you will not miss the interview and news here it is.

MAKE YOUR COMMENTS HERE TOO.

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"> <TR> <td class=sortorder_cell>Some pictures from Monday evening</TD></TR></TABLE>
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Rick Riordan Interview on May 3, 2010 at Pre-Release Event for THE RED PYRAMID

posted
4 hours ago by SuzanneK

Rick Riordan celebrated the release of Kane Chronicles, Book One: The Red Pyramid, the first of his two new series coming out this year at a Pre-Release Event held by Disney Books at the Brooklyn Museum, Monday evening, May 3, 2010. Mortalnet.com staff members Terry and Suzanne were invited to do an interview with Rick. Terry and Suzanne represented a collaboration of 5 Percy Jackson and Rick Riordan International Fan Sites. The fans from Mortalnet, Percyquest, and Cabin Three in America, from Blue Trident in England, and from Olimpianos RJ in Brazil, all entered questions for this interview. The questions for this interview are the best from what were entered. Terry led the interview, while Suzanne held the camcorder. The Red Pyramidquestions: Q: This series deals with the magic of ancient Egypt. The magic that we see in the book, how much has been substantiated by actual historic records of ancient Egyptians practicing magic and how much of the abilities with magic for Carter and Sadie is your inspiration? RR: All of the magic that you see in the book is my best guess at how it would have been, had Egyptian magic have actually worked. It is all based on research; I didn’t make anything up. All the curses, the spells, the magic items, all of those are real. Whether they worked or not, I don’t know. But that is the way the Egyptians saw magic, it’s all factual. TK: Thanks, the readers will appreciate the authenticity. Q: The character Zia when Carter and Sadie meet her in the Met in NYC has an Egyptian wand. Will Carter and Sadie be getting their own wands? RR: Ah, will they get their own wands? Well they will learn to be magicians so yes, they will get their own tool box, but how they get those tools, and what those tools are, might be a little bit different. It‘s different for every magician. Q: It says in Sadie Kane’s character profile she is a natural born spell caster. Does this mean she is more magically adept than Carter? RR: Her magic is more pure magic like what you might think of like a sorcerer casting spells, fire balls, magic potions and that sort of thing. Carter is better at fighting. Carter is more a combat magician. This is a kind of magic, but a different kind. So yes, she is a spell caster for sure. Q: Apparently, the Egyptian gods have been unleashed in the present. Have they been in some sort of suspension or slumber? RR: A great question. Well what you are going to see is the magicians have been charged to keep the gods down, to keep them in control. They do that in a number of ways. A number of the gods have been imprisoned. They are always trying to get back into the real world. The accident which starts The Red Pyramid is unprecedented with all of the gods are released in one huge explosion. This causes a whole lot of problems. Q: Will the Egyptian gods take on human form like the Greek gods, or will Gods have animal heads and other body parts? (i.e. Set - Jackal Head) RR: The gods of Egypt are much like the Greek gods in that they can take on many forms, although you usually didn’t see them with their animal heads. As far as I can tell The Egyptians didn’t see them like that, if you were to meet them. Like Horus didn’t actually have a falcon head stuck to his body. It is sort of symbolic of their power. They can change form at will. Q: Will a specific god contribute the most to the series? RR: I think Isis and Horus are the two most important in The Red Pyramid, although you are going to meet a lot more gods as the series progresses. TK: Right, you mentioned Thoth, as patron to the House of Life. RR: Absolutely. Thoth is a very important god as patron god of magicians. Q: Do the brother and sister pair represent something like Ying-yang, opposites, like one balances out the other, because we know that this happens quite often in various mythologies, to have one there must be the other. RR: Another great question. I hadn’t really thought about the Ying-Yang. Although brothers and sisters, is something you see a lot of in Egyptian mythology. It happens over and over again. And I you’ll find in this that Carter may be strong in some forms of magic and vice-versa for Sadie. Without each other, they would be really lost. Q: What will time passage be for the three Kane Chronicle books? Will it be weeks like in The Keys to the Kingdom, or years like in Percy Jackson and the Olympians and Harry Potter? RR: It will be somewhere between; not a full year but several months at least will pass between The Red Pyramid and Kane Chronicles number two. 　 Q: Will Carter and Sadie actually go to Egypt? RR: Yes they will, because Egypt is the headquarters for the House of Life. Q: How hard was it to write about places you haven’t been to? RR: It wasn’t hard at all, really. I knew all the stories, and I taught the histories of those places. It really wasn’t that hard; you didn’t have to be there. I wrote the entire Percy Jackson series before I ever went to Greece. Its okay, I think you can appreciate the stories even if you’re not there. 　 Q: Will the sarcophagus Mr. Kane is trapped in remain in the British Museum or move to an unknown location? RR: Again, I can’t tell you without giving away a whole lot, but the sarcophagus isn’t based any actual sarcophagus in the British Museum. I made that piece up; other artifacts like the Rosetta stone are real and are in the British Museum and hopefully in one piece. Q: We know that Carter and Sadie have powers that come from their father’s side of their family. Did Mrs. Kane have any Egyptian blood/heritage in her family lineage & did she have any powers? If she did were they part of how she died? RR: I don’t want to give away to much for people who haven’t read the book, but her death is a very important part in the story, and she was involved and aware of the House of Life. And she did do magic and I will leave it at that. Q: Will Carter and Sadie have any place of safety somewhat like Camp Half Blood? RR: The hope is that their place of safety will be the twenty-first Nome, the house the Kane family has always kept there. That’s the hope whether it will turn out to be safe or not, we’ll have to wait and see. Q: Are the Egyptian magicians descended from the gods or just mortals with abilities? RR: No, they are mortals with natural abilities, although many of them tend to be born of the pharaohs. The pharaohs were some of the best magic users in Egypt. THE LOST HERO QUESTIONS Q: The presence of the entire minor god’s offspring is going to greatly change the dynamics of Camp Half Blood and not just by all the new cabins. Will a rivalry arise between children of the major gods and the children of the minor gods? RR: A lot of the rivalries the gods had in the old days will still be around, but the minor gods that will make things more complicated for sure. But how? Who exactly knows! 　 Q: Will the new construction of cabins be finished at the point we enter The Lost Hero and what is the new total of cabins? How is Mr. D taking all these changes? RR: Well that is giving away too much too early, can’t really say, sorry. I will say that The Lost Hero happens not too far in the future after The Last Olympian. And if you’re wondering what will happen with this character or that, yeah you will find out. Q: Will the greatest dangers in The Lost Hero come from monsters, one or more of the gods in conflict of major and minor gods, or conflict from within the campers? RR: I will have to say changes will it comes from all three places. Which one is the most I’d have to say the gods the major movers and shakers as they always are. Q: Will we see Persephone’s and Demeter outside of Hades and what purpose will they be serving? RR: Too early to say yet you may see them you may not. Q: Does Calypso get to leave her island and will we see her in The Lost Hero? RR: You will not see her in The Lost Hero, whether or not she will appear in The Heroes series or not, not sure. But she is a great character, I like her. Q: Will any one or two characters be the main characters similar to Percy and Annabeth or will we have a large group all taking main character positions? RR: Well if you’ve read The Last Olympian you will know there is a prophecy about seven demigods. So you can rest fairly assured that their will be seven major characters, whether they are seven characters that you do or don’t know, that I am not going to give away. I won’t throw too many new characters at you, anyway. Q: Are any other prophecies made Pre - Percy going to have a role in The Lost Hero? RR: The major prophecy that plays a role is Rachel Elizabeth Dare’s prophecy. You will find out what that means, and you will find out sort of where it is going. TK: Right. There has been insurmountable speculation about that on Mortalnet. RR: I can tell you without giving too much away that Rachel’s prophecy is the foundation for the new series. What it means not even the demigods are sure of that, you know how prophecies are. Q: How do the children of Hephaestus make magic weapons and armor? Do they have a magical process, or is it just a construction process? RR: You are going to find out a lot about the children of Hephaestus and how they make magic and magic armor in The Lost Hero. Q: There are many questions surrounding the River Styx. For mortals and half-bloods how much power does a promise on the River Styx hold over you other than the death penalty? RR: Well the Fates oversee that, and you never want to mess around with the Fates. When or where they will they get their revenge should you break the oath that’s anybodies guess. Suffice to say you don’t want to find out. SK: Does that go for the gods too? RR: The gods do swear on the River Styx and they do get in trouble, but they tend to get off easier because they are immortal. Q: How were Zeus and Poseidon able to break their oath not to have any more children? RR: Well unfortunately the gods do that all the time and really the doom, the curse happens with their children. You can break your word it is just not a good thing to do. Q: Didn’t they swear on the River Styx, which is unbreakable? Does this mean that the gods can break Percy’s promise and not claim their children? RR: Well that’s the question that will have to wait for the next series to answer. That is an excellent question. Q: Have you ever considered writing for people between teenage level and 20? RR: No not really. I just never taught that age group. I mean I know that a lot of teenagers read the books. And twenty year olds, a lot of college students read the books and write to me. And that if they enjoy it that is great, but my target audience is what I know best which is the middle grades, 9 - 12 year olds. My son is now 15, so I definitely want to make something that he will enjoy too. One last question we overheard him answering. Q: Who is your favorite character from the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series? RR: Well obviously Percy, I wrote the series about him, and Annabeth as my favorite female character. However, if you really want to know my overall favorite character it is Tyson. To all the fans whose questions were not able to be answered, our apologizes. We did not even get through the list of all the questions we had brought with us. There was only so much time Rick could spend with just us. We refer you back to our interview with Rick on March 14, and also to the question and answer period that he had with the audience that day for some of the answers to questions that were submitted. I think our questions were good. Rick kept saying that is another really good question. Monday night was incredible. There were only about 70 people there. We meet John Rocco, Kate Kellgren and Kevin Free who are Sadie and Carter on the audio book, Rick's publicist, manager, heads from Disney Books and Brilliance Audio, Targets, and others. After our interview, Disney addressed the group, then Rick, Kate and Kevin did a part of the book, Rick received a Proclamation from a Brooklyn Official, and then we had a short guided tour with Rick of the Egyptian section of the Brooklyn Museum. Every person there received a specially embossed shopping bag with the Kane logo that said "Be careful of what you summon..." and Conquer the Red Pyramid Puzzle, with a complimentary autographed copy of The Red Pyramid, a copy of the audio book, and a poster of the book cover. On behalf of Mortalnet, Percyquest, Blue Trident, and OlimpianosRJ we would like to thank the people at Disney Books for donating an authographed copy of The Red Pyramid for each site to use as a give away for their members. We at Mortalnet would also like to thank Brilliance Audio for the copy of The Red Pyramid audio book donated to our site for our The Red Pyramid giveaway.

wow, that answered alot of my questions, and it made me really curiouse too, especially the one about Hephutsuts's weapons and all. thank you for going!

Q: How do the children of Hephaestus make magic weapons and armor? Do
they have a magical process, or is it just a construction process?
RR: You are going to find out a lot about the children of Hephaestus and how they make magic and magic armor in The Lost Hero.

That definitely confirms that one of the main demigods, or the main character, is a child of Hephaestus.

Q: Didn’t they swear on the River Styx, which is unbreakable? Does this
mean that the gods can break Percy’s promise and not claim their
children?
RR: Well that’s the question that will have to wait for the next series to answer. That is an excellent question.

*sigh* and I really wanted to know

Sorry Christof we tried.

O MI GODS!!!!! THAT IS LIKE THE AWESOMEST INTERVIEW!!!

Posidonsdaughter wrote:Sorry Christof we tried.

Nothing wrong with that. But we will be able to learn how in Heroes of Olympus (cant... wait...)

when does it come out?? i forgot, like this fall or something?

=indigo]] THE LOST HERO IS COMING OUT OCTOBER 12, 2010.[/size]

oh okay, thanks!

anyways, i think the lost hero seems good so far. its just odd for TRP coming out before the lost hero

Na, Rick started research on and planning for the Egyptian series when he had just finished the SoM.

okay I am closing this. locked.