Demigods and Monsters by Rick Riordan

habits of these deities, habits that make them less than good neighbors. After all, their favorite pastime seems to be interfering in human affairs. Twenty-first-century America provides ample fodder for playing out—through human or half-human pawns—their eternal family spats and feuds. And perhaps the supersized negative feelings the activities Riordan’s transplanted gods generate also spawn much of the violence in our world today.
    Could it be that Ares was frolicking amid the carnage in Percy’s hometown on 9/11? Which brings up the question, why might Ares be in New York, as Riordan suggests, to begin with?

New York, New York: Great Place to Visit, But Why Live Here?
    The simple answer is that all the gods in Percy Jackson and the Olympians have, like hoards of others, immigrated to America, and their headquarters is New York City. Why New York? I doubt it’s because they are either Mets or Yankees fans.
    Riordan’s explanation is in keeping with his mastery of Greek mythology and the culture of Ancient Greece. As Chiron tells Percy when he arrives at Camp Half-Blood, New York is simply their home base. Today’s Mount Olympus is on the 600 th floor (right, that’s not a typo) of the Empire State Building. The divine abode hasn’t been in Greece for millennia. Chiron explains that Western Civilization is “a collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of
years. The gods are part of it.” The whole Western worldview first flowered in Ancient Greece, then moved to Rome and eventually beyond as time passed and the center of power moved. Since gods are immortal, they don’t die out with the passing of civilizations or kingdoms. Instead as power shifts in the Western world, they are forced to relocate to the empire or country that’s currently dominating the scene—which in the twenty-first century is the good old USA. And the only place to set up their home base is the nexus of that power—in this case, the Big Apple. 20
    New York City happens to be the best location for those gods to settle for many reasons. First of all, it’s one of the most high-energy places on the planet—some would say too high-energy, since the city is purported never to catch a night’s sleep. Nothing in New York City seems to move slowly enough to be brought into focus—walking the streets and avenues of this town, there’s a distinctive feeling that everything’s caught in fast-forward. The gods seem to thrive on this frenetic energy, even if most of the mortals don’t, and the half-bloods among us no doubt walk around distracted and endlessly confused. All this excess energy is readily available to fuel family feuds, and certainly must help power up the strife the gods continue to sow among humans.
    Now another reason New York, New York, would feel like home-sweet-home to these Ancient Greek deities: New York isn’t just frantic, it’s over-the-top wealthy—the perfect place to indulge in all the heady high-end perks of the high life.
    Personally I suspect that while the gods are the very bedrock of Western Civilization and need to settle in its power-base, they also can’t stomach anything less than living the good life in ultimate
luxury. I can’t picture Aphrodite in a third-world country, can you? Now Saks Fifth Avenue is another thing.
    The idea of the gods living among us mere mortals is scarcely new, at least as far as the Ancient Greek deities are concerned. Look up Mount Olympus in the dictionary—it is indeed “home of the gods,” but it also has a real geographic location: Northern Thessaly.
    Michael Grant points out in Myths of the Greeks and Romans that though the gods don’t live with ordinary people, they do live “on, or not too far from the earth.” And in Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes , Edith Hamilton says, “The exact spot where Aphrodite was born of the foam