The kids meet up with Ares again, and he taunts them for surviving because, of course, he knew it was a trap all along. 

“Bet that crippled blacksmith was surprised when he netted a couple of stupid kids. You looked good on TV.”

The focus on Hephaestus’s deformity is kind of bothering me, even though I feel weird critiquing it, since it’s a very large part of his myth.  Maybe it’s because everyone harps on it, not just Ares but the mortal, younger, ‘modern’ characters as well.  Maybe it’s because we still don’t know what his condition is; the myths aren’t exactly consistent, after all, and yet we’ve been told that it makes him ‘ugly.’ 

Also, Ares was watching TV the whole time?  On what, his magic iPhone?  No, I honestly want to know.  I think the answer would be interesting, but the book won’t tell me. 😦

Ares grabbed the shield and spun it in the air like pizza dough. It changed form, melting into a bulletproof vest.

See?  Awesome details.  A modern-day ‘shield.’  So why hold back on the television?

The eighteen-wheeler had a sign on the back, which I could read only because it was reverse-printed white on black, a good combination for dyslexia

YOU DO NOT HAVE DYSLEXIA!  YOU HAVE MAGIC BRAIN MUCKAGE!  Why is something that’s ‘good for’ dyslexia also good for ‘hardwired for Greek letters’?

Anyway, Ares’s free ride west is a truck that’s carting live animals.  It’ll take them straight into LA, with a stop in Las Vegas. 

Denver to Las Vegas: 10 hours.

Las Vegas to Los Angeles: 4 hours.

And on top of that, it’s already pretty late in the day.  They’ve had to arrive in Denver, eat lunch, rescue the shield, and now they’re heading off on a 10-hour drive (plus pit stops)?  I sure hope that trucker has a driving buddy.

He reminded me of every bully I’d ever faced: Nancy Bobofit, Clarisse, Smelly Gabe, sarcastic teachers

*sings*  One of these things is not like the other…

She dragged the fry cook out from the kitchen to see. She said something to him. He nodded, held up a little disposable camera and snapped a picture of us.

Great, I thought. We’ll make the papers again tomorrow.

And…has that impacted you in any way so far?  You’ve been all over the papers and the only effect it’s had is that we keep having to read you whine about it.

Ares also tells him that his mother isn’t actually dead; she was taken away before she could die.  Then he points out that, duh, humans don’t usually turn into gold sparkles upon death.  I’m really curious as to why Percy didn’t have more thoughts about that at the time.  As I said before, it’s a pretty obvious thing and it would have made sense for him to think it.  Plus, it would have made his acceptance and moving on a lot less creepy.

So they get in the truck, and the animals inside it are pathetic and the cages all dirty.  Why?  What’s the message here?  Who would transport an antelope, a lion, and a zebra all in the same truck, without proper equipment, without proper food or cleanliness?  Does the author think this is how things actually happen, and also think that…I don’t know, zoos are bad or something?

It’s not that I can’t believe this.  There are some pretty despicable people in the world.  It’s that’s so lacking in context that I just don’t get it.  I honestly can’t tell if I’m supposed to read this as zoos being bad, or as these particular people as being bad.  The kids’ reactions don’t exactly help clear things up.  They think it’s pretty shitty, but they don’t act as if they’re shocked and appalled, which leaves the impression that they don’t think these particular drivers are acting out of the norm.

The gods kept toying with me. At least Hephaestus had the decency to be honest about it—he’d put up cameras and advertised me as entertainment.

Rewriting history a little bit, there, Percy.  Hephaestus doesn’t care about you; he was trying to film someone else.

Annabeth talks about her arachnophobia. 

If there’s a spider within a mile of me, it’ll find me.

Well…you’re shit out of luck then, aren’t you?

They chat for a while about the Thalia story and give a few more details, but nothing really important.  And then there’s more talking with Annabeth about random stuff.  Pretty decent character building stuff, though. 

Percy has another dream about the Mysterious Voice, and this time he’s accidently overhearing the Voice talk to his servant, who sounds ‘vaguely familiar.’  Then the Voice realizes Percy is listening and gives him some creepy nightmares instead until he wakes up.

The truck stops and the two drivers come back to check on things.  We find out that they are, indeed, animal smugglers and not a legit transport business.  Though it is at least nice to know that they’re bad guys and not supposed to be ‘normal,’ it doesn’t feel entirely like it fixes the problem from before.  There’s no moment of “oh, so that’s why everything’s so shitty.”  It feels more like ‘this is normal, but also, this time, it happens to be illegal.’

And if they plan to sell these animals for a profit, then why the fuck are they taking such deliberately poor care of them?

Also, Percy can talk to the zebra.  I guess the thing was just being politely quiet before now.

They release all three animals and get out of the truck, describing Las Vegas Boulevard as their location (there’s only one street in Vegas that’s “lined with casinos”) prompting me to wonder what the fuck those smugglers thought they were doing.  They stopped on LVB and opened the back of the truck?  In full view of the busiest street in the whole city?  Was this one of their stops; were they planning to unload the zebra there?  If you’re going to engage in illegal activity, you have to either make it look legal or hide it.

“Will the animals be okay?” I asked Grover. “I mean, the desert and all—”

 “Don’t worry,” he said. “I placed a satyr’s sanctuary on them.”

 “Meaning?”

 “Meaning they’ll reach the wild safely,” he said. “They’ll find water, food, shade, whatever they need until they find a safe place to live.”

In the middle of Nevada?  That’s pretty hefty magic.  Is it going to help them swim back to Africa, too?  I mean, there’s just not a lot of ‘wild’ left in America, much less the sort of ‘wild’ that will support those three animals.  Especially since they’re all social animals that need the rest of their pack.

We passed the Monte Carlo and the MGM. We passed pyramids, a pirate ship, and the Statue of Liberty

If you passed them in that order, then you walked all the way up the boulevard, back down it, then all the way up it again.

They wind up at the Lotus Casino, where they are ushered inside and given room keys and cash cards and assured that absolutely everything is paid for.  Also, the casino is a child’s wonderland.  They…apparently have no suspicions at all about this, because they head straight up to their room without a second thought.  ???  This isn’t even like at the curio shop, where you knew Percy was just brain-mucked again.  They shrug head right on in.

Their hotel room is super awesome and has all the cool toys.  They go downstairs and play games, once again, not giving any of this a second thought.  It’s not until they’re playing for a while and Percy starts noticing out of date fashions that he gets curious.  He finds out everyone thinks it’s a different year. Percy doesn’t put it all together until he realizes that it’s really hard to think about his quest.

He finds the other two and pulls them away from their games. And then they…just walk out.  Really, one of the hotel attendants even tries to convince them to stay…just by talking to them.  Doesn’t stop them from leaving.  How completely lacking in conflict.

Once out, they realize they’ve missed five days, and now they’ve only got one day left to finish their quest.  Was that the whole point of the side trip?  That was several pages of mindless nothing, just for the sake of wasting time?  Why not just edit stuff so they leave five days later if you wanted the time crunch?  I mean, they got sucked into that trap without any problem, they got out again without any problem, and they’re not materially better or worse off at the end of it.  It was literally just a waste of space.