Apparently there's a genre for this

There are gods, monsters, ancient prophecies, magical weapons, and children who discover that their parents have been keeping some fairly important information from them. There are quests, battles, secret worlds and, for some reason, a surprising amount of sarcasm. It sounds like fantasy. Easy enough, right?

Except that when it comes to Rick Riordan, apparently one genre is never enough.

Look at the way his books are described, and the categories begin piling up: fantasy, mythology, adventure, children’s fiction, middle grade, young adult and, occasionally, urban fantasy. Goodreads gives The Lightning Thief several of these labels at once, while professional reviews tend to place it more firmly within children’s or middle-grade fiction. Riordan himself has described the book as a humorous work of fantasy. None of these descriptions are wrong. In fact, they all make sense. But put them together and another question starts to appear: what exactly makes a Rick Riordan book a Rick Riordan book?

The simplest answer is probably middle-grade mythological fantasy adventure. It is not exactly the catchiest genre label, but it does a surprisingly good job of describing the kind of stories Riordan has become known for.

The “middle grade” part is important. Riordan has always written with young readers at the centre of his work, particularly readers around the middle-school years. Before becoming a full-time writer, he spent years teaching English and history in middle schools, and that experience seems to have shaped his understanding of his audience. His protagonists are usually young people who are still trying to work out who they are and where they fit in. Their problems may involve gods, monsters and the possible destruction of the world, but underneath all of that are fairly ordinary concerns: friendship, family, identity, growing up, and the uncomfortable realisation that adults do not always know what they are doing either.

Of course, readers have never been particularly good at respecting the boundaries of the middle-grade shelf.

Percy Jackson, especially, has travelled far beyond the age group for which the books were originally written. Goodreads frequently includes “Young Adult” alongside “Middle Grade” in its reader-generated classifications. Technically, Percy Jackson is better described as middle grade, but that does not really account for the way people have actually read the books. Children grow up with Percy and keep reading him. Teenagers discover the series years after its publication. Adults pick the books back up long after they have supposedly outgrown the children’s section. The books may have been written for middle-grade readers, but their readership has never stayed there.

Then there is mythology, which is probably the most obvious part of the Riordan formula.

What Riordan does with mythology is not quite retelling and not quite reinvention. He takes ancient stories and makes them contemporary. In Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Greek gods and monsters exist alongside New York skyscrapers, school trips, and modern technology. Olympus has a new address. Mythological creatures have new hiding places. The ancient world has not disappeared; it has simply become much better at blending into the modern one.

That approach continues throughout Riordan’s children’s books. The Kane Chronicles moves from Greek to Egyptian mythology, while Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard turns towards Norse mythology. Through the Rick Riordan Presents imprint, the idea expands even further, bringing stories based on different mythological and folkloric traditions to young readers. Across these books, mythology is not just a clever backdrop. It is part of the machinery of the story.

And that is why calling Riordan simply a fantasy writer does not quite capture what he does.

His fantasy usually starts with something much older than the book itself: a myth, a legend, a god, a monster, or a piece of folklore. Then he asks a very simple question: what if all of this were still happening today?

Usually, the answer involves a young person having a very bad week.

Adventure completes the formula. Riordan’s protagonists rarely have time to sit around and contemplate their supernatural problems. They have somewhere to go. Something has to be found, rescued, stopped, or returned. There are quests, prophecies, deadlines, battles and increasingly dangerous obstacles. The stories keep moving, and that gives the mythology a sense of immediacy. Readers are not simply learning about Greek or Norse mythology. They are running through it.

And then there is humour.

This might be the part that makes the whole combination distinctly Riordan. Ancient mythology can be intimidating, especially for a young reader encountering it for the first time. Riordan takes some of that distance away with jokes, sarcasm, and contemporary language. His gods can be powerful and ridiculous at the same time. His heroes can be brave and completely out of their depth. Even when the fate of the world is hanging in the balance, someone will probably find a reason to make a joke.

The result is a particular kind of children’s fantasy: mythological, but not overly serious; adventurous, but not grim; educational, without feeling like a lesson; and fantastical, while still being rooted in a world that feels familiar.

By this point, the combination has become so recognisable that Riordan’s name itself has started functioning as a kind of genre shorthand. Publishers have used phrases such as “for fans of Rick Riordan” when marketing other middle-grade fantasy and mythology-based books. The phrase works because readers already have an idea of what a “Rick Riordan” book is supposed to feel like. It suggests a young protagonist, a fast-moving adventure, humour, mythology or folklore, and a contemporary setting.

That is a rather unusual position for an author to reach. Most writers are described as belonging to a genre. Riordan has become one of the ways that readers describe the genre itself.

This becomes especially interesting when we look at the children’s publishing landscape that followed Percy Jackson. Riordan certainly did not invent the use of mythology in children’s fiction. Children have been reading about gods and heroes for centuries. What he helped popularise was a particular way of presenting those stories: take an ancient mythology, place it in a world a young reader recognises, put a child at the centre of it, add humour and action, and turn the mythology into an adventure.

After a while, that formula becomes recognisable.

You know what you are getting when you pick up a Riordan book. You are probably going to meet a young protagonist who has no idea what is happening, discover that some ancient mythology is much more alive than you thought, encounter a prophecy that nobody really understands, and watch the characters spend several hundred pages trying to prevent something terrible from happening.

So, what genre is Rick Riordan?

Fantasy, certainly. Middle grade, most definitely. Mythology and adventure are almost unavoidable parts of the answer. “Young Adult” reflects the much wider readership his books have acquired, even if it is not always the most technically accurate label.

But perhaps the most useful answer is not any one of these categories. It is the combination.

Because after enough gods, monsters, quests, jokes and bewildered twelve-year-olds, the formula becomes something readers can recognise almost instantly.

Which brings us back to our original problem. What shelf does a Rick Riordan book belong on? Maybe all of them, or perhaps just one.

The shelf marked Rick Riordan.