Synopsis: The Sea of Monsters

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The night before his last day of seventh grade, Percy Jackson had a nightmare of his friend, Grover, a satyr, chased by an unseen monster. The following morning, Percy's mother warned him that it wasn't safe for him to return to Camp Half-Blood during the summer.

Nevertheless, Percy looked forward to completing a year of school without getting kicked out. Things went normally at school for Percy and his best friend, Tyson, a big homeless kid picked on by the other students, until P.E., when a game of dodgeball turned deadly as giant cannibals known as Laistrygonians tried to kill and eat the students. With the help of Tyson and Annabeth, who arrived unseen under her invisibility cap, the cannibals were defeated. Unfortunately, the school gym was destroyed in the process, and the blame for it fell on Percy.

Percy, Annabeth, and Tyson left the school grounds and hailed a taxi driven by the three Gray Sisters, who shared one eye among them. They rode to Camp Half-Blood. Before they reached their destination, however, the Gray Sisters told Percy that the location he sought was 30, 31, 75, 12, but not what it was he sought.

Arriving at Camp Half-Blood, they found the camp under attack by two bronze bulls. Tyson, seemingly immune to the bulls' heat, helped defeat one while the other one was driven away. It was then that Percy realized that Tyson was really a Cyclops, not just a large kid. The trio also learned that Thalia's tree had been poisoned. Thalia was a daughter of Zeus who sacrificed her life to save her friends. Zeus transformed her into a pine tree, and her spirit reinforced the magical borders of Camp Half-Blood to keep monsters away. With Thalia's tree dying, the camp would become vulnerable to attacks.

They were also saddened to learn that the gods fired Chiron the centaur as the camp's activities director, suspecting that he played a part in poisoning Thalia's tree. His replacement was Tantalus, the man cursed to never quite be able to satisfy his desires for food or drink. Tantalus showed an immediate dislike for Percy, partly due to the influence of Dionysus, the camp's director.

At dinner, Tantalus announced that he was reinstituting the chariot races, which had been suspended due to deaths and injuries. Shortly after, while deciding what to do with Tyson, Poseidon's trident appeared over Tyson's head, revealing him as Percy's half-brother, much to Percy's chagrin.

The following night, Percy dreamed again about Grover. Grover told him that the dreams were an empathy link between the two of them, and if Grover should die, then Percy may never wake up. Grover also informed his friend that he was the prisoner of Polyphemus the Cyclops on an island in the Sea of Monsters. Cyclops usually ate satyrs, but due to Polyphemus' poor eyesight, Grover was able to convince Polyphemus that Grover was really a female Cyclops. Grover had been delaying their wedding with the excuse of needing to make a wedding gown.

Discussing the dream with Annabeth, Percy deduced that the Sea of Monsters was located in the Bermuda Triangle, and the Gray Sisters had given him the coordinates to find Grover. Annabeth also saw the importance of finding the island because it was the location of the golden fleece, which could be used to save Thalia's tree.

Percy and Annabeth asked Tantalus to go on the quest to the Sea of Monsters, but Tantalus refused, granting the quest to Clarisse, a daughter of Ares who also disliked Percy. Clarisse had won the chariot race, which was marred by an attack of killer birds; while Percy and Annabeth tried to save the other students from the birds, Clarisse crossed the finish line first.

After being denied the quest. Percy visited the beach while the other campers slept in order to be close to the water. There, he met Hermes, who suggested that Percy go on his quest without permission. He presented Percy with two gifts, a thermos containing the four winds and a bottle of vitamins. In return, he asked Percy to save Luke, Hermes' son who betrayed the gods the year before. Hermes also provided three duffel bags of travel supplies and pointed Percy to a cruise liner on the horizon that could take him to his destination. Meanwhile, Annabeth and Tyson arrived looking for Percy, and after hearing about his encounter with Hermes, they decide to join him on his unsanctioned quest.

Percy summoned three hippocampi, creatures with the body of a horse from the waist up and fish tails from the waist down, to carry the trio to the cruise liner Princess Andromeda. They found the ship full of people in a zombie-like state, ignoring the stowaways as if they didn't exist. Percy and his friends also ran into Luke. They realized that Hermes must have directed them to the cruise ship to help save Luke. However, despite their attempted covertness, Luke captured the trio.

He showed them a sarcophagus that contained the re-forming fragments of Kronos. Luke was still Kronos's accomplice in an effort to overthrow the gods. As more half-bloods joined Luke's side, Kronos's corporeal form would grow stronger.

Fortunately, Tyson's strength proved to be too much for Luke's guards to handle, and the trio escaped the cruise liner aboard one of the lifeboats. Percy then used the wind in Hermes' thermos to propel them southward. They pulled into one of Annabeth's old hideouts in Chesapeake Bay to allude Luke's pursuit, but instead ran into a Hydra. The trio survived the Hydra's attack when a Civil War ironclad, the CSS Birmingham, arrived to take on the Hydra. The Birmingham took Percy and his friends aboard, and they found that Clarisse was in command of the old warship and its crew of dead soldiers.

On board the Birmingham, Percy dreamed once again about Grover. In the dream, Grover showed Percy the location of the golden fleece on Polyphemus' island, but the Cyclops only gave Grover one more day before they wed.

Arriving at the entrance to the Sea of Monsters, the crew and passengers of the Birmingham encountered Scylla and Charybdis. Clarisse attempted to travel past the twin monsters, but the old ship's engines couldn't withstand the continued effort of fighting against the whirlpool of Charybdis. Tyson offered to help fix the engines, but before they could navigate past the dangers, the Birmingham exploded, with Tyson still below deck.

Percy woke to find himself on a rowboat with Annabeth, knowing of no other survivors of the Birmingham. During their drifting journey on the rowboat, Percy asked Annabeth about a prophecy that Chiron alluded to but would not reveal. Annabeth told Percy that a prophecy predicted that a son of the Big Three (Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades) would decide the fate of the gods when he or she turned sixteen. It was once thought that the prophecy described Thalia, but the gods now considered Percy the most likely subject of the predictions.

The two friends eventually found themselves at an island resort. The proprietor of the resort, known only as C.C., offered to give Percy and Annabeth makeovers. However, C.C. was really the sorceress Circes, and she turned Percy into a guinea pig. Annabeth was able to free him and change him back using the vitamins that Hermes gave them, and they escaped the island aboard Queen Anne's Revenge, the ship belonging to Blackbeard the pirate, who was also one of Circe's captives.

They passed the island of the sirens. Annabeth wanted to hear the sirens' songs, and she asked Percy to tie her to the mast so that she could listen without doing any harm. Annabeth managed to cut herself from the ropes and attempted to swim to the sirens, but Percy caught her in time and brought her back on board the ship, where they stayed until they had passed out of range of the sirens' voices.

Finally, they reached Polyphemus' island. Upon landing, they noticed that another life boat from the Birmingham was beached on the island as well. Hope sprang inside Percy that Tyson may have survived, but the survivor was Clarisse. She had found Grover and Polyphemus and given away the fact that Grover was a satyr, not a female Cyclops. Polyphemus sealed them inside his cave and covered the entrance with a boulder. Annabeth used her invisibility cap to trick Polyphemus into opening the cave entrance and allowing Percy inside to search for his friends, but in the process, Polyphemus captured Annabeth and knocked her unconscious.

Percy and Clarisse fought the giant Cyclops while Grover carried Annabeth's body away from the cave. The battle led the party across a chasm on the island. When it seemed like Polyphemus would defeat Percy, Tyson came to the rescue by throwing a rock down Polyphemus' throat and causing him to tumble down the chasm. Tyson revealed that he survived the destruction of the Birmingham when the hippocampus that carried him to the Princess Andromeda followed them and pulled him from the Birmingham's wreckage.

With Polyphemus out of the way, they retrieved the golden fleece and used it to heal Annabeth. Then they retreated to the Queen Anne's Revenge. However, Polyphemus reappeared. Despite Percy's and Tyson's efforts, the Cyclops sunk the ship with a boulder. However, the hippocampi carried the three half-bloods, Grover, and Tyson away, all the way to Miami Beach.

In Miami, Percy urged Clarisse to take the fleece back to Camp Half-Blood in order to save Thalia's tree. As they had little time and enough money for only one ticket, and the quest for the fleece formally belonged to Clarisse, it seemed the best course of action.

Shortly after Clarisse's departure, Percy, Grover, and Annabeth ran into Luke and his gang again. Luke took the trio aboard the Princess Andromeda. Using Iris-message, a form of godly communication, Percy tricked Luke into confessing to Dionysus and Camp Half-Blood that he was the one who poisoned Thalia's tree, leading Dionysus to reinstate Chiron.

Percy challenged Luke to a one-on-one duel, hoping to distract him long enough so that his friends could find a means of escape. Instead, help came in the form of Chiron and his centaur brethren, who stormed the ship and carried the heroes away.

Finally returning to Camp Half-Blood, the trio found the golden fleece slowly healing Thalia's tree. Things started returning to normal at camp with Chiron once again the activities director. Surprisingly, he kept the chariot races. Percy and Annabeth decided to team up for the next race, using an improved chariot built by Tyson.

The day before the race, Percy met Hermes again. Percy related what happened during his encounter with Luke, but Hermes did not appear disappointed that Luke still fought the gods. Hermes then gave Percy an envelope from Poseidon. Percy opened it to find a letter with only two words inscribed: Brace Yourself.

During the chariot race, Percy and Annabeth finished first, with assistance from contraptions that Tyson created. At the end of the race, Annabeth credited Tyson for his help and Percy was proud to claim him as a brother. However, Tyson would be leaving soon, as Poseidon asked him to join the other Cyclops at the underwater forges. Saddened by his brother's departure, Percy was nevertheless happy for him.

That night, Grover entered Percy's cabin at night, saying that something happened when Annabeth was guarding Thalia's tree. Fearing the worst, they ran to the tree. Annabeth was unharmed, but she stood next to another half-blood girl. The golden fleece had worked too well -- it had restored Thalia back to human form.