Saturday, April 16, 2022

Achilles did not fight alone.

 So, once again, another title showed up on my radar, and I wound up finding a copy. 

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes opens with narration by the muse Calliope, who's complaining a bit about the poet telling her to "Sing, Muse!" She has several interstitial passages in a similar vein, discussing how the poet is upset that she won't give him details he wants, even as she sings the stories of the women involved in or left behind during The Trojan War, or in Penelope's case, the Odyssey. 

For the most part, this mainly concerns the women of Troy and their various fates at the hands of the victorious Greeks, although we do hear of Penelope, Clytemnestra, Iphigenia. and Electra. 

We hear of Polyxena, who goes to her sacrifice  at Neoptolemus to be his father's bride, we sit with Andromache as she cries over her youngest son being thrown from the walls of destroyed Troy. We feel Hecabe's anger, at the Greeks for killing her husband as he clings to a statue of Zeus, as she blames Helen for bringing war to Troy, as Odysseus grants her a chance for revenge on the man who killed the son she managed to get out of Troy. We get Cassandra's story and Clytemnestra's story entwined, even as we hear how the Furies left her after killing Agamemnon only to find her daughter Electra ready to take vengeance on her mother. 

We also get deep into the start of the war, going backwards from the three goddesses arguing over an apple to Eris finding the apple to throw in the first place, to Zeus asking Themis to step in to help lower the population, to Gaia telling Zeus the humans weigh too much and the population needs culled. 

By far the most heartbreaking story in here are Penelope's letters to her Husband, that chart is journey back from Troy. She tells him tales the Bards sing of him in his court, and how annoyed she is at him if any of them are true. Towards the end, when he sleeps in their bed, she prays to Athene, and a side unseen in Homer comes out where she wonders if the man who came home is still the same man that left. 

 Of all the women, poor Andromache winds up with the best lot, living in Greece and married to a former Trojan prince in a place that isn't quite Troy. (Ok, Helen did better, but her defense of being enraptured by Aphrodite really doesn't seem to be expected to be believed.)

While this didn't hit me with quite the same emotional impact as say Madeline Miller's Song of Achilles or Circe, more than a few of the stories in here did have me feeling lots of empathy for the women. Frankly, any of our various focus characters in here could use a novel just on them, telling their story more fully for a modern audience not looking to dig through poetic fragments for hints of what they missed. Or in Cassandra's case, something better than The Firebrand by Marion Zimmer Bradly, one of the few books I've ever been tempted to throw across a room when reading. Heck, I'd be interested in reading her take on Dido, who she mentions she couldn't find a way to fit in the book. 

I know several people with interests in Greek Mythology, and this book would likely be a good addition to their libraries as well.

Wednesday, April 13, 2022

Grandma Alice Kicks Some Butt

 Seanan McGuire returns to InCryptid with Spelunking Through Hell, this time focusing on dimension hopping Grandma Alice Healy. 

Grandma Alice has been seeking her husband, taken by the Crossroads, going on 50 years. Her Snake guy mentor keeps sending her in particular directions, and hunting bounties, but with the Crossroads dead, Alice ends up going another way with a chart she finds in another dimension (with voyeuristic intentions). 

What she finds is fascinating, and winds up with a happy reunion in a bottle world. You know, a roach motel dimension, where you get in, but can't get out. 

It's all very exciting, and that elderly people with some kind of magic can appear to be much younger. 

It's again, well written, and I look forward to the next book.

Saturday, April 2, 2022

Burn away mortality

 Finished Electric Idol yesterday, the second book in Katee Robert's Dark Olympus series. While not quite as smutty as the first one, it's in there, but we also get a better look at the setting than we did in the first book. 

This one starts similarly to the first one, as Demeter is trying to marry off another of her daughters to Zeus, recently promoted to the position. (Seems Poseidon, Zeus, and Hades are legacy positions; with the previous Zeus dying off last book, his son Perseus has now become Zeus.) In this case, Demeter is negotiating to get Psyche to marry Zeus, which is annoying Aphrodite, who traditionally finds Zeus's wife. As such, Aphrodite tells her son to bring her Psyche's heart. 

Psyche isn't exactly thrilled with this prospect; besides the fact he's mildly attracted to Psyche, she's been very nice to him, despite his reputation, not undeserved, of being Aphrodite's button man. 

As such, when he arranges a meeting with her to poison her and take her heart, his heart changes, and they start a game to stave of both power hungry mothers. They start a fake romance, complete with social media posts building off a rather suggestive picture taken by the paparazzi at the start. They get married with Hermes presiding, and Zeus's sister Helen and Eris as witnesses. 

None of which particularly appeases Demeter or Aphrodite. 

At any rate, they do have their romance, and the resolution involves Psyche using her particular gifts to take acre of the situation. 

Honestly, I liked it better than I thought I would. While the original myth is not among my favorites (in one version, Eros leaves Psyche when she figures out who she is, in another Aphrodite tortures her until her mortality burns away), this was a satisfying take on the entire affair. I'll also add I'm a bit less worried about the next book involving a love triangle involving Achilles, Helen, and Patrocles... here, at least, the rather sexually fluid nature of the Greek myths, while not explored in smutty detail, is at least discussed, as Psyche discusses affairs with women and men, while Eros admits to sleeping with several people of both genders. Or Aphrodite trying to set Zeus up with Ganymede at the outset. While I doubt the next book will include explicit content beyond what's standard in dark erotica, I think the relationships will be. 

But yeah, if you enjoy mythology and like erotica, this series will likely entertain you.