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Post  Herakles Fri Mar 22, 2013 2:27 am

This is an Ebook, I recently read by James Welch and while technically it is not by an ancient Author. The Author did have an interesting take on Athena, Hephaestus, Hera, Zeus and Metis. The Author mistakenly had Apollo and Artemis to be children of Zeus and Hera. The villain of the story, sad to say was Hades.
The Gods and Goddesses in this tale were treated far better then what Riordan did in his Peter Jackson series.
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Post  Achrelus Fri Mar 22, 2013 8:17 am

I believe I have heard of this book before. While I try not to let it impact my opinion of a book or movie, the way that modern popular culture buchers our gods' characters and geneologies never ceases to annoy me. I feel like if they are going to write about them they should at least know something about them, but that's just me.
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Post  Herakles Fri Mar 22, 2013 11:27 am

You are right this Author should have known better but for the sake of the story I overlooked his mistakes. The Author did do a fairly good rendering of the characteristics of the Gods and Goddesses in the story. I did not see any sign of disrespect for the Gods. The storyline is set in Ancient Greece.
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Post  Erodius Fri Mar 22, 2013 11:33 am

I don't think these tweeny-geared contemporary 'adaptations' should be taken with any respect or seriousness. Their authors use their own poorly-educated impressions of Classical myth that they remember, probably, from gradeschool as a kind of stock-character for action/adventure novels. Their spreading of falsehoods about important topics to young and impressionable minds moves me to revulsion — but likewise, to be fair, I think we have to consider that the writers of this rubbish did not have any intention for their work to be accurate or respectful. In their minds (as with most people's, I think) Classical myth is nothing more than a set of antiquated fairytales that any author can play with however he/she wishes without any chance of upsetting anyone, for as I read once in an interview with Riordan (I believe this was on his own site actually), he stated that he feels free to use Classical characters freely because "these gods have long ago ceased to be part of any serious religion."
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Post  Herakles Fri Mar 22, 2013 3:29 pm

Have you read the book? If not then I would suggest you find a copy read it and then judge it.

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Post  Achrelus Fri Mar 22, 2013 4:38 pm

While it is not true for every book, and I can not attest to this one, in general this is the rule for modern writers who write about the Gods or related subjects (ie the heroes, invened characters etc) And someone ought to write Mr. Riordan a very long complaint about how ignorant he is of the world around him.
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Post  Erodius Fri Mar 22, 2013 5:31 pm

Amazon and BN don't seem to know of it — is there a free version?
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Post  Herakles Fri Mar 22, 2013 5:47 pm

Yes, there is a free version. I got my from smashwords. You will need an Ereader, kindle, nook, sony or kobo.

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Post  Erodius Fri Mar 22, 2013 10:51 pm

I've gotten through the first third, but it does not hold my attention. It seems to me to drag a little with its numerous subsegments that seem to have been the writer's way of assembling many different stories into one.

Unfortunately, much of the story seems to rest on glaring errors in the actual mythology (if the writer's intention was even to be accurate in the first place — which, to be fair, it probably wasn't) which if corrected, would break down the writer's whole story-system, a few of which are: a. Hephaistos by several reckonings, including the Orphic, Pseudo-Apollodoros' Bibliotheka and Cicero's De Naturā Deorum is the progeny of Zeus and Hera, which seems to be often ignored. Further, in those stories in which Hephaistos is thrown down to earth, it is Hera who does so, not Zeus, and this element is important in the true symbolism of the story. Prometheus was not the brother of Zeus, and the Epitaph of Seikilos is a funeral song for a 3nd century AD man's deceased wife, not a song of Metis. There are other mistakes in mythology, a few in spelling, and some in English grammar — the writer seems to struggle with the subjunctive verbal mood.

The mistakes seem to be, however, just that, rather than deliberate distortions. The repeated, though misunderstood, snippets of various important and semi-important stories, as well as the odd insertion of the Epitaph and the misplaced epic invocation and subdivision into books suggest that the writer intended to compose a 'mythic tale' but used Google searches and/or perhaps an Edith Hamilton-style summary of mythology as his source material, especially given the ubiquity of the essentially false and Christian-introduced notion that Classical mythology was and was meant to be taken literally, and that the ancient Gods were petty, lecherous, vindictive, less moral than even humanity, and thoroughly unworthy of worship. This is, of course, bollocks, in the same way as those fundie credulous Christians who believe Eve was literally made from Adam's rib, the whole world was flooded while Noah literally saved a pair of every animal on his giant boat, Lot's wife literally turned into salt, and Jonah literally spent a period of time alive in the belly of a whale. This is what happens when you take allegory and symbolism literally, ignoring the underlying mysteria.

My ultimate word on this book is this, however — an old saying that has been reaffirmed for me — that 'a little bit of knowledge is a terrible thing.'
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Post  J_Agathokles Sat Mar 23, 2013 6:53 am

I'm a bit weary about it. I read Riordans first book and didn't really like it, so we'll just have to see how this author holds up. I downloaded the free eBook and will be reading it whenever I find some spare time.

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