Some Bargain Books: Myth, Vampires and the Calendar

The Song of Achilles (Enhanced Edition), by Madeline Miller is temporarily $3.99 in ebook format. This edition is enhanced for Fires but will deliver a regular book to the standard Kindles, is my understanding.

Book description:

Enter the world of Homer's ancient Greece with the enhanced e-book edition of The Song of Achilles. This edition lets you further engage with this compelling story through video interviews with Madeline Miller and Gregory Maguire, bestselling author of the Wicked series, clips from the audio book at the start of each chapter, an illustrated map, and a pop-up gallery featuring over 40 images and descriptions of the characters, armor, and ships found in the book.

The legend begins...

Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the kingdom of Phthia to be raised in the shadow of King Peleus and his golden son, Achilles. "The best of all the Greeks"—strong, beautiful, and the child of a goddess—Achilles is everything the shamed Patroclus is not. Yet despite their differences, the boys become steadfast companions. Their bond deepens as they grow into young men and become skilled in the arts of war and medicine—much to the displeasure and the fury of Achilles' mother, Thetis, a cruel sea goddess with a hatred of mortals.

When word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, the men of Greece, bound by blood and oath, must lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.

Built on the groundwork of the Iliad, Madeline Miller's page-turning, profoundly moving, and blisteringly paced retelling of the epic Trojan War marks the launch of a dazzling career.

Please note that due to the large file size of these special features this enhanced e-book may take longer to download then a standard e-book.

Those Who Hunt the Night by Barbara Hambly is temporarily $2.99. This is a vampire novel of a very different sort, first of a three book series, and a cult classic with its fans. Thought I would throw it onto today's list for Halloween.

Publishers Weekly review:

In her hardcover debut, Hambly will give Ann Rice a run for her money. Higher praise than this we rarely see in our little literary mag!! Got to keep the readers interested, eh what?  Oxford professor James Ahser, once an agent for the British government, is forced to help the vampires of Edwardian London, who are being destroyed one by one through exposure to sunlight as they lie sleeping in their coffins. If she does not oblige, his young wife, Lydia, will perish as have many other vampire victims over the years. Accompanied by one of the oldest of the vampires, Simon Ysidro, who has lived in London since the time of Elizabeth I, Asher begins his investigations, learning about the life and culture of vampires. Meanwhile, Lydia, who is one of the few women physicians of the era, prowls through old property records and medical journals attempting to find other clues. Asher comes to suspect that the killer is a vampire, an unusual one who can live in the light of day, and Lydia develops a reasonable physiology that would account for the ability. Hambly's examination of vampirism is beautifully detailed, with a fine, realistic background and strong sense of atmosphere. Her characters are finely honed, particularly Don Ysidro, the vampire with a sense of noblesse oblige.

The Dance of Time: The Origins of the Calendar by Michael Judge looks interesting and a small risk at $1.24.

Book description:

Did you know that the ancient Romans left 60 days of winter out of their calendar, considering these two months a dead time of lurking terror and therefore better left unnamed? That they had a horror of even numbers, hence the tendency for months with an odd number of days? That robed and bearded druids from the Celts stand behind our New Year's figure of Father Time? That if Thursday is Thor's day, then Friday belongs to his faithful wife, Freya, queen of the Norse gods? That the name Easter may derive from the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, Eostre, whose consort was a hare, our Easter bunny? Three streams of history created the Western calendar-from the East beginning with the Sumerians, from the Celtic and Germanic peoples in the North, and again from the East, this time from Palestine with the rise of Christianity. Michael Judge teases out the contributions of each stream to the shape of the calendar, to the days and holidays, and to associated lore. In them he finds glimpses of a way of seeing before the mechanical time of clocks, when the rhythms of man and woman matched those of earth and sky, and the sacred was born.

Bargain Book: Dark of the Moon by Tracy Barrett

Dark of the Moon by Tracy Barrett is bargain priced in both hardcover and ebook format. The ebook pricing appears to be based upon the hardcover so it will fluctuate according to the demand and inventory on the hardcover most likely. In other words, don't wait if this one interests you because it's not part of the monthly deals. The ebook went as low as $1.58 this week and has been edging up again to $2.00 this past hour. The hardcover is currently $2.11.

Book description:

Ariadne is destined to become a goddess of the moon. She leads a lonely life, filled with hours of rigorous training by stern priestesses. Her former friends no longer dare to look at her, much less speak to her. All that she has left are her mother and her beloved, misshapen brother Asterion, who must be held captive below the palace for his own safety.

So when a ship arrives one spring day, bearing a tribute of slaves from Athens, Ariadne sneaks out to meet it. These newcomers don’t know the ways of Krete; perhaps they won’t be afraid of a girl who will someday be a powerful goddess. And indeed she meets Theseus, the son of the king of Athens. Ariadne finds herself drawn to the newcomer, and soon they form a friendship—one that could perhaps become something more. Yet Theseus is doomed to die as an offering to the Minotaur, that monster beneath the palace—unless he can kill the beast first. And that "monster" is Ariadne’s brother . . .

I don't highlight many myth inspired novels here on SurLaLune although they certainly fit in the parameters of the site's purpose. Barrett is also a professor of Italian at Vanderbilt University and active in the Nashville area with the writing community, primarily children's and YA authors. This book is a fine entry into her body of work which has been crossed fantasy, historical and mystery genres. It's hard not to find inspiration for Greek mythology in Nashville with our very own Parthenon and Athena to visit.

The Mythic Fantasy of Robert Holdstock

 

The Mythic Fantasy of Robert Holdstock: Critical Essays on the Fiction (Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy) edited by Donald E. Morse and Kálmán Matolcsy is another one of the books that I received for review from McFarland Publishers.

  

And this is where I admit I have never read any of Holdstock's works. He's only been on the fringes of my awareness and after browsing through this collection of essays about his work, I am more interested in him than before.  Previously, he's been on my "interesting, perhaps someday" list. So in the end, that is the best recommendation I have for this book, it will spark your interest in Holdstock's worlds. He used myth and some fairy tale to inform his worlds.

Book description from the publisher:

Robert Holdstock was a prolific writer whose oeuvre included horror, fantasy, mystery and the novelization of films, often published under pseudonyms. These twelve critical essays explore Holdstock’s varied output by displaying his works against the backdrop of folk and fairy tales, dissecting their spatiotemporal order, and examining them as psychic fantasies of our unconscious life or as exempla of the sublime. The individual novels of the Mythago Wood sequence are explored, as is Holdstock’s early science fiction and the Merlin Codex series.

About the Editors
Donald E. Morse is a professor at the University of Debrecen, in Hungary, and is an emeritus professor at the University of Oakland in Michigan. He is the author of a dozen books and over 100 scholarly articles. Kalman Matolcsy is a translator, poet, composer, and a professor at the University of Debrecen. He has written numerous scholarly articles on the literature of horror, fantasy and science fiction. Donald E. Palumbo is a professor of English at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. He lives in Greenville. C.W. Sullivan III is Distinguished Professor of arts and sciences at East Carolina University and a full member of the Welsh Academy. He is the author of numerous books and the on-line journal Celtic Cultural Studies.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments xi
Foreword: Under the Spell of a Magician
BRIAN W. ALDISS 1
Introduction: Mythago Wood—“A Source of Visions and Adventure”
DONALD E. MORSE 3

Part One: Approaches
1. The Embodiment of Abstraction in the Mythago Novels
W. A. SENIOR 13
2. Masks in the Forest: The Dynamics of Surface and Depth in the Mythago Cycle
KÁLMÁN MATOLCSY 26
3. Exploring the Habitats of Myths: The Spatiotemporal Structure of Ryhope Wood
STEFAN EKMAN 46

Part Two: The Novels
4. Time Winds: Early Science Fiction
ANDY SAWYER 67
5. Profusion Sublime and the Fantastic: Mythago Wood MAREK OZIEWICZ 81
6. Tallis, the Feminine Presence in Mythago Wood: Lavondyss: Journey to an Unknown Region
ELIZABETH A. WHITTINGHAM 96
7. Embedded Narratives in Lavondyss and Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of DarknessVERA BENCZIK 114
8. Stories to Illuminate Truth and Lies to Hide Pain: Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn DONALD E. MORSE 129
9. “A Heap of Broken Images”—The Mythological Wasteland of the Mind: The Hollowing and Ancient Echoes
ILDIKÓ LIMPÁR 141
10. “So many names in so many tongues...”: Allusive Mythology in
Celtika C. W. SULLIVAN III 156
11. Thresholds, Polders, and Crosshatches in the Merlin Codex
TOM SHIPPEY 165

Robert Holdstock Bibliography 177
About the Contributors 183
Index 187

   

  

So do we have any Holdstock fans out in the SurLaLune readership?

Mythology for the Holidays (Or Anytime)

Encyclopedia Mythologica: Gods and Heroes Pop-Up by Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart (who we all know I love) was released earlier this year and I never posted about it here.  I finally bought a copy last month and now I have to share. 

Here's the book description:

For all of recorded history, humans have sought to understand Earth’s mysteries in the realm of the divine — and aspired to conduct themselves as heroes. Only gods, of course, could push the sun across the sky,forge entire continents, and impel mountains to touch the clouds. In this stunning volume, the incomparable team of Matthew Reinhart and Robert Sabuda take us to Ra-Atum’s land in Ancient Egypt; above the Grecian clouds to Zeus’s Mount Olympus; up to Norse god Odin’s frozen north; to the Far East, where the Jade Emperor sits in the heavens; into the wilds of Oceania, where Pele’s volcanic rage simmers below the earth; and to many more lands and times, all rich with sacred myths and legends.

Essentially this book offers two page spreads of various mythologies from around the world ranging from the Egyptian and Greek to the Norse, Chinese and Native American. The pop-ups are intricate and interesting as to be expected from Sabuda and Reinhart. A great book for anyone who loves mythology, especially children learning about it for the first time.  My niece was on her way to becoming a Greek mythology scholar earlier this year thanks to Percy Jackson and her own insatiable reading habits. A trip to Nashville's Parthenon was a grand success.

Of course, the all time best-selling and beloved mythology collection for young readers for decades has been D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths by Ingri d'Aulaire and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire.  If you are acquiring that one, you might as well add in their D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths, too.  I have to say that since I am a full quarter Norwegian and quite a bit Scandinavian in general. I wish someone had given either one of these books to me as a child. But if someone had, this might be a mythology blog instead of more fairy tale oriented.  All for the lack of a gift book to a precocious child reader, here we are today.  :)