I have nothing to add to this except I picked up a really cool hammock on Woot today and I look forward to lounging out in the back in my hammock with a cold brewskie and enjoying some of these works. I’m still working, albeit slowly, on the Conan books.
[quote]magick wrote:
Is Diomedes that other half-god fellow who just went about wrecking everyone in his path?
I do remember someone who gave Ares what Homer referred to as a minor flesh-wound or something, which had him running away like a pansy. I found it hilarious.
It’s been quite a while since I read The Iliad and I got lost in all the names. But, ya, The Iliad really does show how humanity hasn’t changed one bit in the thousands of years.
[/quote]
Possibly the guy you are referring to in that he crushed everyone on the battlefield, he was not a demi-god though. He was helped by Athena through most of the book though so that could be where you got the demi-god part.
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
Possibly the guy you are referring to in that he crushed everyone on the battlefield, he was not a demi-god though. He was helped by Athena through most of the book though so that could be where you got the demi-god part.
[/quote]
ooh, ok.
Ya, I should reread The Iliad at some point. I found it really entertaining.
It’s like a freaking comic book.
[quote]Yogi wrote:
Not really the same thing, but if you like fucked up sci fi, check out The Culture novels by Iain M Banks. Absolutely huge works of imagination. Indescribable really.
I’m mentioning it because it’s similar to the fiction you described in that it’s like a whole other universe with its own history and everything. Not sure if you could really say it’s a mythos but it’s not far off.[/quote]
x a lot.
Excession was the only one I never really got into. But these were pretty amazingly expansive works.
[quote]Yogi wrote:
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
[quote]Yogi wrote:
Not really the same thing, but if you like fucked up sci fi, check out The Culture novels by Iain M Banks. Absolutely huge works of imagination. Indescribable really.
I’m mentioning it because it’s similar to the fiction you described in that it’s like a whole other universe with its own history and everything. Not sure if you could really say it’s a mythos but it’s not far off.[/quote]
Hmmmm. I do like fucked up things. I’ll give it a look. Is it a dystopian work?[/quote]
No, I wouldn’t say so. It’s so hard to describe, you really just have to read it.
I would recommend reading Matter first (explains all about The Culture - even has a neat little glossary!), but my favourite so far has been Surface Detail. Utterly fucked up and totally engaging.
[/quote]
Surface Detail was excellent. It even felt like it had a proper ending. I actually felt satisfied at the end.
I think Use of Weapons is actually my favorite though.
[quote]magick wrote:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
Possibly the guy you are referring to in that he crushed everyone on the battlefield, he was not a demi-god though. He was helped by Athena through most of the book though so that could be where you got the demi-god part.
[/quote]
ooh, ok.
Ya, I should reread The Iliad at some point. I found it really entertaining.
It’s like a freaking comic book.[/quote]
I have long held the idea that if a graphic novelist hit a wall on original ideas, simply retelling the Iliad (along with the Aenid and the Odyssey), akin to Frank Miller’s 300.
[quote]magick wrote:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
Possibly the guy you are referring to in that he crushed everyone on the battlefield, he was not a demi-god though. He was helped by Athena through most of the book though so that could be where you got the demi-god part.
[/quote]
ooh, ok.
Ya, I should reread The Iliad at some point. I found it really entertaining.
It’s like a freaking comic book.[/quote]
At least half the book is about the gods and their interference. This is completely missing from the movie troy. I have 2 translations, one is old from the 1800 and is very difficult to read, it is a literal translation maintaining the iambic pentameter of a poem. Each line is about as much as a person could speak before taking a breath. As such it helps to read in that manner, pausing after each line.
The other translation I have is prose and, like stated, does read like a comic book. It is much more accessible to a modern audience.
I much much prefer the odyssey by fagles though. It is poetic, but has all the classic mythology and feels like jason and the argonauts.
These are my copies
[quote]nsimmons wrote:
[quote]magick wrote:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
Possibly the guy you are referring to in that he crushed everyone on the battlefield, he was not a demi-god though. He was helped by Athena through most of the book though so that could be where you got the demi-god part.
[/quote]
ooh, ok.
Ya, I should reread The Iliad at some point. I found it really entertaining.
It’s like a freaking comic book.[/quote]
At least half the book is about the gods and their interference. This is completely missing from the movie troy. I have 2 translations, one is old from the 1800 and is very difficult to read, it is a literal translation maintaining the iambic pentameter of a poem. Each line is about as much as a person could speak before taking a breath. As such it helps to read in that manner, pausing after each line.
The other translation I have is prose and, like stated, does read like a comic book. It is much more accessible to a modern audience.
I much much prefer the odyssey by fagles though. It is poetic, but has all the classic mythology and feels like jason and the argonauts.
These are my copies
[/quote]
Fagles’ is the only version of the Iliad I have ever read. Is there more modernized translation than that?
[quote]LoRez wrote:
[quote]Yogi wrote:
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
[quote]Yogi wrote:
Not really the same thing, but if you like fucked up sci fi, check out The Culture novels by Iain M Banks. Absolutely huge works of imagination. Indescribable really.
I’m mentioning it because it’s similar to the fiction you described in that it’s like a whole other universe with its own history and everything. Not sure if you could really say it’s a mythos but it’s not far off.[/quote]
Hmmmm. I do like fucked up things. I’ll give it a look. Is it a dystopian work?[/quote]
No, I wouldn’t say so. It’s so hard to describe, you really just have to read it.
I would recommend reading Matter first (explains all about The Culture - even has a neat little glossary!), but my favourite so far has been Surface Detail. Utterly fucked up and totally engaging.
[/quote]
Surface Detail was excellent. It even felt like it had a proper ending. I actually felt satisfied at the end.
I think Use of Weapons is actually my favorite though.[/quote]
Ooh good choice! Use of Weapons was brilliant.
I actually liked Excession, although I’ll admit it wasn’t the best I’d ever read. Didn’t make massive amounts of sense in parts, but some pretty interesting stuff going on in it.
You should read The Algebraist. It’s not a culture novel but it’s SO FUCKING GOOD
So much shit to read lol.
[quote]nsimmons wrote:
At least half the book is about the gods and their interference. This is completely missing from the movie troy. I have 2 translations, one is old from the 1800 and is very difficult to read, it is a literal translation maintaining the iambic pentameter of a poem. Each line is about as much as a person could speak before taking a breath. As such it helps to read in that manner, pausing after each line.
The other translation I have is prose and, like stated, does read like a comic book. It is much more accessible to a modern audience.
I much much prefer the odyssey by fagles though. It is poetic, but has all the classic mythology and feels like jason and the argonauts.
These are my copies
[/quote]
I don’t remember which translation I read. It was certainly more prose than poetry though.
But I know wasn’t Fagle’s though.
The 1001 Nights, the John Payne translation. It’s amusing where the religious scholars tacked stuff on too. Stuff like orgies intermingled with random "Praise Be to Allah"s.
For an interesting religious mythos, look into Zoroastrianism. One of the world’s first major religions and official religion of the Achaemenid Persian empire. The duality (in my interpretation) is Order and Chaos, rather than Good and Evil.
There’s also the Ancient Egyptian mythos. Takes some work to sort through that since it changed over time and there were numerous cults, but the book Egyptian Religion by E.A. Wallis Budge did a pretty good job tackling the subject. There were periods where things were very polytheistic, and periods where it was very monotheistic with either Osiris or Ra.
Some other books… stuff by Charles Stross:
- The Laundry novels are about a secret intelligence agency protecting the world from otherworldly Lovecraftian demons by the use of super advanced mathematics. It’s a very strange and entertaining mashup. I’ve seen them described in reviews as Dilbert meets James Bond meets Lovecraft. More comedic in tone.
from Amazon
-
Accelerando and Glasshouse were also very good in an entirely different way, as high-concept hard sci-fi. More serious in tone.
-
Halting State and Rule 34 explored a bunch of current/near-future social and cultural phenomena. Serious with some comedy thrown in, but everything’s told in 2nd person.
Halting State
And then it basically happened in real life… while he was still writing the book.
There’s also Gibson with the Neuromancer and Bridge trilogies.
And Neal Stephenson’s work. The Diamond Age was pretty fascinating.
From a GoodReads review:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
[quote]nsimmons wrote:
[quote]magick wrote:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
Possibly the guy you are referring to in that he crushed everyone on the battlefield, he was not a demi-god though. He was helped by Athena through most of the book though so that could be where you got the demi-god part.
[/quote]
ooh, ok.
Ya, I should reread The Iliad at some point. I found it really entertaining.
It’s like a freaking comic book.[/quote]
At least half the book is about the gods and their interference. This is completely missing from the movie troy. I have 2 translations, one is old from the 1800 and is very difficult to read, it is a literal translation maintaining the iambic pentameter of a poem. Each line is about as much as a person could speak before taking a breath. As such it helps to read in that manner, pausing after each line.
The other translation I have is prose and, like stated, does read like a comic book. It is much more accessible to a modern audience.
I much much prefer the odyssey by fagles though. It is poetic, but has all the classic mythology and feels like jason and the argonauts.
These are my copies
[/quote]
Fagles’ is the only version of the Iliad I have ever read. Is there more modernized translation than that?[/quote]
Looks like there’s a half dozen newer ones, fagles is 1990, but from what little I quickly read I prefer fagles. Some try to use archaic words mixed in with modern language.
I just dug out my other copy its butler from 1892, this translation purposely used words considered archaic in the 19th century to make the book feel older. So not only did I need to look up common used words from 2 centuries ago, that I didn’t know, I also had to look up words hundred of years older than that. Needless to say it was a slow read.
Oh yeah and butlers version uses the roman names for the gods which is confusing. I had to cross reference a lot of them.
I have this massive collection;
Which Ive been slowly, very slowly working through for the last few years. A lot of the translations are old and public domain and aren’t the best so it makes the texts hard to follow. I’m halfway through Dantes inferno, I can handle a few pages a day. A lot of re reading and internet to find out what is going on.
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
Also, Native American mythology and the varying mythologies that make up shapeshifter lore have always intrigued me. [/quote]
Yeah fucking skinwalkers lol. Seen quite a few interviews with people regarding them. Just one of those things I have an eagerness to explore.[/quote]
I’ve know-from-a-distance a few folks who were purported to be “in” that world, notably some fringe people from Ramah Navaho/Zuni Pueblo/Reservations.
They take it pretty seriously, and they gentlemen involved are 12s on my personal 1-10 creep out meter. For comparison, an Afghan hiding in a hole with an AK is about a 6.
Not so sure this is Mythology so much as Demonology.
Or just really screwed up (or desperate) individuals, often on drugs, who either like to do cruel things to each other, themselves, and others or in such a bad position they are willing to do those things for whatever reason.
Regardless, generally very bad news.
And no, this is not an Apache vs. Navajo/Zuni thing. (We tended to raid the shit out of them, historically.) It’s a “makes my skin crawl” thing.
[quote]LoRez wrote:
The 1001 Nights, the John Payne translation. It’s amusing where the religious scholars tacked stuff on too. Stuff like orgies intermingled with random "Praise Be to Allah"s.
For an interesting religious mythos, look into Zoroastrianism. One of the world’s first major religions and official religion of the Achaemenid Persian empire. The duality (in my interpretation) is Order and Chaos, rather than Good and Evil.
There’s also the Ancient Egyptian mythos. Takes some work to sort through that since it changed over time and there were numerous cults, but the book Egyptian Religion by E.A. Wallis Budge did a pretty good job tackling the subject. There were periods where things were very polytheistic, and periods where it was very monotheistic with either Osiris or Ra.
Some other books… stuff by Charles Stross:
- The Laundry novels are about a secret intelligence agency protecting the world from otherworldly Lovecraftian demons by the use of super advanced mathematics. It’s a very strange and entertaining mashup. I’ve seen them described in reviews as Dilbert meets James Bond meets Lovecraft. More comedic in tone.
from Amazon
-
Accelerando and Glasshouse were also very good in an entirely different way, as high-concept hard sci-fi. More serious in tone.
-
Halting State and Rule 34 explored a bunch of current/near-future social and cultural phenomena. Serious with some comedy thrown in, but everything’s told in 2nd person.
Halting State
And then it basically happened in real life… while he was still writing the book.
There’s also Gibson with the Neuromancer and Bridge trilogies.
And Neal Stephenson’s work. The Diamond Age was pretty fascinating.
From a GoodReads review:
you and I need to start a book club. We like pretty much exactly the same shit
One good Joseph Campbell books is a “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”. He studies mythic heroes across a bunch of different cultures and pulls out an underlying pattern: Hero's journey - Wikipedia
Haven’t read it in awhile.
Say what you want about the games(or specifically WoW), I am actually a pretty huge fan of the Warcraft mythos.
As far as non-fictional, count me in the Greek mythos category. Have the Illiad and Odyssey on my bookshelf.
[quote]nsimmons wrote:
… very difficult to read, it is a literal translation maintaining the iambic pentameter of a poem…
[/quote]
!
Well, no wonder!
Perhaps dactylic hexameter? with spondees, of course?
[quote]thethirdruffian wrote:
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
Also, Native American mythology and the varying mythologies that make up shapeshifter lore have always intrigued me. [/quote]
Yeah fucking skinwalkers lol. Seen quite a few interviews with people regarding them. Just one of those things I have an eagerness to explore.[/quote]
I’ve know-from-a-distance a few folks who were purported to be “in” that world, notably some fringe people from Ramah Navaho/Zuni Pueblo/Reservations.
They take it pretty seriously, and they gentlemen involved are 12s on my personal 1-10 creep out meter. For comparison, an Afghan hiding in a hole with an AK is about a 6.
Not so sure this is Mythology so much as Demonology.
Or just really screwed up (or desperate) individuals, often on drugs, who either like to do cruel things to each other, themselves, and others or in such a bad position they are willing to do those things for whatever reason.
Regardless, generally very bad news.
And no, this is not an Apache vs. Navajo/Zuni thing. (We tended to raid the shit out of them, historically.) It’s a “makes my skin crawl” thing.[/quote]
That’s kind of interesting. It does seem like the most interesting aspects of the skinwalkers in come from the Southwest and Central America. The Choctaw have some pretty interesting tales, the little dude that lives in the woods and throws rocks being my favorite but not much on shapeshifting.
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
[quote]thethirdruffian wrote:
[quote]spar4tee wrote:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
Also, Native American mythology and the varying mythologies that make up shapeshifter lore have always intrigued me. [/quote]
Yeah fucking skinwalkers lol. Seen quite a few interviews with people regarding them. Just one of those things I have an eagerness to explore.[/quote]
I’ve know-from-a-distance a few folks who were purported to be “in” that world, notably some fringe people from Ramah Navaho/Zuni Pueblo/Reservations.
They take it pretty seriously, and they gentlemen involved are 12s on my personal 1-10 creep out meter. For comparison, an Afghan hiding in a hole with an AK is about a 6.
Not so sure this is Mythology so much as Demonology.
Or just really screwed up (or desperate) individuals, often on drugs, who either like to do cruel things to each other, themselves, and others or in such a bad position they are willing to do those things for whatever reason.
Regardless, generally very bad news.
And no, this is not an Apache vs. Navajo/Zuni thing. (We tended to raid the shit out of them, historically.) It’s a “makes my skin crawl” thing.[/quote]
That’s kind of interesting. It does seem like the most interesting aspects of the skinwalkers in come from the Southwest and Central America. The Choctaw have some pretty interesting tales, the little dude that lives in the woods and throws rocks being my favorite but not much on shapeshifting.[/quote]
The entire Four Corners region is a huge hotspot. Anyone ever heard of Skinwalker Ranch?
Then of course there’s also Sasquatch/Genoskwa lore, which I can completely enthralled in. Both dated and current accounts.