Benita Kane Jaro's novels are admired for their intense focus on the personal experience of historical events, and on the literature in which the participants expressed it. Her novels and translations have been featured in many academic journals, books, and papers, and cited on popular internet sites, Wikipedia, National Public Radio, major American newspapers, and lists of the best novels on Roman history in the US and abroad.
An amazing book, a completely original book, about a world emerging from the gorgeous dreams of mythology into the light of history. This "autobiography" of the mythological creator of mazes and artifacts, the father of technology, and the first human (with his son Icarus) to fly, Daedalus speaks to us across the millenia in his own voice, through the man uniquely qualified to bring it to us. Michael Ayrton was an English sculptor is the mid 20th century. He studied the techniques of his great predecessor and duplicated for the first time many of his feats, thought to be impossible. This book is a meditation on the themes of creation, innovation, and the dangerous and exalting contact of human beings with the Divine.
I address you across more than three thousand years, you who live at the conjunction of the Fish and the Water-carrier, speaks Daedalus, an artisan, inventor, and designer born into an utterly alien family of heroes who value acts of war above all else, a world where his fellow Greeks seem driven only to destroy-an existence he feels compelled to escape. In this fictional autobiography of the father of Icarus, "Apollo's creature," a brilliant but flawed man, writer and sculptor Michael Ayrton harnesses the tales of the past to mold a myth for our times. We learn of Daedalus's increasingly…
My mother was a student who divorced when I was very small. Lacking resources, we moved frequently, rarely staying anywhere for more than a few months. It has left me with an abiding sympathy for stories of outsiders trying to figure out what exactly they did to be relegated to the other side of the glass, peering in. This is why when I decided to write about werewolves, I made them wolves first and humans only very secondarily. Because my sympathy is always with the monsters.
Five thousand years after leaving the labyrinth, the Minotaur has traded in a diet of virgins for a job as a cook at a North Carolina joint called Grub’s Rib, a casually cannibalistic reference that gives a sense of Sherrill’s dark humor. His life is punctuated by problems that are both conventional (he lives in a trailer park and pines for one of Grub’s waitresses) and un- (his horns are awkward in the tight confines of kitchen and trailer, his tongue makes speech difficult, his penmanship is disastrous). What makes the Minotaur so appealing is that unlike the mortals around him who really have no excuse for cynicism, “M” clings desperately to possibility. “Even in the most tedious unending life there comes, occasionally, hope. One simply has to wait and be ready.”
Five thousand years out of the labyrinth, the Minotaur finds himself in the American South, living in a trailer park and working as a line cook at a steakhouse. No longer a devourer of human flesh, the Minotaur is a socially inept, lonely creature with very human needs. But over a two-week period, as his life dissolves into chaos, this broken and alienated immortal awakens to the possibility for happiness and to the capacity for love.
Steven Sherrill is a graduate of UNC Charlotte and holds an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. The recipient of a NEA…
I write about aloneness and individuals, what it takes to connect to family and community, and how to hang on to the people we hold dear. This means I think a lot about points of view and personal perception. We often wonder: Have I got this right? Did they get my meaning? Does everybody feel this? And more often than not, everybody does. These interpretations are both personal and universal at the same time. We all fear loss; we all have to be brave to hold onto people we love and principles we value.
This book is about being brave. You know when a problem grows into a huge scary monster,right? It’s got you cornered and you don't think you'll ever get out alive, but with the rightattitude, you can. Our hero Phoenix is braver than his years, but in some ways he’s moregrown-up than his dad. In this retelling of the ancient Greek story of the minotaur, who crushesmortals and eats them for breakfast, we step into a monstrous virtual world created byPhoenix’s dad. I wanted to run, but most of all I wanted to stay and see what happened next.Will the minotaur eat Phoenix alive? I related to Phoenix trying to survive and trying to work outhis issues with his dad, because every one of us has to face the same difficult world and becourageous about it.
'Real life' or the death defying adventures of the Greek myths, with their heroes and monsters, daring deeds and narrow escapes - which would you choose?
For Phoenix it's easy. He hates his new home and the new school where he is bullied. He's embarrassed by his computer geek dad. But when he logs on to The Legendeer, the game his dad is working on, he can be a hero. He is Theseus fighting the terrifying Minotaur, or Perseus battling with snake-haired Medusa. It feels as though he's really there ? The Legendeer is more than just a game. Play…
I grew up with a serious passion for mythology and fairy tales. By the time I reached college, I knew that would be my path in life: honoring the Old Deities, honoring the earth, and writing new myths and fairy tales. To that end, I have published numerous short stories, novellas, and poems (the majority with a Pagan focus), serve on the board of directors of a Pagan publisher and a Pagan non-profit organization, and edit a Pagan literary ezine.
Chastain’s Terra Haven Chronicles currently stands at three books, with Deadlines and Dryads as the first. This is an exciting, feel-good urban fantasy series set in an alternate United States. Here, everyone practices some form of elemental magic (environmental destruction is almost unheard of and completely anathema), and humans live peacefully (mostly) alongside gargoyles, minotaurs, centaurs, dryads, and other species. I love the optimism of Chastain’s books. The world is grim enough. When I need a pick-me-up, Chastain is often my go-to read.
Getting the scoop might cost Kylie and her gargoyle companion their lives...
Dryads are a reclusive, passive species—or they used to be. Overnight, the peaceful woodland creatures have turned violent, attacking travelers with crude weapons and whipping the trees of their grove into a ferocious frenzy.
When rumors of the dryads’ bizarre behavior reaches journalist Kylie Grayson, she pounces on the story, determined to unearth the reason behind the dryads’ hostile transformation. Accompanied by Quinn, her young gargoyle friend, Kylie plunges into the heart of the malevolent grove. But nothing she’s learned prepares her for the terrifying conflict she uncovers...…
“Big Butt.” That’s all you need to know about me. It was the first song I wrote and recorded on a dusty cassette tape in 1986. I was 10 years old and an obsessive Prince fan. On the back of his records, he wrote some variation of “written, recorded, produced and performed by Prince.” Those words empowered me to be an artist. More specifically, here’s what I wrote as a 10-year-old: “When I grow up, I want to be a rock star like Prince.” Five years later, I started writing poetry, and all of the poems I wrote felt like songs. Music is the fuel for all that I create.
I’ve always loved mysterious musicians. Musicians who seem otherwordly. Musicians who make magic in the studio and take you to magical places.
I used to never want to know the process behind that magic. But as I get older, I’ve enjoyed learning about the human behind the magician.
Thom Yorke is a wizard. I’ve been a fan since 1993, so it’s fascinating to take a look at some of his process in the Kid A Mnesia book. It’s gorgeous. Weird. And yes… magical.
Stanley Donwood’s art is fantastic, and is just as important as the music. I heard the albums differently after flipping through these pages.
Whilst these records were being conceived, rehearsed, recorded and produced, Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood made hundreds of images. These ranged from obsessive, insomniac scrawls in biro to six-foot-square painted canvases, from scissors-and-glue collages to immense digital landscapes. They utilised every medium they could find, from sticks and knives to the emerging digital technologies.
The work chronicles their obsessions at the time: minotaurs, genocide, maps, globalisation, monsters, pylons, dams, volcanoes, locusts, lightning, helicopters, Hiroshima, show homes and ring roads. What emerges is a deeply strange portrait of the years at the commencement of this century. A time that seems an…
I’ve been a Pratchett fan since I first read The Colour of Magic in 1986. I was nine and suddenly obsessed. When he died, I cried; when I found out he left me – us – one last gift, I cried again. The best satire doesn’t just make you laugh through the tears and cry with laughter; it makes you think. Over the decades, Pratchett perfected this art. Nobody can replace him, although many authors, including myself, try to follow. Searching for them between the rock and the trying-too-hard place, sometimes I find diamonds. May they shine as brightly in your eyes as they do in mine.
Only a real genius of a bard could give justice to the heroes who saved the village city of Skendrick from Dragonia the Dragon. Due to a sudden shortage of geniuses Heloise the Bard, who’s never met a run-on sentence she didn’t like, tells you (mostly) all about herself the battles, the riddles, Heloise, the magic, pooping in swamps, Heloise, the flatulent minotaur… oh yes, the dragon! Almost forgot. And if there’s one thing she knows, it’s that facts will ruin the truth every. Single. Time.
Black’s ‘Friday’ is a song so infinitely horrible it creates a space-inverting portal that makes it an eternal classic. So is this book. Read it with your eyes closed. In hiding. With mushroom powder at hand.
The #1 humorous fantasy bestseller! Sure, you think you know the story of the fearsome red dragon, Dragonia. How it terrorized the village of Skendrick until a brave band of heroes answered the noble villagers' call for aid. How nothing could stop those courageous souls from facing down the dragon. How they emerged victorious and laden with treasure.
But, even in a world filled with epic adventures and tales of derring-do, where dragons, goblins, and unlicensed prestidigitators run amok, legendary heroes don't always know what they're doing. Sometimes they're clueless. Sometimes beleaguered townsfolk are more hapless than helpless. And orcs?…
I’m an author, but first and foremost I’m a reader. I’ve been voracious about it my entire life, but it wasn’t until just a few years back that I discovered the romance genre—which sucked me in immediately. After a few books I stumbled onto Ruby Dixon and it was over. Syfy and fantasy romance had their hooks in me. These recs are the books I re-read and the authors I follow because they are consistent in telling captivating stories, with rich worlds, and vibrant characters. Book hang-over guaranteed.
The intro to the world Naomi created really grabbed me. This idea of a misty, ever-expanding labyrinth…so cool! It’s one of those times that the setting in a story is so exciting and vivid that it’s almost an entire character in and of itself. Then there are all the characters we encounter along the journey. Hello centaurs… It’s a labyrinth you’ll definitely want to get lost in.
Aldora lived in a bordertown on the edge of the maze. A labyrinth that spanned an eternity filled with creatures that howled through the night. She was a daughter to farmers that worked the fields and endured a quiet life as a peasant, away from the capital and its nihilistic celebrations; away from all that would look at her and discern her worth. Because to be chosen as a sacrifice was to be chosen to die. Until one night, while at the labyrinth wall, she heard a husky voice in the darkness.
Vedikus Bathyr. He prowled the overgrown passages at…
I am an artist and mathematical neuroscientist. I’ve spent my life cracking some of reality’s greatest mysteries, including consciousness, self-consciousness, language, music, suffering, pain, anesthesia, compassionate love, extraterrestrial communication, and autism.
To fathom the mystery of consciousness, one needs to be ready to violate the entrenched convictions of conventional mindscience and let your mind roam freely over more inventive and limber perspectives.
Such as the literary inventions of Jorge Borges. His short stories/essays (it’s never really clear which category is more appropriate) are all wildly creative and astute models of sentience. I learned more about consciousness from “The Library of Babel,” “Tlön," Uqbar, Orbis Tertius,” and “The Lottery of Babylon” than I did from any neuroscience text.
All of Borges' dazzling fictions have been freshly translated and gathered for the first time into a single volume - from his 1935 debut with The Universal History of Iniquity, through the immensely influential collections Ficciones and the The Aleph, to his final and never before translated work from the 1980s, Shakespeare's Memory.
This was my
first monster romance book. I’m not typically into monster romance, but I was on
the ARC team for this particular author, and when I was sent this book, I
figured, why not?
Long story short, I was not sorry for my choice. This was such a good book.
Luna made the characters so relatable, and it didn’t feel any
different than your typical romance book to the point where I found myself
forgetting that the main male character was a Minotaur.
I’ve been reading/gaming and writing fantasy for over 40 years. My interest in the genre began with mythology, then spread into the now countless branches of the Tolkien tree. Along with the great quests and magic items, I was always enchanted by the non-human characters populating these magical worlds. Not just the elves, dwarves, and dragons, but the intelligent animals and mythological creatures like pegasi, minotaurs, treants, big cats, snakes, apes, eagles, gargoyles – the list is endless. Some were good, some misunderstood, and some were evil incarnate, but almost always, I found their stories the most intriguing. As a result, their stories will be a big part of my new series, The Tamm Chronicles.
When you’re in the mood for pure adventure-driven fantasy with a noble, troubled hero beleaguered on all sides, this is the one to pick up. Going back to when I first read about Theseus in grammar school and all the way through my Dungeons & Dragons years, I have always thought that minotaurs were cool and full of untapped potential. Herein lies the tale that proves I was right. It will evolve your feeling about minotaurs from mindless beasts in the labyrinth to courageous knights of quality and mettle. Don’t worry about the massive scope of the Dragon Lance Chronicles, this one can be read on its own.
The fourth in a series of recovers of classic Dragonlance novel tales.
This attractive new re-release of Kaz the Minotaur showcases a new look for the Heroes series. The title character was introduced by the author in The Legend of Huma, the first novel in this series. Each title in the series will reflect the new series design and feature entirely new cover art.
