Persephone by Allison Shaw

Persephone

By Allison Shaw

Art by Allison Shaw

“In fact, I think you're the only one who ever took my feelings into consideration”

 Persephone page 135

This is an odd review, but it's been an odd year and the Almighty alone knows how odder still next year will be.  Allison Shaw is an American artist and writer whose work is mostly known from a pair of webcomics, Far to the North (farnorthcomic.com) and Tigress Queen (www.tigressqueen.com).  Earlier this year she launched a kickstarter to print her version of the Persephone myth in graphic novel form.  It succeeded wildly and your not-very-humble reviewer was one of the donors.  As it stands, there are no copies for sale but I am told it will be released on the Hiveworks website in the near future. As many of my readers will have likely guessed, I have a more than passing interest in mythology and knowing Ms. Shaw's work I was very interested to see what she would do with it.  Let me discuss the myth in question first, just in case I have the honor to be the first person to tell you this story.

Persephone was the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, the harvest, and fertility; and Zeus, king of the gods, lord of the sky and lightning, major pain in the ass, and despoiler of unsuspecting ladies (Read: Shapeshifting Rapist, Literal Golden-shower Enthusiast, Swan Aficionado etc).  Persephone was the goddess of spring and flowers.  One day while she was picking flowers, the earth split open and out came a terrifying black chariot with an invisible driver.  That was of course Hades, lord of the underworld and judge of the dead.  He grabbed Persephone! Then turned his chariot around and sped back under the dark earth which closed behind him with a crack of doom!  There in the land of the dead he wed Persephone, some say with the blessings of her father Zeus.  However Demeter was grieved that her only daughter was taken from her and refused to allow any crop to grow on Earth (Poor humans.  The gods engage in dickery and who do the other gods punish?  Humans who had nothing to do with it).  Compelled by the prayers and cries of the starving masses, Zeus relented and ordered that Persephone be returned to her mother.  However since she had eaten Pomegranate seeds while in captivity Persephone needed to spent one month in the underworld for each seed consumed.  Which surprisingly, happened to be the number of months that winter lasted!  So in the spring and summer Persephone dwells above with her mother bringing forth new growth but when harvest comes, she treks to the underworld where she spends the fall and winter with her husband.  

Well... That's the traditional myth anyways.  The thing about myths is that each generation looks at them from another angle because myths aren't dead things.  A real myth?  One with staying power? They're stories that are supposed to tell us a truth about ourselves and the world or give us a model for behavior to look up to and strive for.  Stories like that change over time as the behaviors society holds up as honorable change or as our understanding of ourselves and the world around us changes.  This isn't a modern idea either, the Greeks themselves were perfectly happy to modify their myths, as many of their plays took up scenes in the Iliad and rewrote them bringing in different character interpretations, changing the fates of minor characters and exploring the fates and feelings of background characters.  This of course means that the ancient Greeks not only invented fan fiction but took it further than most other cultures (excluding the Romans, who with the Aeneid made fan fiction one of their founding myths!).  So Ms. Shaw is joining a very old and storied company when she rewrites the myth to give us a different view of it.  

That viewpoint is that of the young goddess herself.  Persephone is a sheltered young woman in a lot of ways, which makes sense given the behavior of the gods around her.  After all, given that Zeus is in charge of the justice system here, how far would you let your daughter stray? (The chastity belt!  It does nothing!)  This is reinforced as the story opens with Persephone literally being dragged by Apollo to an archery contests with Eros, who some of you might know better as Cupid.   Persephone doesn't care for Apollo and certainly doesn't care for archery but Apollo has a cunning plan to fix this, he'll just have Eros shoot her with one of his desire inducing arrows and then when Persephone can't help herself, he'll... Well help himself (Insert Bill Cosby joke here).  Eros is indifferent to this whole plan but from what I can tell owes Apollo a favor or perhaps just has bad judgment (this is certainly supported by later events in the story).  This whole plan is thrown off the rails by two things: first Apollo decided to use a live dove as his target and Hades took offense to Apollo's rampant dickery.  So when Hades breaks up the party to give that young whelp Apollo a talking to?  He takes the arrow meant for Persephone and immediately declares that he is not going to be led around by his nethers by the magic of a mere arrow.  Persephone on the flip side takes an instant shine to Hades, not only does he scare off Apollo and force the god of light to listen to him but he also treats her with some politeness and actually listens to what she wants.  In fact Persephone decides she actually wants to be like Hades, because at least everyone respects him and isn't plotting to get into his robes.  Hades on the flip side is looking for a cure to his feelings of desire at any cost because he believes that Persephone couldn't possibly be interested in him and his attentions would only cause her trouble.  Meanwhile the two weave in and out of other mythical stories like the race of Atlanta or the fate of poor Daphne.  

This take on the two is new and interesting.  Now there have been plenty of modern setups where Persephone is all in favor of being kidnapped or has a thing for tall, dark, brooding older men who happen to be her uncle (look reader, they're ancient Greeks what do you want from me?).  This story is the first I've seen to present it from Persephone's point of view and show us why she might like Hades and his company.  This Persephone has goals, desires, and actually acts on them.  It's almost always an improvement on the story if you can take a character who’s mostly served as a passive plot device and turn them into a character who wants and does things.  Hades is also somewhat reinvented here. Where most popular media had a tendency to make him the bad guy (looking at you Disney and Clash of the Titans), here he's overworked, isolated, and grim but actually a pretty good guy.  He works where he can to bring just a little more justice into the world and tries to act as a restraining force on the other gods but is limited in what he can actually do.  He does this despite everyone fearing or hating him for the job he does.  It's to the point where when Persephone tries to make it clear that she's actually excited to see him, Hades can't believe she’s doing anything but mocking him, because no one is ever happy to see the Lord of the Underworld.  I gotta admit I felt for the guy at that point, imagine not even being able to consider someone might like seeing you.  I like this Hades, he's stern and a bit distant but at the same time he's fair and as considerate of the people around as he can be.  It's an interesting take and gives him more dignity than most.  

I enjoyed the story, although I do wish we had gotten a bit more of Persephone trying to be like Hades or even seen more of them together. I also would have liked to see more of the underworld and what Persephone did there. In the event that Ms. Shaw reads this review, forgive the suggestion but you could always do the myth of Theseus and Pirithous if you were interested in continuing the story of Hades and Persephone.   That said this book is a complete story in it's own right and makes for a nice romantic and modern retelling of an old myth.  The art is amazing as well using a background that evokes greek pottery with smooth, modern character designs.  I will note that this graphic novel is not for minors as there is a fair degree of nudity, sex and sexual overtones in the story.  Still if you like cheesecake or beefcake, then there will be something in this book for you.  I'm giving Persephone by Allison Shaw an A-.  I hope Ms. Shaw gives us more books in the future based on myth or her own orginal work.

That's it for this year folks, my editor Dr Allen (whose comments are in the red text) and I will be going on hiatus until January 20th.  Let me wish you a Happy Holiday and a Great New Year.  Until we return... Keep Reading!  

Under Heaven By Guy Gavriel Kay

Under Heaven

By Guy Gavriel Kay

“The Son of Heaven cannot be wrong”

Shen Tai page 317

Guy Gavriel Kay, born in 1954 in Saskatchewan Canada, is a writer who is not as well known as he should be in many ways. While understated he had a great influence on the fantasy genre. For example, when Christopher Tolkien (the son of JRR Tolkien) needed help editing his father's unfinished works, he selected Mr. Kay who at the time was studying philosophy at the University of Manitoba. While the Tolkiens were the writers of the work (Christopher Tolkien would put in a lot of work turning his father's unfinished work into something that could be read and understood), to declare that Mr. Kay had no influence on the work at all would be foolish. If that was all he did we could safely declare that he had influenced the genre, but he wasn't done yet. When he was finished with that task in 1975 he returned to his native Canada and completed a law degree at the University of Toronto, and was called to the bar of Ontario in 1981. He would restart his writing career by becoming the principle writer for the Canadian radio drama Scales of Justice. In 1984 his first novel The Summer Tree was released, with our current review Under Heaven being released in 2010 and he continues to this day. Mr. Kay has won acclaim in the field, being awarded the Prix Aurora Award in 1987, the White Pine award in 2007, the World Fantasy Award in 2008, the International Goliardos Award, the Sunburst award for the book we're reviewing here and in 2014 he was awarded the Order of Canada. Mr. Kay primarily likes to write in fantasy versions of historical times and places, not in the way many other writers do but by choosing specific times and events in history and focusing on those. This is something that a number of North American writers have done like Robert Howard, although what Mr. Kay does is a bit different and shows more devotion to scholarly research.

In this case Under Heaven is set in the 9th Dynasty of the Empire of Kitai, a fantastical version of the Tang dynasty empire of China, which in our world is regarded as a golden age for China in many ways. It is however, a sad truth of our world that golden ages end. Before this book began, there was a war fought between Kitai and the Empire of Tagur (Tibet sort of). The war ended in the battle of Kuala Nor, a massive battle in a mountain valley with a beautiful lake that claimed the lives of over 40,000 people. The battle was such a shock to both empires that peace was made and sealed by the marriage of the Tagur Emperor to a Kitai princess. Many years late the Kitai general who fought that battle died. In Kitai unless an active member of the government or the military, a man must withdraw from society for 2 and a half years to mourn and perform the required rituals. Our main character Shen Tai, the 2nd son of this general did more than that. He went to Kuala Nor, now a ghost haunted field of horror and story and dwelt there among the angry ghosts and regrets, finding the bones of the soldiers of both nations and burying them. This story spread across boundaries and borders until it reached the Princess sold to the foreign Emperor, who enjoined her husband to make a gift to Shen Tai. The Emperor does so, making a gift of 250 Sardian horses. Now, Kitai is rich in men, in learning, silk, rice, grain and gold; but it is poor in horses. Sardia on the other hand raises the greatest horses in the world, fast and graceful, tireless and strong. That many Sardian horses is not just enough wealth to make a man a billionaire by our standards but to gives him the ability to create a fearsome military force that can shift the balance of power across the Empire. Shen Tai, a man who had a short and somewhat odd military career and studied in the capital but never passed the examinations needed to hold civil office is now thrust into the center of the intrigues of the Kitai empire. Because there are people who will kill him to get at those horses, people who will kill him to keep anyone else from getting those horses and people who simply want to kill him but can't because of those horses. Meanwhile Shen Tai has his own concerns because he learns as he returns to civilization that his little sister Shen Li-Mei has been adopted into the imperial family, declared an official princess of the empire and given in marriage to the heir of the throne of nomadic empire to the north. To make matters worse, the man who might have masterminded it is his elder brother Shen Liu. Who is now the principal advisor to the First Minister of the Empire, Wen Zhou. To throw even more trouble onto the scales, before Shen Tai left to the margins of the world, Wen Zhou was a rival for the affections of a woman, a courtesan who used the name Spring Rain. He does have allies however; a Kanlin warrior (mystical warrior elites who work for hire) named Wei Song, hired by Spring Rain to protect him at all costs. The famed drunken poet, Sima Zian called the banished immortal and friends from beyond the bounds of the empire that he never meet but who work to protect him and his family nonetheless.

With a grudge against his brother and an unresolved feud with the man running the most powerful empire in the world Shen Tai rides into the very heart of their power in the capital. He is protected by the fact that the horses can only be delivered to him and he needs to be alive for that to happen. He is also protected by the fact that the Empire is on a knife's edge and his horses could make the difference one way or another.  Shen Tai is not the only person that First Minister Wen Zhou has decided to have a feud with. In recent decades the rulers of the Empire felt it was safer to select barbarian generals to lead their armies and guard their borders (This is never never a good idea!). One such general is Roshan, also called An Li, who now leads three armies in the North East and governs a trio of districts. He is militarily speaking the single most powerful man in the empire, feared and hated by First Minister Wen Zhou. In turn Roshan believes First Minister Wen Zhou to be a threat to himself and his sons. Before the belief was that barbarians could not gather enough support to overthrow Emperors. For decades this has held true but now the Emperor is old. The Emperor is old, distracted, and besotted with a new young consort; a young woman who was supposed to be married to one of the Emperor's many sons. But once the Emperor laid his eyes on her... well, he felt he could always find his son another wife. So a young woman named Wen Jian, young enough to be the Emperor's granddaughter, finds herself having to balance the empire, because the First Minister Wen Zhou is her cousin and An Li is a friend and favorite of hers. If she can keep them in balance and prevent them from trying to openly kill each other, she can keep the Empire together. Because she is a woman, she cannot do so openly but must constantly work behind the scenes, influencing men, whispering to the Emperor and making everything look like she's a silly young girl to keep the court from deciding to get rid of her because she's a woman who is getting above her place. She can do that however and she can keep doing it as long as needed. As long as no one upsets that balance of power. As long as no one does anything stupid out of fear of that balance being upset.

Mr. Kay presents us a world of wealth and privilege, soaked in luxury and wine. A world wrapped in ritual and outlined in poetry. Through his story we are shown a fantasy version of a golden age and we are shown how it all ends. These events, while not shoved to the side, are not the focus of the book however, instead the focus remains on a family drama and a personal feud between two men that frankly could be called tawdry if it took place under any other circumstances. The action is fairly understated in this book, while there are battles and sword fights the primary work is on the intrigue, character conflict,  internal character motivations, drives, and the forces that limit them. For example Spring Rain, who once worked as a courtesan and is now a concubine to Wen Zhou is limited because of her gender and her station but still acts as much as she can, often risking her life to achieve her goals. Wen Jian, whose station is more exalted in some ways is even more limited in what she can do than Spring Rain and for both of them the limits placed on their gender force them to constantly work through others and use indirect means in what I can only imagine to be a maddening way to work. The men in this book are also limited. Shen Tai is limited by the rituals of the court and the intricate laws that govern his society. Laws that say that he cannot even declare what was done to his sister an injustice or openly express his rage that his sister has been exiled to live in savagery by her own brother without a so much as a by your leave because to do so would be rebellion against the Emperor and the Heavens itself. It's that observed limitation that led me to chose the quote that starts this review, because frankly if someone could have challenged the Emperor on his behavior, I can't help but think much of this could have been avoided. I suppose one of the lessons we should take away from this novel and the Tang dynasty it is based on is that you should never deify someone while they're still around to enjoy their godhood. Because there's nothing more dangerous than a person who decides that everyone around them is right and they are a god on earth.

I'll be honest and admit that intrigue and heavy dramas aren't usually my cup of tea but this book held my interest as if I was caught in a steel trap. Shen Tai is protagonist that you can identify with pretty easily and he has goals you can't help but be sympathetic to: get his sister back, resolve his feuds with his brother and Wen Zhou, and don't die. You can also feel for his allies as they are often exasperated by his stubborn insistence on provoking the powerful and not admitting to the danger he is often in. What's interesting is that our antagonists, while not likable, are understandable and at times sympathetic as well. I can fully understand what drives Wen Zhou against the Barbarian general An Li, or why that general feels increasingly threatened and pushed against the wall. Some of the characters may come off as short sighted or foolish but they don't come off as cackling villains which makes the story feel more realistic even if you can clearly point at some of them and say “This person is in the wrong here.” Because of this I give Under Heaven By Guy Gavriel Kay an A. Give it a peek and I think you'll find a book you'll enjoy.

Next week we end the year with Persephone by Allison Shaw.  Keep Reading!

This review edited by Dr. Ben Allen.

Log Horizon VIII: The Larks Take Flight By: Mamare Touno

Log Horizon VIII: The Larks Take Flight

By: Mamare Touno

“We really should live gallantly”

Roe2 page 215

Alright folks, this is eighth review of Log Horizon I've done. If you don't know the concept behind the series, just take a look at my prior reviews because I've gone over it repeatedly (insert link to Log Horizon I here). So this time let me just catch us up on the plot. In the last two books Akatsuki and Shiroe had to deal with separate problems that while small were dangerous in what they could grow into. Akatsuki did so by confronting a man possessed by a cursed sword that him into a super-powered serial killer. Shiroe lead a raid into the most terrifying dungeon he'd ever seen to prevent the ownership of zones (basically sections of land where ownership would be enforced by the laws of physics) from ever becoming a problem. In this story, we focus on the Jr. team of Log Horizon, the kids who joined the Guild; Touya, Minori, Isuzu, Rundelhaus and Serara. None of these kids are old enough to drink but due to the laws of the world they are trapped in, they are all adventurers and thus immortal killing machines able to do feats beyond the abilities and prayers of mortal men and women. In this story they take their first solo trip without the direct supervision of their elders, doing a road trip to gather the materials to make magic bags (which requires that they kill wyverns, which is basically a small dragon without the intelligence or ability to breath fire), which also turns into a bit of a musical tour and well... and a small war.  So to startwith, let me talk about the other side in that small war.

Plant Hwyaden is a group of rival adventures who found very different answers to the problems of being trapped in the world of Elder Tales. Where Shiroe created an alliance of guilds and fostered cooperation, the leaders of Plant Hwyaden forced every adventurer to join a single guild which would then serve as the government of the starting city of Minami. They quickly proved to be expansionist and took over the starting city of Nakasu. They cemented their own alliance with a People of the Land (also called Landers) nation, the Holy Empire Westelande who claims to be rightful ruler of all Yamato. With Plant Hwyaden providing new magical technologies and combat abilities the Empire's leaders are looking to expand right into the lands of Akiba and it's allied Lander state. In this book we see the first opening moves of this plan which has consequences such as the military forces of the Empire cause a monster migration into settled lands. We also meet a disturbing faction of adventurers, the Odyssea knights, a group of adventures who have figured out how to make roving resurrection points that they carry with them as portable shrines. The Odyssea Knights trek across the world of Elder Tales seeking to fight and die as often as possible because they believe that if they die enough, they can go home. This is disturbing given the fact that in Elder Tales every time an adventurer dies they lose a piece of their memories. That said, neither of these factions are the focus here so let's look at our main characters.

The twins Touya and Minori are mostly supporting characters in this book although they both get development and moments where they get to be focus. More of that goes to Touya who before being trapped in an MMO was wheelchair bound due to a terrible car accident. Before the accident he had been a very active boy who loved playing soccer. Afterward he stopped watching his friends play because showing up made them all feel guilty that they could still walk and he couldn't. This led to some complicated feelings on his part and granted him some insight into how people hide their suffering, which comes up when they run into Dariella, a wandering travel writer who falls in with the group. Minori on the other hand is more involved with the other person they meet, the confusing and mysterious Roe2. Roe2 is an adventurer that doesn't seem to be from Japan and from time to time speaks about very strange things. Minori takes it upon herself to figure out just who the hell Roe2 is and where she comes from. Serara doesn't get as much attention but time is taken to show how much she has grown since her first appearance as basically a damsel in distress.

The real heart of this story however is Isuzu and her evolving relationship with Rundelhaus Code.  Isuzu sees herself as a plain country high school girl who loves music but doesn't have the talent to actually pursue it as a career. This low estimation of herself is fed by her father, a professional musician who couldn't make it into super stardom but was able to make a decent living. Her father would brag about his glory days to his little girl and undercut her own efforts by telling her that she didn't have the talent he did. To be fair to the man, it is heavily implied that he was trying (badly) to tell his daughter not to worry so much about such things. His exact words were “If you have to ask if you have the talent to make it, then you don't.” Leaving aside whether it's a good idea to brag to your teenage daughter about all the hot girls you dated when you were younger, if I squint I can see what her father was getting at. Having said that, the consequences of her father's bungled attempts at teaching a life lesson leave Isuzu with the belief that she can't be a real musician and it's up to Rudy to try and convince her that she has skill and talent. Because Isuzu is a bard, but beyond that she is a young woman with not only a major love of music but the kind of musical training that is just impossible for the natives of the world to get and it's her understanding of that and her reaction that might just change the world.

This was a fun story with good amount of interpersonal drama and the reactions of children who are growing into adults walking into great events that they could never have been prepared for. There's a bit of stage prepping for the next major story arc happening here but it's all done in support of the ongoing story so I don't feel like I'm merely spinning my wheels (Like in Volume V). That said, Mr. Touno keeps shying away from showing major events whenever he can.  The entire development of Plant Hwyaden occurred off screen for example and they're only now really starting to show up in the story itself; and he stubbornly refuses to actually address the questions raised by this. There are also philosophical discussions that occur in the book that aren't brought to satisfying answers partly because I'm not sure Mr. Touno has satisfying answers to give. Bringing up these questions as a part of the plot and then leaving them hanging leaves me rather cold. You don't have to hand down a definitive answer but you should at least have one character give an answer instead of chewing on whether or not an answer can be given. Log Horizon 8: The Larks Take Flight by Mamare Touno gets a B- because of that. It's still a fun story and there are worse things to read.

Next week, we take a look at Guy Gavriel Kay's book Under Heaven. Keep reading!

This review edited by Dr. Ben Allen.