Authors Electric

The Dioskouri or Sons of Zeus - Wiki Is the mortal or immortal who's checking his phone? Most people know that, in Greek and Roman Mythology, there were twin heroes -- or, demi-gods. Some of you might even be born under the sign of the Gemini, which was their Roman name. To the Greeks they were the 'Dioskouroi' or 'Sons of Zeus.' Today they are known mostly from the  zodiac sign, where they are usually shown as cute little babies. I’ve even seen them, on the horoscope page of a woman’s magazine, drawn as cute and smiley baby girls with pony-tails and pink ribbons... Ha! In myth, the Dioskouroi were Spartan warriors. In other words, well-hard. Forget the smiles and ribbons. The term 'laconic' refers to Lakonia, the region ruled by the city-state of Sparta.  Spartan youth were trained, famously, to endure hardship and to despise anything uselessly showy or emotional. Their ideal was to say, bluntly, only what was needed to be said. Anything more was wet, indu...

As we reach mid-Winter darkness, and the feast of the Unconquered Sun, a blog full of old pagan gods, death and resurrection... Green Man boss below crossing at Rochester Cathedral.( Akoliasnikoff ) There were three men came out of the West, Their fortune for to try, And they have taken a solemn oath, John Barleycorn must die. They've ploughed, they've sown, they've harrowed him in, Thrown clods upon his head, And these three men took a solemn vow, John Barleycorn was dead. They've let him lie for a very long time Till the rains from heaven did fall, Then little Sir John sprung up his head And sore amazed them all. They've let him stand till midsummer's day Till he looked both pale and wan, Then little Sir John's grown a long, long beard And so become a man. They've hired men with the scythes so sharp To cut him off at the knee They've rolled him and tied him by the waist, Served him most barbarously... They've hired men with the crab-tree sticks...

Announcement: The Sterkarm Handshake is on offer at $1-99 all day on the 24/06/18 at Early Bird Books. Since the US is some hours ahead of us, there might still be time to grab a copy. Meanwhile, on I go with the work of publishing my back-list. Elfgift and ElfKing by Susan Price ElfKing would have been out sooner if I could have tracked down a better image for the cover. I tried using another wikimedia image from the Sutton Hoo hoard... the famous 'man between wolves' from the purse-lid. The original is infilled with scarlet enamel and some think it represents the god Odin (who is a character in ElfKing.) Trouble was, the rounded shape of the jewel just didn't work with the rectangle of the cover. No matter how I enlarged it, or moved it or the lettering about, the rounded shape just looked wrong. Besides, my brother said the man 'had a silly face.' So I used another image, one taken from a helmet plate. The book contains a couple of characters...

     Ambrosi...saw the shape of a great and beautiful tree, winter-bare of leaves. It rose out of the empty dark with the pale, pale sheen of steel by moonlight, faintly outlined against the blackness and the stars.      The stars shone through its branches, like brilliant, unseasonable fruit... Other sounds, distant and eerie, crept to his ears. The stars, every one of the thousands of stars, as it spun in darkness, spun its own crystalline, icy, piercing note that... wove and interwove with the note of every other star. Cold, thrilling, calling harmony: poignant discord: the music of the spheres.           This is an extract from my book, Ghost Song. The World Tree         It's said that one of the questions most often asked of writers is, 'Where do you get your ideas from?' Well, I know exactly where this description of Yggdrasil, the World Tree, comes from. When I was ...