2025/049: The Hymn to Dionysus — Natasha Pulley

2025/049: The Hymn to Dionysus — Natasha Pulley

I’d never prayed for anything to any god: I made sacrifices in the way I paid taxes. Gods are like queens. You pay what you owe and in return they don’t notice you. [loc. 992]

Phaidros is about thirty years old, a veteran of the Trojan War, and a Theban knight. He's mourning his commander Helios, whose twin sister Agave is the Queen of Thebes: he's haunted by memories, and convinced that he's been cursed -- by a lost prince, or by a blue-eyed boy who might have been a god. And then a star crashes down into the parade ground, and Phaidros sees footsteps in the molten glass of its crater.

This is a very different novel to the current plethora of myths retold. ( Read more... )