From the interviews I've read and heard with Zachary Mason, he's irresistible. A child Computer Science prodigy who bounced around Silicon Valley start ups with a lyrical, experimental novel brewing all the while? Sign me up. I love those polymathic types.

The book doesn't disappoint, as long as you go in with an open mind. It's a long series of imaginative snapshots of the Odyssey, most from wildly unorthodox perspectives. What makes Odysseus so different from his other heroic peers is that he gets by with cunning as often as strength and valor. This idea leads Mason to paths where the Odyssey is just PR from Odysseus the Bard. Or that he tricked Agamemnon into going to Troy or into quitting the war.

Connections between the gods and mortals are shuffled, and unexpected narrators share their experiences. Despite the vast combinatorial possibilities, the book is not as scattered as you'd guess. The smooth prose unites the text and contributes to its claim as being "a novel" rather than a selection of short stories, which it is closer to.

One story details Odysseus returning to Troy and finding it flush with impersonators and cheap souvenirs. It isn't a subtle statement about the commercialization of heroism but no one ever stands up for commercialization.

Comparisons to Calvino and Borges are the most obvious and apt. Imagination and ideas trump narrative, though Mason's sense of narrative may be more effective than those other two. He does have the benefit of working with well known characters.

According to interviews, he claims he's working on a similar project based on the Metamorphoses. I bet that will be gold.