The Joy of Erudition > Recent Status Updates

Now that I've finished The Sundered Realm, the alternative book I'll be reading alongside The Iliad will be a collection of Henry Kuttner stories that has no entry on Goodreads. Annoying that it won't count as a book read for 2020, and that my activity here will seem diminished, but my reading challenge is in no rush, so it doesn't matter in that regard. I'll just post my progress as a general update.

😐

This work unfortunately reminds me of Clarke's similar notion of "dialogue" being characters making long, uninterrupted speeches at each other.

Evil, nasty villains here!

I think the main interest in this book is the glimpse it gives us of the beliefs of the ancient Greeks at that time, some of their social customs and obligations, and what they considered right and wrong.

This is a very ambitious fantasy book, with massive, planet-scale events in its history, and the highly visible effects of the existence of powerful magic-wielding rulers on its societies.

This feels like a kind of "greatest hits", but one where the author expects you to already know certain stories and characters, while having other characters give summaries of their exploits from other tales in monologues. "Relax, Mom, and don't fight with Dad!" says Hephaestus. "Remember when I argued with him that one time, and he picked me up and threw me, and it was a whole day before I landed?"

Interesting how it first shows men insulting and provoking each other, with cooler heads trying to calm them down, then shows the exact same thing happening amongst the gods of Olympus.

The characters seem to be assuming a little too much about how the immortality amulet works, far beyond how Erimenes described it. And they also seem to be ignoring something potentially important that he said it does to its users.

What the hell was that ending? All that buildup for a rushed summary like that?