Olympic Fiction

Can’t get enough winter sports?

I can.

Here’s a few alternatives to Olympic fever: Olympian fiction!

Greek-turned-Quebecer Tess Fragoulis wrote Ariadne’s Dream, the story of a Canadian woman returning to her ancestral home in Greece…with manipulative gods and a drug-riddled lover.

Fred Saberhagen’s 5-part series, Book of the Gods, combines a coming-of-age tale with a sci-fi setting and the return of the classical gods for a fantasy-kicker.

Ilium by Dan Simmons is a space-faring mind-messing mystery. There are beings living on Olympus Mons on the planet Mars; they may or may not be aliens, post-humans, or deities. But they are definitely reenacting the Trojan War. Alternate Earths. Time meddling. A resurrected 20th century classics professor. Strange.

Shannon McKelden’s Venus Envy pits a goddess-of-love against a jaded pessimist and her skeptical best-friend, and the demands of Zeus himself. What happens when the romance-incarnate is plunked into chick lit?

Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips shows the classic Greek gods and goddesses in their 21st century guises: dysfunctional, lewd, bitter, and hilarious.

Finally, check out the Myths series. Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad focuses on Penelope, Odysseus’ estranged wife. Jeanette Winterson’s Weight compares the freedom of Hercules with the condemned life of Atlas. Viktor Pelevin’s Helmet of Horror places the Minotaur in a chat room, the myth itself in a modern dialog. And Micheal Faber’s The Fire Gospel combines the myth of Prometheus with main stream dogma.