What do you think?
Rate this book
Second Olympus
The war amongst the Greek gods lasted over three decades and when it was ended, the sun was snuffed from the sky, Artemis sat on the throne, and the muses were murdered.
Without the power to create or invent, the human race languished for generations, trapped within the walled city of Elysia, their lives governed by the steady tick of the great world clock and the watchful eye of their increasingly erratic goddess.
But in the lower wards, far from the shining beacon that is Olympus Tower, a crippled boy named Geoff has grown to manhood, unaware of the legacy contained in his own mysterious bloodline. When his loved ones are threatened, the world will finally wake under the power of the muse, and the insane goddess Artemis will remember the very dangerous power of human imagination.
Without the power to create or invent, the human race languished for generations, trapped within the walled city of Elysia, their lives governed by the steady tick of the great world clock and the watchful eye of their increasingly erratic goddess.
But in the lower wards, far from the shining beacon that is Olympus Tower, a crippled boy named Geoff has grown to manhood, unaware of the legacy contained in his own mysterious bloodline. When his loved ones are threatened, the world will finally wake under the power of the muse, and the insane goddess Artemis will remember the very dangerous power of human imagination.
300 pages, Paperback
First published April 10, 2015
57 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 23, 2015
K.A. Stewart's Second Olympus is a simply beautiful book. She has taken the ancient god of Greece and brought them back to life.
Artemis has gone insane. Her deeds of the past are haunting her and making her unstable.
Geoff, a disabled young man, is at odds with her and his life. Soon, though, his life may well be in danger.
Being a huge fan of Stewart's Jesse James Dawson series, this is a much different book. But, I promise you, it is not to be missed.
Artemis has gone insane. Her deeds of the past are haunting her and making her unstable.
Geoff, a disabled young man, is at odds with her and his life. Soon, though, his life may well be in danger.
Being a huge fan of Stewart's Jesse James Dawson series, this is a much different book. But, I promise you, it is not to be missed.
July 15, 2025
Second Olympus
K. A. Stewart
2015 - Pirate Ninja Press
Full disclosure, with this book, the author is one of my dear college friends. I have a name drop in the acknowledgements. I’ve read several versions of this between the first, tentative Word Document to this published version. I am just a little biased. That said, I will endeavor to be as critical of a reader as I would one of my favorite students’ papers - I may like you a lot, but I won’t hesitate to give you an F if I have to.
In this steampunk-style exploration of an apocalyptic Greek mythological world, the gods have died. Well, most of them have, killed in a civil war long ago. The victor was Artemis, now the Queen of the Gods, and ruler over Elysia, the city that she built in the ruins afterwards, where humanity toils under the false light of a mechanical sun, living in close, ramshackle neighborhoods, packed tightly between the factory that provides their necessities, and the wall that keeps out the deep, shrouded darkness beyond. Their lives are closed, small, and desperate, as they try to live on the refuse of their broken world, breathing in the polluted air that traps them. The only light of hope they have is in each other. Not even art, or story, or imagination exists in this bleak hellscape. All the muses, like the other gods, died long ago. Just as the death of Apollo meant there is no more sun, the death of the Μοῦσαι has killed all inspiration.
But in one little crumbling corner of Elysia, Geoffroi dares to dream. A simple young man, born with broken knees and abandoned at birth, he has created a community for himself with the neighbors and friends of his home, and dreams of one day being with the love of his life, Lia, a talented painter. Their happy, if not idyllic, life is shattered one day when the goddess, Artemis, sends guards to take Lia away. Artemis had gotten wind of the truly unique and inspired nature of Lia’s paintings, and now suspects there is a muse alive somewhere, somehow. Afraid that a living muse will inspire the people to turn away from her rule, Artemis has her right-hand, Heracles, search for this muse to kill them. But Heracles has been played by the gods again and again, and had his entire life ruined by them, especially by Artemis. He is a man looking for redemption and an end. Who knows what he and everyone else in Elysia will find once they are dared to be allowed to hope…to dream…to be inspired.
Second Olympus is a story about hope and the power of inspiration. This is hardly a new theme in literature, but what sets this one apart is not that a hero is being inspired by someone else, but rather, it is the muse themself who is the hero. By shifting the perspective away from the big, burly classic hero types in the story - Heracles and Jon - and towards the unassuming Geoff, we come to see just how important those who inspire us are. Geoff is disabled, born with broken knees, and he cannot be the amazing fighter or noble warrior that typically fills our pages. But he can inspire them, and he can motivate them, and that is just as dangerous as anyone carrying a sword.
Artemis, too, proves to be an interesting antagonist, not because she is a mad queen, but because of why she is a mad queen. I will say I am not always the biggest fan of the “mad queen” trope - I dislike the idea that if a woman rules and has power, she must be a bitch, a puppet, or insane - but the reasons for Artemis’ insanity are complex. Her war against the gods, I think, had some understandable reasons behind it, but the lengths to which she went to win have scarred her in ways she doesn’t even understand. Far from being mad in the classic sense, she is instead traumatized and wounded by the very weapon she used to win. It brings to mind Oppenheimer and Chernobyl, both projects wrestling with the effects and morality of using something like nuclear energy. Artemis is a victim of her desire to tear down the unjust power structures that came before, only to recreate those power structures and ultimately fall victim to them.
Stewart's reimagining of the Greek gods in this steampunk world is clever, thought out carefully, and presented in interesting ways. Who knew that a Fury of Hades would have tender feelings for a child and want to be thought of as a mother? Pan, running around like a pimped out partyer, is a stroke of genius. He both irritates Geoff, but also is the one who pushes him along, just when he needs it, all with his madcap energy. My favorites were Persephone and Demeter, the goddess of spring and the goddess of the harvest. Demeter, noble of heart, agrees to subject herself to Artemis to help keep humans alive - even if she doesn’t like any of what is happening - and has turned herself into a living vertical farm, aided by strange, and oddly cute, drones who help her tend her crops. As long as her daughter is safe, she abides and keeps growing crops for humanity. Artemis knows she cannot touch Demeter. But Demeter only abides as long as Persephone is safe. Artemis won't hurt Persephone, as much as she would like to, but she does keep Persephone under her thumb, because she knows that somewhere out there is Hades, God of the Underworld, longing for his wife. Artemis fears the greatest of the gods left alive, and this status quo keeps the world safe for the moment. But it is slipping fast, and it is interesting to see how these three play a part in changing everything, even at the cost of their status as deities.
I am a chicken when it comes to scary movies, I admit this, and I don’t think I’ve willingly ever watched a David Cronenberg movie because of it. Stewart has always been far less squeamish on the body horror than I have, and it does not surprise me that she employs it here, to delightfully terrifying effect. The stories of the Greek gods are full of transformations between forms - Ovid’s Metamorphosis is full of such tales of body shifting - and I don’t think I ever gave the matter much thought until Stewart delved into the horrors of what such a change to a human person would be like. It’s eerie, awful, and scary, and gives me both a new respect for the Greek gods and a new, pained sympathy for all the stories of maidens turned into trees, cows, and stones in the ancient Greek tales.
As terrifying and dark as Elysia is, it is meticulously well-crafted. I can picture this city, clinging to survival, constructed out of the remnants of the old world and cobbled together out of the desperate needs of the people who populate it. It is a strange cross between Victorian Era London and early twentieth-century New York, tenement housing built up on a bubble of land, hallowed out and rotten as the ground has been plundered for the minerals necessary to create this false vision of security. You know, as a reader, that at any moment it is all going to pop, but you also don’t have any easy answers for what they could do about it. This sets up the quiet desperation of the people, simply trying to live in a doomed city ruled over by an indifferent goddess. Elysia conveys the desperate, decaying despair that Geoff brings hope and light to.
I have read a few different versions of this story, and so I know pieces of things that changed or were modified over time. One area that did change, but perhaps not for the better, was the reason why Artemis goes to war with the gods. We piece together the truth through various flashbacks and musings, both by other gods like Hades and Heracles, but also in the broken fragments of memory that Artemis recalls. She is, of course, an unreliable narrator, and the story itself is not fully explained beyond a “scoundrel’s bet.” The best I could assume was that it all started with a seduction egged on by some dude-bro banter, the truth of this getting out, and Artemis, now no longer a virgin, angrily lashes out at her father’s unsympathetic and patriarchal court. This is not made clear in the text, however, and so this is partially conjecture from my recollection of earlier drafts and my book club. This doesn’t account for Artemis’ madness, which is due to something else, and this too is not made clear in the text, but rather in her discussion of the weapon she created. This ambiguity and confusion undercut Artemis’ story and set her up for falling hard into the mad queen trope, which does her no favors.
Unlike Stewart’s Jesse James Dawson series (which is amazing, go check it out), Second Olympus was self-published, and at times it shows. While I will always trust Stewart to edit anything I write (I am not saying I will hit her up for advice on my dissertation, but I might just), there are several areas in the copy of the Kindle version I read that needed another pair of eyes on it. I have heard from others that the print version is the same. Most are minor errors or spots where a comma is needed. Grading papers has made me painfully aware of those things at the moment, when normally I’d overlook them, and while they are not deal breakers for me, it did take me out of the story every time I noticed them.
Second Olympus is an inventive take on the tales of Greek mythology, which places the gods and goddesses we thought we knew in a new light. It wrestles with patriarchy, the consuming nature of power, and the heroism of hope, all the while building up an eerily beautiful world in Elysia. As a hero, Geoff may be unlikely, but he is the one you keep cheering for, and while others may get the glory as leaders or warriors, it is all thanks to the hope and promise instilled in us by the Geoffs of the world. In times such as these, I hope we have more of them. We certainly need them!
K. A. Stewart
2015 - Pirate Ninja Press
Full disclosure, with this book, the author is one of my dear college friends. I have a name drop in the acknowledgements. I’ve read several versions of this between the first, tentative Word Document to this published version. I am just a little biased. That said, I will endeavor to be as critical of a reader as I would one of my favorite students’ papers - I may like you a lot, but I won’t hesitate to give you an F if I have to.
In this steampunk-style exploration of an apocalyptic Greek mythological world, the gods have died. Well, most of them have, killed in a civil war long ago. The victor was Artemis, now the Queen of the Gods, and ruler over Elysia, the city that she built in the ruins afterwards, where humanity toils under the false light of a mechanical sun, living in close, ramshackle neighborhoods, packed tightly between the factory that provides their necessities, and the wall that keeps out the deep, shrouded darkness beyond. Their lives are closed, small, and desperate, as they try to live on the refuse of their broken world, breathing in the polluted air that traps them. The only light of hope they have is in each other. Not even art, or story, or imagination exists in this bleak hellscape. All the muses, like the other gods, died long ago. Just as the death of Apollo meant there is no more sun, the death of the Μοῦσαι has killed all inspiration.
But in one little crumbling corner of Elysia, Geoffroi dares to dream. A simple young man, born with broken knees and abandoned at birth, he has created a community for himself with the neighbors and friends of his home, and dreams of one day being with the love of his life, Lia, a talented painter. Their happy, if not idyllic, life is shattered one day when the goddess, Artemis, sends guards to take Lia away. Artemis had gotten wind of the truly unique and inspired nature of Lia’s paintings, and now suspects there is a muse alive somewhere, somehow. Afraid that a living muse will inspire the people to turn away from her rule, Artemis has her right-hand, Heracles, search for this muse to kill them. But Heracles has been played by the gods again and again, and had his entire life ruined by them, especially by Artemis. He is a man looking for redemption and an end. Who knows what he and everyone else in Elysia will find once they are dared to be allowed to hope…to dream…to be inspired.
Second Olympus is a story about hope and the power of inspiration. This is hardly a new theme in literature, but what sets this one apart is not that a hero is being inspired by someone else, but rather, it is the muse themself who is the hero. By shifting the perspective away from the big, burly classic hero types in the story - Heracles and Jon - and towards the unassuming Geoff, we come to see just how important those who inspire us are. Geoff is disabled, born with broken knees, and he cannot be the amazing fighter or noble warrior that typically fills our pages. But he can inspire them, and he can motivate them, and that is just as dangerous as anyone carrying a sword.
Artemis, too, proves to be an interesting antagonist, not because she is a mad queen, but because of why she is a mad queen. I will say I am not always the biggest fan of the “mad queen” trope - I dislike the idea that if a woman rules and has power, she must be a bitch, a puppet, or insane - but the reasons for Artemis’ insanity are complex. Her war against the gods, I think, had some understandable reasons behind it, but the lengths to which she went to win have scarred her in ways she doesn’t even understand. Far from being mad in the classic sense, she is instead traumatized and wounded by the very weapon she used to win. It brings to mind Oppenheimer and Chernobyl, both projects wrestling with the effects and morality of using something like nuclear energy. Artemis is a victim of her desire to tear down the unjust power structures that came before, only to recreate those power structures and ultimately fall victim to them.
Stewart's reimagining of the Greek gods in this steampunk world is clever, thought out carefully, and presented in interesting ways. Who knew that a Fury of Hades would have tender feelings for a child and want to be thought of as a mother? Pan, running around like a pimped out partyer, is a stroke of genius. He both irritates Geoff, but also is the one who pushes him along, just when he needs it, all with his madcap energy. My favorites were Persephone and Demeter, the goddess of spring and the goddess of the harvest. Demeter, noble of heart, agrees to subject herself to Artemis to help keep humans alive - even if she doesn’t like any of what is happening - and has turned herself into a living vertical farm, aided by strange, and oddly cute, drones who help her tend her crops. As long as her daughter is safe, she abides and keeps growing crops for humanity. Artemis knows she cannot touch Demeter. But Demeter only abides as long as Persephone is safe. Artemis won't hurt Persephone, as much as she would like to, but she does keep Persephone under her thumb, because she knows that somewhere out there is Hades, God of the Underworld, longing for his wife. Artemis fears the greatest of the gods left alive, and this status quo keeps the world safe for the moment. But it is slipping fast, and it is interesting to see how these three play a part in changing everything, even at the cost of their status as deities.
I am a chicken when it comes to scary movies, I admit this, and I don’t think I’ve willingly ever watched a David Cronenberg movie because of it. Stewart has always been far less squeamish on the body horror than I have, and it does not surprise me that she employs it here, to delightfully terrifying effect. The stories of the Greek gods are full of transformations between forms - Ovid’s Metamorphosis is full of such tales of body shifting - and I don’t think I ever gave the matter much thought until Stewart delved into the horrors of what such a change to a human person would be like. It’s eerie, awful, and scary, and gives me both a new respect for the Greek gods and a new, pained sympathy for all the stories of maidens turned into trees, cows, and stones in the ancient Greek tales.
As terrifying and dark as Elysia is, it is meticulously well-crafted. I can picture this city, clinging to survival, constructed out of the remnants of the old world and cobbled together out of the desperate needs of the people who populate it. It is a strange cross between Victorian Era London and early twentieth-century New York, tenement housing built up on a bubble of land, hallowed out and rotten as the ground has been plundered for the minerals necessary to create this false vision of security. You know, as a reader, that at any moment it is all going to pop, but you also don’t have any easy answers for what they could do about it. This sets up the quiet desperation of the people, simply trying to live in a doomed city ruled over by an indifferent goddess. Elysia conveys the desperate, decaying despair that Geoff brings hope and light to.
I have read a few different versions of this story, and so I know pieces of things that changed or were modified over time. One area that did change, but perhaps not for the better, was the reason why Artemis goes to war with the gods. We piece together the truth through various flashbacks and musings, both by other gods like Hades and Heracles, but also in the broken fragments of memory that Artemis recalls. She is, of course, an unreliable narrator, and the story itself is not fully explained beyond a “scoundrel’s bet.” The best I could assume was that it all started with a seduction egged on by some dude-bro banter, the truth of this getting out, and Artemis, now no longer a virgin, angrily lashes out at her father’s unsympathetic and patriarchal court. This is not made clear in the text, however, and so this is partially conjecture from my recollection of earlier drafts and my book club. This doesn’t account for Artemis’ madness, which is due to something else, and this too is not made clear in the text, but rather in her discussion of the weapon she created. This ambiguity and confusion undercut Artemis’ story and set her up for falling hard into the mad queen trope, which does her no favors.
Unlike Stewart’s Jesse James Dawson series (which is amazing, go check it out), Second Olympus was self-published, and at times it shows. While I will always trust Stewart to edit anything I write (I am not saying I will hit her up for advice on my dissertation, but I might just), there are several areas in the copy of the Kindle version I read that needed another pair of eyes on it. I have heard from others that the print version is the same. Most are minor errors or spots where a comma is needed. Grading papers has made me painfully aware of those things at the moment, when normally I’d overlook them, and while they are not deal breakers for me, it did take me out of the story every time I noticed them.
Second Olympus is an inventive take on the tales of Greek mythology, which places the gods and goddesses we thought we knew in a new light. It wrestles with patriarchy, the consuming nature of power, and the heroism of hope, all the while building up an eerily beautiful world in Elysia. As a hero, Geoff may be unlikely, but he is the one you keep cheering for, and while others may get the glory as leaders or warriors, it is all thanks to the hope and promise instilled in us by the Geoffs of the world. In times such as these, I hope we have more of them. We certainly need them!
May 26, 2015
As a former Latin major and general "Dead Language Geek" I really loved K.A. Stewart's take on Greek mythology with a dash of steampunk thrown in. SECOND OLYMPUS is a fresh take on mythology that sometimes can become stale and cliched, but this book is anything but.
Alongside complex and diverse characters that made this novel just a ton of fun to read, the world building really was what made SECOND OLYMPUS stand out. As a fan of Stewart's Jesse James Dawson series, I have to say that this book is definitely very different, but that just shows the writer's great range and originality.
I highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for "something different" on their reading list.
Alongside complex and diverse characters that made this novel just a ton of fun to read, the world building really was what made SECOND OLYMPUS stand out. As a fan of Stewart's Jesse James Dawson series, I have to say that this book is definitely very different, but that just shows the writer's great range and originality.
I highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for "something different" on their reading list.
May 26, 2015
A great book to read under the covers late into the night!
Stewart does her thing again: she's created gods and humans and even gigantic dogs that are as real and compelling as anyone you meet in real life.
Gods and monsters abound, and sometimes it's hard to tell which is which. That's the brilliant part. Okay, that's one brilliant part.
Second Olympus is stuffed with details you can reach out and touch and people you root for from their first lines on the page.
Oh, and that final battle. So. Much. Coolness! Heroics! Drama! Action! Hairsbreadth escapes!
I read this into the night for three nights in a row. Worth it every night.
Stewart does her thing again: she's created gods and humans and even gigantic dogs that are as real and compelling as anyone you meet in real life.
Gods and monsters abound, and sometimes it's hard to tell which is which. That's the brilliant part. Okay, that's one brilliant part.
Second Olympus is stuffed with details you can reach out and touch and people you root for from their first lines on the page.
Oh, and that final battle. So. Much. Coolness! Heroics! Drama! Action! Hairsbreadth escapes!
I read this into the night for three nights in a row. Worth it every night.
April 21, 2015
I loved this book! It felt like a breath of fresh air among the sometimes stale mix of Greek gods-themed storylines.
In case you haven’t guessed from the cover, SECOND OLYMPUS has steampunk overtones, and that’s part of what makes it great. K.A. Stewart opts to mash up Greek mythology with air ships and the gas-light street-born grittiness of a WWI-esque era.
As a result of Apollo dying in the long-ago war between the gods, the world has been left without a sun, so all light comes from Artemis’ tower and the lamps flickering in the streets. Stewart does an excellent job conveying the consequences of living for centuries within a crowded, walled city with no natural light: deep mining projects that cause the very ground to become unstable, tenement housing built and rebuilt on top of itself year after year, the challenge of growing and cultivating enough food for people.
I quickly found myself steeped in the world. It’s a haunting take on our own industrial revolution and shows a world on the brink without veering into the stereotypes of true dystopian territory.
The book also shines in Stewart’s portrayal of the gods themselves, mainly Artemis (we’ll get back to her in a moment), Persephone, Demeter, Hades and Hephaestus. Yes, these characters are still gods, but they are gods brought to their KNEES in a way that flips our old assumptions of power on their heads and gives even the most powerful very human-seeming flaws, vulnerabilities, and redeeming qualities.
The story is driven largely by two pairs of characters.
On the mortal side, we have Geoff and Lia, who have grown up together in the dirty wards of Elysia and have managed to steal a good bit of happiness from rather terrible circumstances. I loved the normalness and everyday love of their relationship!
Geoff has been crippled from birth by bad knees, not that he ever lets it stop him (he navigates mine tunnels and freehand climbs a rope to an airship), and he’s been gifted with a unique power to influence those around him as a muse. Most often, I’ve seen the muses used as a convenient nudge for a heroic MC. Stewart takes a broader approach that captures the true power of inspiration and imagination inherent in the muses. I really liked that switch.
Geoff is an unassuming and very grounded MC, which is a brilliant contrast to his antagonist in Artemis. He carefully guards his power, understanding full well the level of influence and control he could have over others should he so choose.
On the more-than-mortal side of the board, we have Artemis and Heracles. I loved these two! There is so much dark backstory hinted at here…it’s incredibly compelling. Let’s tackle them one at a time.
Artemis might take the prize for most intriguing and well-crafted crazy villainess of the year. Stewart expertly gives us revealing glimpses of the once great, noble and innocent huntress, while also making it painfully clear that by the book’s opening the virgin goddess has fallen to near-total insanity. Artemis is clever, strong…and lives in complete fear (and occasional regret) of what she’s done in the past and of losing what she’s wrought for the future. I alternated between wanting her to die a drawn-out painful death and wanting to see her redeem herself because she’s just so darn fun to read.
Heracles, then, is the perfect foil for Artemis. We learn that the former hero teamed with Artemis for good reason at the war’s beginnings, but over the millennia he’s become aware that he’s now playing bodyguard for the evil side. His reactions and actions in light of that realization drive the heart of the plot. Stewart’s Heracles is neither the plucky hero nor the annoying too-perfect rival—roles all too commonly assigned to him in other tales. Instead, he’s more remorseful, jaded. A man searching for a way to earn redemption while keeping his word, and that makes him altogether FAR more interesting.
One other aspect worth mentioning is Stewart’s clever interpretation of Artemis’ “hunt.” The hunt is another Greek element that’s been done in several ways. For SECOND OLYMPUS, Stewart puts a paranormal twist on the goddess’ ability to create and manipulate the hounds of her hunt, formerly men in their own rights. It’s eerie and telling, and strikes the perfect tone for this epic Greek tale.
Needless to say, I enjoyed this one immensely!
In case you haven’t guessed from the cover, SECOND OLYMPUS has steampunk overtones, and that’s part of what makes it great. K.A. Stewart opts to mash up Greek mythology with air ships and the gas-light street-born grittiness of a WWI-esque era.
As a result of Apollo dying in the long-ago war between the gods, the world has been left without a sun, so all light comes from Artemis’ tower and the lamps flickering in the streets. Stewart does an excellent job conveying the consequences of living for centuries within a crowded, walled city with no natural light: deep mining projects that cause the very ground to become unstable, tenement housing built and rebuilt on top of itself year after year, the challenge of growing and cultivating enough food for people.
I quickly found myself steeped in the world. It’s a haunting take on our own industrial revolution and shows a world on the brink without veering into the stereotypes of true dystopian territory.
The book also shines in Stewart’s portrayal of the gods themselves, mainly Artemis (we’ll get back to her in a moment), Persephone, Demeter, Hades and Hephaestus. Yes, these characters are still gods, but they are gods brought to their KNEES in a way that flips our old assumptions of power on their heads and gives even the most powerful very human-seeming flaws, vulnerabilities, and redeeming qualities.
The story is driven largely by two pairs of characters.
On the mortal side, we have Geoff and Lia, who have grown up together in the dirty wards of Elysia and have managed to steal a good bit of happiness from rather terrible circumstances. I loved the normalness and everyday love of their relationship!
Geoff has been crippled from birth by bad knees, not that he ever lets it stop him (he navigates mine tunnels and freehand climbs a rope to an airship), and he’s been gifted with a unique power to influence those around him as a muse. Most often, I’ve seen the muses used as a convenient nudge for a heroic MC. Stewart takes a broader approach that captures the true power of inspiration and imagination inherent in the muses. I really liked that switch.
Geoff is an unassuming and very grounded MC, which is a brilliant contrast to his antagonist in Artemis. He carefully guards his power, understanding full well the level of influence and control he could have over others should he so choose.
On the more-than-mortal side of the board, we have Artemis and Heracles. I loved these two! There is so much dark backstory hinted at here…it’s incredibly compelling. Let’s tackle them one at a time.
Artemis might take the prize for most intriguing and well-crafted crazy villainess of the year. Stewart expertly gives us revealing glimpses of the once great, noble and innocent huntress, while also making it painfully clear that by the book’s opening the virgin goddess has fallen to near-total insanity. Artemis is clever, strong…and lives in complete fear (and occasional regret) of what she’s done in the past and of losing what she’s wrought for the future. I alternated between wanting her to die a drawn-out painful death and wanting to see her redeem herself because she’s just so darn fun to read.
Heracles, then, is the perfect foil for Artemis. We learn that the former hero teamed with Artemis for good reason at the war’s beginnings, but over the millennia he’s become aware that he’s now playing bodyguard for the evil side. His reactions and actions in light of that realization drive the heart of the plot. Stewart’s Heracles is neither the plucky hero nor the annoying too-perfect rival—roles all too commonly assigned to him in other tales. Instead, he’s more remorseful, jaded. A man searching for a way to earn redemption while keeping his word, and that makes him altogether FAR more interesting.
One other aspect worth mentioning is Stewart’s clever interpretation of Artemis’ “hunt.” The hunt is another Greek element that’s been done in several ways. For SECOND OLYMPUS, Stewart puts a paranormal twist on the goddess’ ability to create and manipulate the hounds of her hunt, formerly men in their own rights. It’s eerie and telling, and strikes the perfect tone for this epic Greek tale.
Needless to say, I enjoyed this one immensely!
May 14, 2015
I'm a bit torn about this one especially since I really enjoyed the author's other books.
Pluses: Great world-building. A war between the gods caused the fall of the original Olympus. Artemis (who is frankly crazy) rules Second Olympus, a walled off section of the Elysian fields, with a steampunkish World Pillar and clock. The remaining humans toil in the Dark (because Apollo's dead so no sun) in poverty and work in the Factory. The disabled hero, Geoffroi, is also quite likeable.
Minuses: As superpowers go, being a muse sucks. Geoff can inspire others to create and innovate, but does little of it himself. Also the plot felt very villain-driven, with Geoff mostly reacting or being dragged along by others, until close to the end.
Pluses: Great world-building. A war between the gods caused the fall of the original Olympus. Artemis (who is frankly crazy) rules Second Olympus, a walled off section of the Elysian fields, with a steampunkish World Pillar and clock. The remaining humans toil in the Dark (because Apollo's dead so no sun) in poverty and work in the Factory. The disabled hero, Geoffroi, is also quite likeable.
Minuses: As superpowers go, being a muse sucks. Geoff can inspire others to create and innovate, but does little of it himself. Also the plot felt very villain-driven, with Geoff mostly reacting or being dragged along by others, until close to the end.
April 30, 2015
An absolutely excellent story. Loved it from start to finish (Greek gods and steampunk, how could I not?). The setting was fantastic and beautifully described, the characters interesting and well rounded, the adventure gritty and dangerous. An incredible amount of creativity and thought went into this piece. Definite recommend to all fantasy/steampunk/mythology lovers. This book should not be missed.
April 25, 2015
Classic story
A totally different take on the Greek pantheon. There was war that went for thirty years between factions of the gods, until Artemis discovered how to kill a god. This story is millennia later. After all hope and all free thought was dead and forgotten. A story of rebirth and the human spirit.
A totally different take on the Greek pantheon. There was war that went for thirty years between factions of the gods, until Artemis discovered how to kill a god. This story is millennia later. After all hope and all free thought was dead and forgotten. A story of rebirth and the human spirit.
February 26, 2016
loved it!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews