Gender Swapped Greek Myths

by Karrie Fransman

'Thought-provoking and charmingly rendered.'Guardian
Imagine a world where seductive male sirens lure brave heroines to their death, where Icara and her mother fly too close to the sun, and where beautiful men are forced to wed underworld queens...
For thousands of years, Greek myths have been told and retold. In these stories, brutality and bravery are reserved for men, while women are wicked witches or helpless maidens. Today, these myths continue to shape our ideas about justice, tragedy and what makes a hero's journey. Karrie and Jonathan love these stories, and have found a way to breathe new life into them by making one crucial change...
Following the incredible success of Gender Swapped Fairy Tales they have taken that same simple step. They haven't rewritten the stories in this book. They haven't reimagined the endings, or reinvented characters. What they have done is switch all the genders.
You'll be enchanted by the refreshing world this swap creates - and thunderstruck by the new characters you're about to discover.

Genres: Mythology, Short Stories, Greek Mythology, Retellings, Audiobook, Feminism, Fiction

212 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 30, 2022

Reviews

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fantastic concept let down in execution.

The authors reveal in the foreword that the ‘gender-swapped’ component of this collection is achieved via an algorithm that literally swaps feminine and masculine pronouns featured in already existing works that they fed into a computer: he for she, her for him; as well as queendom for kingdom etc
The use of an algorithm to do this became glaringly obvious as the stories went on and felt, frankly, quite lazy. Now if it had been done by hand with choices made by the author perhaps the writing would’ve read a lot more authentic. As it stands it’s just ok. And a little awkward in places.

Couple of stars for the interesting illustrations though there definitely could’ve been more of them.

[Jennie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Het is heel interressant om te zien wat dit boek met je doet na 6 jaar klassieke talen. Alles dat gek is voelt normaal en alles dat normaal is is gek

[Rowie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love the premise of this book, but am not sure about the way it was written. This book has been written by an AI programme that merely changed the names of the characters from Greek myths retold by authors. While I loved some of the stories I would have liked the idea of the authors slaving away at this book for hours on end.

[Chrysa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really thought they were going to do something with these myths but nah, they just changed the pronouns and warped the names around and called it a day.

[Valters Borovskis · Rating 1 out of 5]

Apparently gender and sex is just a myth... Wokism at it's finest.

[Amelia · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.2)
Gotta love a book with pictures. Honestly this has a lot of Greek myths in it and I kinda would have preffered less myths and diving deep into them rather than loads broadly covered. Not bad tho, read in almost one sitting but definitely one day

[Anna Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

These stories are the most common myths that most people know with the gender switched.

[Ez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Catfished by beautiful art.
Instead of lovely gender swapped rewrites, this is AI pumped out crap. You find out in the first couple of pages that they've taken other authors' retellings and pumped it through AI to swap the gendered words.
The 2* is purely for the beautiful artwork on the cover and throughout.

[Olivia Heggie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was really cool seeing how ridiculous the stories were when it was boys being excluded, or getting blamed for things. I think it’s a really cool idea for a book.

[Sam Robinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good in premise just struggled as the read alot of Greek myths growing up would be good if you hadn't read the originals

[Caitlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

AI generated gender swap, with names, pronouns, and titles switched. The stories are otherwise unaltered, so they'll be familiar if you've read them before.
Fast read, with lots of illustrations.

[Laura Young · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting concept that never quite gells. Ends up feeling too formulaic.

[whatbooknext · Rating 3 out of 5]

These stories thousands of years old have stood the test of time, and with their age old themes of loss, love and sacrifice, still impact our lives and new stories written today.

Many writers have rewritten the Greek Myths, changing styles, endings and more, but this author/illustrator team decided to take many of the Classic Greek Myths we know and love, and many that aren't so well known and change just one thing. Genders.

Jonathon Plackett had written an algorithm many years before that would automatically change woman to man, boy to girl, he to she and so on in a text. Using it on Fairytales first in the Gender Swapped Fairytales (2020), this talented duo decided to give several Greek Myths the same treatment.

Of course names had to be changed, but since many Greek names have both male and female versions, this was not too hard to adjust for. Where not they made sure it was still a valid change in keeping with the myths themselves.

The result is a collection of stories where the woman isn't sitting around waiting to be rescued, or waiting for years for her beloved to return, or pliably taking whatever fate is dished out for her by the men around her.

They give a refreshing perspective where the men are industrious, hard working, loving fathers and husbands, and not just ordering their woman into arranged marriages, banishing unwanted children or waving their swords about with muscled chests and giant egos.

The art work is well researched, using patterns and styles from actual Greek arts on pottery etc, providing a stunning backdrop to the stories.

Which story or version is your favourite?

Age - 10+

[Bethany · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED THIS BOOK AND THINK IT SHOULD BE READ TO CHILDREN EVERYWHERE! As someone who loved Greek Mythology but hates the sexism and portrayal of women, this was amazing!
I loved having the Gods all swapped and reading about lustful evil women and soft docile men. It was so fun to have stories literally flipped on their heads as the hero became a heroine and it felt like a beautiful window into a matriarchal alternate reality.
It was also really thought-provoking like the authors as that start said it would be. You'd read a sentence like "there was a very beautiful and admired..." and your brain would fill in princess and then get stumped when it said "prince", correcting your personal biases, which felt like a well-needed workout for my brain. It was also amusing at times to read things like "all the wives picked up their weapons" or "the strong women all stood up and the men tried to muster their courage standing behind them" which you would never usually read and they all made me laugh and tickled me. I also found the illustrations to be similarly enjoyable, as instead of the women clinging desperately to the men in pretty much zero clothing, it was the other way around, which was refreshing and just a change from the norm.
10/10, should be read to children and by adults alongside all the usual myths. I can't wait to read more from these authors.

[Laura Doe · Rating 4 out of 5]

An absolutely gorgeous book with beautiful illustrations throughout.
I never knew that I needed gender swapped Greek myths in my life until I saw this book, and I’m so glad that I did. The simple idea of swapping the male heroes and gods into heroines and goddesses and giving women the power throughout the book was fantastic and something I wish I’d had when I was younger to make me feel like I could do anything, including things that I thought were only for boys. Making all of the males in this book strong females and the females in the books helpless males just showed how different the world would have been if it was run by women and not men.
It was interesting to read all of the myths this way, although for most of them I did keep referring back to my knowledge of the myths and trying to work out the actual names in the original myths (the key at the back is exactly what is needed!) but I enjoyed it just the same.
The illustrations throughout were beautiful, and I wish there had been more, maybe on the blank pages between the myths?
I haven’t read the previous book by these authors, but it will be one that I will be adding to my wishlist in the near future!

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite the many negative reviews, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Yes, the authors did write an algorithm designed to switch gender pronouns etc, but they put a great deal of thought into the changes. For instance, what would you call a male "maiden?" Not necessarily master, because a young "master" is any young man, while a "maiden" is any young girl *who hasn't yet had sex.* I found the subtle ways the authors handled these discrepancies to be the best part of the book, and added so much value to the stories.
I highly recommend reading the hard copy of this book as the artwork is amazing. Totally worth the space it takes on my shelves.

[Eva · Rating 3 out of 5]

I still like this project on a conceptual level but I don't think this worked in terms of execution - Greek myths just have much more complex plots than traditional fairytales which results in more changes needed by the authors, and some of them are frankly baffling ("bachelor" is a very questionable genderswapped version of "maiden"). The choice of source texts, oscillating between thees and thous and more modern retellings is also jarring. Full marks as always for charming and really thought-through illustrations.

[Abigail · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite all the rough reviews, I throughly enjoyed reading these stories. It was interesting to see the men talked about being puny and unworthy instead of the woman. And as someone who isn't super familiar with Greek myths it was a great introduction. I personally feel that the authors weren't trying to make these super in depth stories. I feel that they wanted to show how different things could be, and give people and children an introduction to Greek myths. I may be wrong, that's just my thoughts. Regardless I enjoyed reading them, and plan on reading the gender swapped fairytale as well.

[M.K. Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is incredibly refreshing to have stories where the girls aren't the hapless victims over and over.

A wonderful way to introduce kids to Greek myths!

These stories feature loving dads, badass heroines, beautiful princes, and mercurial queens bent on avoiding prophecies or making them come true come what may.

[Barbara O'Brien · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the illustrations - having read so much greek mythology I found my brain kept reversing the gender roles back to the original form and forgetting the name changes inferring the genders had swapped rather than just enjoying it for what it is. That says a lot about how conditioned I am to a patriarchal society that it took work to undo my thinking.

[Niya · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a Greek myth fan, this retelling was fun. It essentially is a direct gender swap across the board so there is not as much nuance as I'd hoped for. Still there is resonance to hearing about queens, and goddesses and Titanias. Little humans would definitely benefit from hearing this version. Best consumed with good Greek wine and some gold apples.

[Carla · Rating 5 out of 5]

My husband found this for me as a holiday gift, and it was a lot of fun to read. The intro was especially delightful as the authors spoke about their motivation and talked a bit about the gendered roles we see in these modified stories. The illustrations are also gorgeous.

[Si Finne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone should read this book AT LEAST once. This is going on my list to add to my library. Stunning illustrations, thoughtful stories, and meaningful commentary. Can't wait to read their first book, Gender Swapped Fairy Tales!

[Stacy Renee (LazyDayLit) · Rating 3 out of 5]

MG/YA
Short stories
Greek Mythology
Retellings

I listened to these gender-swapped Greek myths after relearning all about the Greek gods and their history with my kiddo. I listened to these retellings on audiobook by myself and enjoyed the gender-bent characters and their escapades.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the concept of gender swapping the myths and the illustrations in the book are incredible but I found the stories lacking a bit.

[Syd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Illuminating and enchanting.

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun and quick read :)

[Robyn Tocker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted a quick read and knew "Gender Swapped Greek Myths" would fit the bill! I loved the illustrations that accompanied each myth. It was interesting to read these versions of the myths. The ones put into the algorithm that Plackett created aren't the originals, but they were still good stories. I'd like to read their fairy tale book, as I'd like to see which versions they chose to use. A good, quick book to curl up with on a Sunday!

[Stevie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun spin on greek mythology and leaves an interesting perspective on gender roles - but honestly it hit my daddy issues hardest 😅

[Louise · Rating 2 out of 5]

This had so much potential, but the execution wasn't it..