The Hydra

Monsters of Mythology

by Bernard Evslin

Recounts the myth of the hundred-headed creature which was slain by the hero Hercules.

Genres: Mythology, Adventure, Greek Mythology, Fantasy

77 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Bernard Evslin was an author best known for his adaptations of Greek mythology. With over seventy titles, which include both novel-length retellings and short stories, Evslin is one of the most widely published authors of classical mythology in the world. His best-known work is Heroes, Gods and Monsters of the Greek Myths, which has sold more than ten million copies worldwide and has been translated into ten different languages. An estimated 30 million students have come into contact with Heroes, Gods and Monsters of the Greek Myths due to its repeated use in high school and college classrooms over the years. This bestselling anthology includes such well-known stories as "Theseus and the Minotaur" and "Perseus and Medusa." He also published non-Hellenic titles such as The Green Hero, based on the Irish mythological character Finn McCool. He also was involved in an audio book called: "Children of the Corn." It included "Whistling Boy" a Native American tale; "Pancho's Puppets," a story about a boy in Mexico, and other stories.

Reviews

[Manny · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am trying to learn the currently approved style of reviewing. So far, my grasp of the idiom is still weak, so please let me know if I'm doing something wrong. I promise to improve.

Oh yeah! Wow! I'm, like, so looking forward to reading this book! All my friends tell me it's totally cool. I don't really get what it's, you know, about though. Someone said it's a bit like, what's he called, Persy Jackson - am I right?



I just LOVED that movie. I've bought all the books, but I haven't read them yet.

So, I think the Hydra is some kind of Persy Jackson monster. Or is it, like, a zombie? I'm not sure. One of my friends posted this review about how you killed it and it came back to life or something. That's a zombie, right? I went and looked for the review, but it was gone. Sheesh, dude, why did you take it down? Seriusly? There was like this great GIF of a hydra and everything.

What I want to know is, will there be any, you know, hot sex? It's not like I'm a pervertt or anything, but if there's no sex it's, you know, a bit boooooring. So yeah. These ancient greek statues are usually nude.



So I figure it's not too much to expect something. Right? I think someone else posted about that, but their review's gone as well. I mean, like, WTF guys?

Oh well, whatever...

4.5 stars rounded up to 5 cuz I loved that Greek statue!!!!!
_________________________________

Hey! Dude!

I was reading this book by Mary Beard - don't worry, it's a real snoozefest - but then she said something that made me sit up and take notice.

That hot statue... it's not what it seems! It's a chick with a dick!!



Ewwww!!! Gross!!!!!

Dude! Does this make me gay???


This work by Manny is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

[Samadrita]

I am still unsure about the accepted methods of writing book-reports reviewing on Goodreads. But I seem to think the following is not in violation of the GR review-writing policies.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

ZOMG! OMFG! $&%$#%@&*$^#(%@%&&^%

I'm so excited for the hydra err this book. The excitement is not for the book's release or anything since it released like decades ago.

I am excited for the sake of being excited. And also because it is okay to post these animated-gif-filled, braincell-destroying non-reviews if they are positive, do not mention anything remotely related to bad author behavior and if they are understandably in the self-published YA/NA/Erotica section. Since the esteemed GR management only deletes 'potentially off-topic' reviews which go against do not serve their business interests.

Okay continuing with my excitement for this book..........

*hyperventilates*

That hydra on the cover looks so sexxxxxxxxxyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.
I am really, truly excited about this book although I have very little idea about what it is. So I heard there's Hercules in it and a hydra whose heads he lops off one after another but for every head he cuts off, 10 more of them grow back.
Ugh talk about gross! But heck I like it because it eerily seems like an allegory of a virtual world scenario to me. I am sure it is reminiscent of something happening on a site whose name starts with a "G" and ends with an "S". I can't remember what this something or this site is though.

I can't wait to conveniently order the costliest version of this available on Amazon and make Jeff Bezos richer by a few dollars and then hopefully proceed to write a review like -
"Ooooh I absolutely, truly, surely, certainly, undoubtedly loved loveeeeeeeeeeeeeed this book. I loved all the characters...and the hydra. 5 ++++++++++++ stars" just so it motivates other book buyers to contribute towards making Bezos a gazillionaire sooner rather than later.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Really really really looking forward to the hydra.

P.S.:-Are you wondering what happened to the gifs in the review? In the war between dignity and being ironic, dignity won.


This work by Samadrita is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

[Mir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Look at that boring cover. "The Monsters of the Mythology Series" -- doesn't that sound like something educational? You know, those made-for-school publications that try to trick you into learning something by dressing it up with somewhat interesting stories?

Well, this is not that. Maybe Evslin pretended it was to get published, or maybe the concept/marketing person was an idiot. Amazon would never make a mistake like this, presenting a book as more boring and educational than it really is. They'd be all "ABDUCTION! RAPE! DANGER! INSTALOVE! HOT PEOPLE!"

The book's not really that, either, but that's closer than the educational-tome-for-young-mythology-enthusiasts model. This isn't as ridiculous as something like The Goddess Test where the Greek gods are modern teens with Christian values, but it's not Serious Correct Mythology, either. Needle-headed snow demons? Attack owls? Hercules fighting polar bears? Did the Greeks even KNOW about polar bears?!

Personally, I really prefer my mythology more, um, accurate. But if you don't mind that, this is a pretty good story. Iris, the messenger goddess, has been abducted by the harsh North Wind, who is determined to make her his wife. He is so powerful no one will oppose him, but young Hercules is friends with the nymphs who dye Iris' rainbow so he promises to try to rescue her. (It takes a while to get here, there is lots of background info about the Titans and the war of the wind brothers, possibly accurate.)

I quite liked Evslin's depiction of Hercules. He is neither stupid nor wantonly violent, but so much larger and stronger than everyone else that it is hard for him to not damage things. His energy is so vast and restless that he must run over eight mountains every day and wrestle bears trying to dispel it. On one of his mountain climbing expeditions he meets the nymphs.

Despite his incredible strength he is not invulnerable. He makes careful plans (kind of stupid ones, but he's 15, give him a break) to pass the monsters guarding Boreas' fortress. Which, by the way, is basically the Castle East of the Sun and West of the Moon (Evslin writes about Norse mythology, too). He manages to free Iris and reunites her with her daughter, Iole, who decides to marry Hercules when she grows up. [As far as I can find out from my mythology books and looking online, Iole being the daughter of Iris is totally made up by Evslin.]

Okay, we've almost made it to the Hydra! But not really. Hera is just ranting about she hates Hercules and wants him dead, and the hydra is mentioned, but first there's a bunch more stuff about Hera causing Hercules to accidentally kill a guy so he can be punished by laboring for King Eurystheus, and Iole cleverly manipulates everything so Hercules gets the Nemean Lion's impenetrable skin first to protect him as he fights the hydra and she is there with the torch to sear the necks and then there is a brief and pointless appearance by the crab that is usually associated with Orion the Hunter but not in Evslin's cosmology apparently, and then we end because Hercules is shy and doesn't kiss while readers are looking.

This is a pretty fun story and has nice pictures. Not illustrations, but reproductions of various artwork, both classical and later. That gets carefully credited, while the mythology gets no citation whatsoever.

Thanks, Hydra Reviewers, for leading me to read this book, which turns out to be 1) pretty good and 2) not much about hydras. This is one of the things I love most about goodreads: semi-strangers directing me to random books I would otherwise never have known about.

[MJ Nicholls]

In the shower just now, I suddenly had a Eureka moment. The aspect of this current censorship war that's been upsetting us most is the feeling of powerlessless. Goodreads can arbitrarily change the rules, and they hardly even bother to respond when we complain. But we are not powerless. There are twenty million of us, and only a few dozen of them. We just need to get a little more organized, and we can easily resist.

So here's one concrete way to do it, based on the legend of Hercules. You will recall that Hercules had a difficult time against the Lernean Hydra; every time he cut off one of its heads, ten more grew back. We can do the same thing if we adopt the following plan:

1. Back up all your reviews, so that you have a copy of everything you have posted.

2. If you think that one of your reviews has been unreasonably deleted by Goodreads, repost it with an image of the Hydra at the top.

3. If you see someone else posting a Hydra review, make a copy of it and post it yourself.

We can improve this basic scheme with a little thought; for example, it would be better to have a place where we keep HTML marked-up source of reviews, so that they can immediately be reposted with the same formatting, and we need a plan for duplicating deleted shelves. But we can sort that out later. Without getting too bogged down in the details, I'm sure you see what will happen. The net result of Goodreads unreasonably deleting a review will be that it immediately comes back in many different places.

People who know their Greek mythology will be aware that Hercules did in fact defeat the Hydra, and Goodreads can use the same method if they dare; they can close down the account of anyone who participates in the scheme. That will work, but I am not sure that anything less drastic will be effective. I think Goodreads will be reluctant to escalate to this level. A large proportion of the most active reviewers are now part of the protest movement, and they would be losing much of the content that makes the site valuable. Even more to the point, the media have already started to get interested (maybe you saw the article in the Washington Post). They would love the story, and it would create a mountain of bad publicity for Goodreads and Amazon.

I'd say the odds are heavily in our favor. Why don't we try it? I promise now to respond to any Hydra calls.

*

BANNED! MANNY IS NAUGHTY AND SHOULD BE STOPPED, MY KIDS ARE FED UP DRINKING HIS EVIL IN EVERY CUP. TOGETHER WE CAN STOP THIS MENACE BY FORCING HIM TO SHAVE OFF HIS BEARD! THAT WAY HE WILL LOSE ALL HIS POWERS, AND WE CAN PREVAIL AT WHATEVER IT IS WE WILL PREVAIL AT! MWAHAHAHAHAaaahha*coughcough*scuseme . . .

[Traveller]

Since my first review of this has been deleted, with the reason that it is "not original content" I will now post a DIFFERENT review to the one that I had originally posted.

As we all know, a hydra is a sea creature which has many tentacle-like structures. It is a genus of small, simple, fresh-water animals that possess radial symmetry. Biologists are especially interested in hydra due to their regenerative ability; and that they appear not to age or to die of old age.

This specific book, though, is about the Greek mythological hydra, which in Greek mythology, the Lernaean Hydra which was an ancient serpent-like chthonic water monster, with reptilian traits (as its name evinces), that possessed many heads — the poets mention more heads than the vase-painters could paint, and for each head cut off it grew two more — and poisonous breath and blood so virulent even its tracks were deadly. The Hydra of Lerna was killed by Hercules as the second of his Twelve Labours. Its lair was the lake of Lerna in the Argolid, though archaeology has borne out the myth that the sacred site was older even than the Mycenaean city of Argos since Lerna was the site of the myth of the Danaids. Beneath the waters was an entrance to the Underworld, and the Hydra was its guardian.

Perhaps this review will be deleted yet again, this time, for using information from Wikipedia.

According to the Theogony, the Hydra was one of the offsprings of Typhon and Echidna, both of whom were noisome offspring of the earth goddess Gaia.

Well, Goodreads has now made clear that we're not allowed to post any 'unoriginal' content.

I wonder what qualifies as 'unoriginal content'? Plagiarism laws state that one is allowed to make quotations as long as it does not constitute the majority of one's text, and as long as one references one's sources.

So, I wonder if I'd be allowed to, for instance, quote a paragraph from the Washington Post, one that said:

""The Internet is full of people who write things. Some write for free. Some write for pay. Some write for pay but would do it for free. Most of the people who make the Internet and Goodreads the wonderful, engaging places that they are by giving freely of themselves, their time, and their opinions — freely being the key word here — ask nothing more than our +1′s and our Likes and our follows and our upvotes in return.

Take them for granted, though, or tick them off, and you risk losing all the wonderful things they are giving you for free — unless you have already attained Facebook-like levels of You Can Never Leave This Place For All Your Friends Are Here saturation. Is Goodreads there? We’ll have to see."

It seems as if the new masters of our beloved website have decided that it had indeed reached this stature, since it is now openly threatening to close the accounts of people who have counted, until recently, amongst Goodreads best reviewers according to popular vote.

Bibliography:
The Hydra
Wikipedia
Washington Post

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hello everyone. Today I want to talk and write to you about the Hyrda.

You see, Hercules had to perform some labors. Defeating the Hydra was one of them. And although he used a deadly weapon, he just couldn't figure out how to win!

So Hercules finally realized he had it all wrong. Like late career Tom & Jerry, Hercules discovered that by joining forces with the Hydra they could stop fighting and instead make a ton of money together.

Their mythological success is now referred to as Herculean. And if the gods have taught us anything, it's the truth of the Golden Rule.

He who has the gold makes the rules.

[Ruby Tombstone Lives!]

Manny Raynor's original post has been deleted by GoodReads. Lucky I kept a copy! I have reprinted it here with permission from the original author.

HYDRA by Manny
In the shower just now, I suddenly had a Eureka moment. The aspect of this current censorship war that's been upsetting us most is the feeling of powerlessless. Goodreads can arbitrarily change the rules on us, and they hardly even bother to respond when we complain. But we are not powerless. There are twenty million of us, and only a few dozen of them. We just need to get a little more organized, and we can easily resist.

So here's one concrete way to do it, based on the legend of Hercules. You will recall that Hercules had a difficult time against the Lernean Hydra; every time he cut off one of its heads, ten more grew back. We can do the same thing if we adopt the following plan:

1. Back up all your reviews, so that you have a copy of everything you have posted.

2. If you think that one of your reviews has been unreasonably deleted by Goodreads, repost it with an image of the Hydra at the top.

3. If you see someone else posting a Hydra review, make a copy of it and post it yourself.

We can improve this basic scheme with a little thought; for example, it would be better to have a place where we keep HTML marked-up source of reviews, so that they can immediately be reposted with the same formatting, and we need a plan for duplicating deleted shelves. But we can sort that out later. Without getting too bogged down in the details, I'm sure you see what will happen. The net result of Goodreads unreasonably deleting a review will be that it immediately comes back in many different places.

People who know their Greek mythology will be aware that Hercules did in fact defeat the Hydra, and Goodreads can use the same method if they dare; they can close down the account of anyone who participates in the scheme. That will work, but I am not sure that anything less drastic will be effective. I think Goodreads will be reluctant to escalate to this level. A large proportion of the most active reviewers are now part of the protest movement, and they would be losing much of the content that makes the site valuable. Even more to the point, the media have already started to get interested (maybe you saw the article in the Washington Post). They would love the story, and it would create a mountain of bad publicity for Goodreads and Amazon.

I'd say the odds are heavily in our favor. Why don't we try it? I promise now to respond to any Hydra calls.
---------------------

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

A second edition of this Hdyra review has been commission’d. Publication is not yet scheduled. We are just in the beginning stages of this project, taking into account everything which we will have learned already (always) about the mythological beast known as The Hydra from Bernard Evslin’s retelling of this ancient tale ; a tale which seems to resonate with us down through the ages even unto the cyber-21st century. Meanwhile, here’s what we have for you today as a Look=Inside feature ::

_____________
To quote : "The second case of this exclusion concerns our subject more directly. It involves precisely the possibility for every performative utterance (and a priori every other utterance) to be 'quoted.'" --Derrida, Limited, Inc, p16.


And so the following is written, ie, "quoted", not in the spirit of erasure a priori, but much more under threat of erasure ; a threat arising from OUR threat to ITS capitalization.


......

Well, anyways........

This stuff about quotations is sooo 1970’s. Today, we just need a hyperlink ;; the hyghway to hyper-literarinesseseses.

https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...

But even hyperlinkers need to eat. Here’s the meat ::

"1. Back up all your reviews, so that you have a copy of everything you have posted.
"2. If you think that one of your reviews has been unreasonably deleted by Goodreads, repost it with an image of the Hydra at the top.
"3. If you see someone else posting a Hydra review, make a copy of it and post it yourself.”
--Fist-Fucking-Pump!

As an add-on, but not an integral part of this project to preserve your thoughts, your thoughts PUBLICly expressed, and in fact, quite distinct from this Hydrical=Archival project, you may solicit FLAGS. That’s just an option. Don’t be an unethical asshole and Flag stuff when no Flagging has been solicited. [myself? I don’t solicit. thank you]

....



And to close the bracket, demonstrating that under Fair Use conventions, I have, despite the extended deployment of the quotation punctuation, recontextualized the above freely distributed content, a right always retained by the rights=holder and freely given, and I offer you a second quotation, "Standing in the Shower Thinking" :: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_3oOU...



Hydra Review by Nathan "N.R." Gaddis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

[Toby]

Author: Manny Rayner
Originally posted at: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... quoted by permission of original author.

"In the shower just now, I suddenly had a Eureka moment. The aspect of this current censorship war that's been upsetting us most is the feeling of powerlessless. Goodreads can arbitrarily change the rules on us, and they hardly even bother to respond when we complain. But we are not powerless. There are twenty million of us, and only a few dozen of them. We just need to get a little more organized, and we can easily resist.

So here's one concrete way to do it, based on the legend of Hercules. You will recall that Hercules had a difficult time against the Lernean Hydra; every time he cut off one of its heads, ten more grew back. We can do the same thing if we adopt the following plan:

1. Back up all your reviews, so that you have a copy of everything you have posted.

2. If you think that one of your reviews has been unreasonably deleted by Goodreads, repost it with an image of the Hydra at the top.

3. If you see someone else posting a Hydra review, make a copy of it and post it yourself.

We can improve this basic scheme with a little thought; for example, it would be better to have a place where we keep HTML marked-up source of reviews, so that they can immediately be reposted with the same formatting, and we need a plan for duplicating deleted shelves. But we can sort that out later. Without getting too bogged down in the details, I'm sure you see what will happen. The net result of Goodreads unreasonably deleting a review will be that it immediately comes back in many different places.

People who know their Greek mythology will be aware that Hercules did in fact defeat the Hydra, and Goodreads can use the same method if they dare; they can close down the account of anyone who participates in the scheme. That will work, but I am not sure that anything less drastic will be effective. I think Goodreads will be reluctant to escalate to this level. A large proportion of the most active reviewers are now part of the protest movement, and they would be losing much of the content that makes the site valuable. Even more to the point, the media have already started to get interested (maybe you saw the article in the Washington Post). They would love the story, and it would create a mountain of bad publicity for Goodreads and Amazon.

I'd say the odds are heavily in our favor. Why don't we try it? I promise now to respond to any Hydra calls"

[Sarah (Presto agitato)]

My original review of The Hydra was removed by Goodreads yesterday for being “potentially off-topic.” I have posted it under “My Writings", where hopefully it does not violate any guidelines.

Below I have written a different review about The Hydra which should be fully compliant with the clearly delineated Goodreads Book Report Guidelines To Ensure Topical Reviews (GRBRGTETR) v. 1.0001 (revised 9-20-2013).

*******

This book report is about the book The Hydra. The Hydra was a monster in ancient Greece that had a lot of heads. If you cut a head off it grew more heads. The heads were bad because they were so poisonous even their breath could kill you. Just when you thought you killed it two more heads came back so it was very hard to kill and dangerous.

Hercules was a very strong hero. Hera told him he had to kill the Hydra. But she knew he would most likely get killed because of all the heads. He tried with arrows and swords and clubs but he couldn’t kill it. He had to hold his breath because of the poisonous Hydra breath. The more heads he crushed the more came back.

Hercules got some help from a friend to burn up the heads so Hercules could cut off the immortal head and stick it under a rock. That was sort of cheating. But in those days they did not have Scope.

The story of the Hydra is a good story. Also it can be a metaphor for trying to beat something that just keeps growing back stronger. And also with more heads. A metaphor is something that can represent something else.

Like an example from real life that the Hydra reminds me of is when people try to make other people not say bad stuff on the internet. That is hard to do because you can stop them in one place but then the bad ideas pop up somewhere else even worse than before and with even worse breath. It’s like the game Whack-a-Mole which is kind of a dumb game.


(By Mk2010 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons)

This was a good book because it made me think a lot about Hydras. Also it made me think about some other things too even though I tried not to. Sometimes I have that problem with books. But I did not talk about those other things in my book report.


This work by Sarah is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

[Leo Robertson]

Original author: Manny
=========================================

In the shower just now, I suddenly had a Eureka moment. The aspect of this current censorship war that's been upsetting us most is the feeling of powerlessless. Goodreads can arbitrarily change the rules on us, and they hardly even bother to respond when we complain. But we are not powerless. There are twenty million of us, and only a few dozen of them. We just need to get a little more organized, and we can easily resist.

So here's one concrete way to do it, based on the legend of Hercules. You will recall that Hercules had a difficult time against the Lernean Hydra; every time he cut off one of its heads, ten more grew back. We can do the same thing if we adopt the following plan:

1. Back up all your reviews, so that you have a copy of everything you have posted.

2. If you think that one of your reviews has been unreasonably deleted by Goodreads, repost it with an image of the Hydra at the top.

3. If you see someone else posting a Hydra review, make a copy of it and post it yourself.

We can improve this basic scheme with a little thought; for example, it would be better to have a place where we keep HTML marked-up source of reviews, so that they can immediately be reposted with the same formatting, and we need a plan for duplicating deleted shelves. But we can sort that out later. Without getting too bogged down in the details, I'm sure you see what will happen. The net result of Goodreads unreasonably deleting a review will be that it immediately comes back in many different places.

People who know their Greek mythology will be aware that Hercules did in fact defeat the Hydra, and Goodreads can use the same method if they dare; they can close down the account of anyone who participates in the scheme. That will work, but I am not sure that anything less drastic will be effective. I think Goodreads will be reluctant to escalate to this level. A large proportion of the most active reviewers are now part of the protest movement, and they would be losing much of the content that makes the site valuable. Even more to the point, the media have already started to get interested (maybe you saw the article in the Washington Post). They would love the story, and it would create a mountain of bad publicity for Goodreads and Amazon.

I'd say the odds are heavily in our favor. Why don't we try it? I promise now to respond to any Hydra calls

[jo]

This review is a repost with permission from Manny Rayner. The original was deleted as a result of Goodreads' appallingly bad and mishandled policy with respect to secretly updating and then blindly enforcing their TOS to accommodate everyone BUT their original content generators and value-builders.



The Sock Puppet Hydra (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported)

~~~~

In the shower just now, I suddenly had a Eureka moment. The aspect of this current censorship war that's been upsetting us most is the feeling of powerlessless. Goodreads can arbitrarily change the rules, and they hardly even bother to respond when we complain. But we are not powerless. There are twenty million of us, and only a few dozen of them. We just need to get a little more organized, and we can easily resist.

So here's one concrete way to do it, based on the legend of Hercules. You will recall that Hercules had a difficult time against the Lernean Hydra; every time he cut off one of its heads, ten more grew back. We can do the same thing if we adopt the following plan:

1. Back up all your reviews, so that you have a copy of everything you have posted.

2. If you think that one of your reviews has been unreasonably deleted by Goodreads, repost it with an image of the Hydra at the top.

3. If you see someone else posting a Hydra review, make a copy of it and post it yourself.

We can improve this basic scheme with a little thought; for example, it would be better to have a place where we keep HTML marked-up source of reviews, so that they can immediately be reposted with the same formatting, and we need a plan for duplicating deleted shelves. But we can sort that out later. Without getting too bogged down in the details, I'm sure you see what will happen. The net result of Goodreads unreasonably deleting a review will be that it immediately comes back in many different places.

People who know their Greek mythology will be aware that Hercules did in fact defeat the Hydra, and Goodreads can use the same method if they dare; they can close down the account of anyone who participates in the scheme. That will work, but I am not sure that anything less drastic will be effective. I think Goodreads will be reluctant to escalate to this level. A large proportion of the most active reviewers are now part of the protest movement, and they would be losing much of the content that makes the site valuable. Even more to the point, the media have already started to get interested (maybe you saw the article in the Washington Post). They would love the story, and it would create a mountain of bad publicity for Goodreads and Amazon.

I'd say the odds are heavily in our favor. Why don't we try it? I promise now to respond to any Hydra calls.

~~~~

This book looks compelling. I have no beef with its author, its subject matter, the colour of its jacket. At the same time, I have no intention of reading it. But I bloody well reserve my right to talk about it in whatever way I want in this space in keeping with the *original* TOS that I agreed to when I signed up.

Plus, I just wanted to post The Sock Puppet Hydra and show my solidarity with my Goodreading brothers and sisters. So there.

~~~~

Here's "Is Goodreads' new policy really censorship?", The Washington Post article referenced above. I'd like to pull a quote that underscores my personal beef with the entire situation here:

"The Internet is full of people who write things. Some write for free. Some write for pay. Some write for pay but would do it for free. Most of the people who make the Internet and Goodreads the wonderful, engaging places that they are by giving freely of themselves, their time, and their opinions — freely being the key word here — ask nothing more than our +1′s and our Likes and our follows and our upvotes in return. Take them for granted, though, or tick them off, and you risk losing all the wonderful things they are giving you for free — unless you have already attained Facebook-like levels of You Can Never Leave This Place For All Your Friends Are Here saturation. Is Goodreads there? We’ll have to see."

To the Goodreads reviewer of this review, if and when you get here: the answer is now clearly 'no.'

[Jonathan]

Review was deleted, for the usual reasons:

Please note that any reviews you post must contain your own original content (see our review guidelines). Any reviews that are simply copy-pasted duplicates of other reviews will be removed. Given this, the review in question has been deleted. We have attached a copy of the review below for your personal records. Please refrain from posting content of this nature going forward.

Seems like they have changed the wording a little to deal specifically with the Hydra protest.

[Robert]

The trouble with this book is that it is out-of-date/limited in viewpoint.

It's all very well writing up the Greek legend of the Hydra - the guardian of the Golden Fleece that Jason and the Argonauts quested for - but is that the sole and whole story of the beast that grows two heads every time you cut one head off?

No! It is not! It has also become symbolic. A case in point is the use of the Hydra by protesters against censorship by the social networking site with a books theme, Goodreads. The irony of such a site censoring people is so powerful it's like acid splashed in your face - and I mean the corrosive kind, not the hallucinogenic kind, although the latter might explain this surreal turn of events.

Just to prove my point about this issue I quote in full with the author's (Manny Rayner) permision a review deleted from the Goodreads site:

"In the shower just now, I suddenly had a Eureka moment. The aspect of this current censorship war that's been upsetting us most is the feeling of powerlessless. Goodreads can arbitrarily change the rules, and they hardly even bother to respond when we complain. But we are not powerless. There are twenty million of us, and only a few dozen of them. We just need to get a little more organized, and we can easily resist.

So here's one concrete way to do it, based on the legend of Hercules. You will recall that Hercules had a difficult time against the Lernean Hydra; every time he cut off one of its heads, ten more grew back. We can do the same thing if we adopt the following plan:

1. Back up all your reviews, so that you have a copy of everything you have posted.

2. If you think that one of your reviews has been unreasonably deleted by Goodreads, repost it with an image of the Hydra at the top.

3. If you see someone else posting a Hydra review, make a copy of it and post it yourself.

We can improve this basic scheme with a little thought; for example, it would be better to have a place where we keep HTML marked-up source of reviews, so that they can immediately be reposted with the same formatting, and we need a plan for duplicating deleted shelves. But we can sort that out later. Without getting too bogged down in the details, I'm sure you see what will happen. The net result of Goodreads unreasonably deleting a review will be that it immediately comes back in many different places.

People who know their Greek mythology will be aware that Hercules did in fact defeat the Hydra, and Goodreads can use the same method if they dare; they can close down the account of anyone who participates in the scheme. That will work, but I am not sure that anything less drastic will be effective. I think Goodreads will be reluctant to escalate to this level. A large proportion of the most active reviewers are now part of the protest movement, and they would be losing much of the content that makes the site valuable. Even more to the point, the media have already started to get interested (maybe you saw the article in the Washington Post). They would love the story, and it would create a mountain of bad publicity for Goodreads and Amazon.

I'd say the odds are heavily in our favor. Why don't we try it? I promise now to respond to any Hydra calls."

It is plain as day from this that Evslin needs to introduce an updated 2nd Edition of his work that takes into account the modern symbolism of the Hydra.

Please feel free to use this review as part of your reviews.

[Darwin8u · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another email from Goodreads, and two more reviews deleted:

Hello again,

It looks like you re-posted your review of The Hydra both on The Hydra book page book page and The Floating Opera book page, despite our notification that the review violates our review guidelines. As the review still violates guidelines, it has been deleted once again. A copy is attached.

Please consider this your final warning. If you continue to violate our guidelines or re-post content that breaks our rules, your account will come under review for removal.

Best regards,
The Goodreads Team

On Mon, Oct 14 at 6:56 PM , Goodreads wrote:


Hello,

Your review of The Hydra was recently brought to our attention. Please note that any reviews you post must contain your own original content (see our review guidelines). Any reviews that are simply copy-pasted duplicates of other reviews will be removed. Given this, the review in question has been deleted. We have attached a copy of the review below for your personal records. Please refrain from posting content of this nature going forward.

Best regards,
The Goodreads Team

*****

description

[redacted]

But, luckily, I translated Manny's troubling review into Spanish*, with Manny's permission (kinda implicit, fair use, etc). While the English version is Manny's work, I take sole responsibility for the Spanish translation below:

En la ducha hace un momento, de repente tuve un momento Eureka . El aspecto de la actual guerra de censura que nos ha estado molestando más es la sensación de powerlessless . Goodreads pueden cambiar arbitrariamente las reglas, y que apenas se molestó en responder cuando nos quejamos . Pero nosotros no somos impotentes . Hay veinte millones de nosotros, y sólo unas pocas docenas de ellas. Sólo tenemos que ser un poco más organizado , y podemos resistir fácilmente.

Así que esta es una manera concreta de hacerlo, basado en la leyenda de Hércules. Usted recordará que Hércules tuvo un momento difícil en contra de la Hidra Lerna , cada vez que le cortó una de sus cabezas , diez más volvió a crecer . Podemos hacer lo mismo si se adopta el siguiente plan :

1 . Copia de seguridad de todas sus críticas, así que usted tiene una copia de todo lo que has publicado .

2 . Si usted piensa que una de las críticas ha sido injustificadamente borrado Goodreads , publicar de nuevo con una imagen de la Hidra en la parte superior .

3 . Si ves a alguien publicar un comentario Hydra , haga una copia de la misma y que lo ponga a sí mismo .

Podemos mejorar este esquema básico, con un poco de imaginación , por ejemplo , sería mejor tener un lugar donde guardamos HTML fuente marcada en marcha de opiniones , por lo que de inmediato pueden ser publicados con el mismo formato, y necesitamos un plan de para la duplicación de los estantes eliminados . Pero podemos resolver eso más tarde. Sin entrar demasiado empantanado en los detalles , estoy seguro de que ver lo que sucederá. El resultado neto de Goodreads eliminar injustificadamente el examen será que de inmediato se vuelve en muchos lugares diferentes .

Las personas que conocen su mitología griega se cuenta que Hércules tenía , de hecho, derrotar a la Hidra , y Goodreads puede utilizar el mismo método si se atreven , ya que pueden cerrar la cuenta de cualquier persona que participe en el programa. Eso funciona, pero no estoy seguro de que cualquier cosa menos drástica será eficaz. Creo Goodreads se muestran reacios a escalar a este nivel. Una gran parte de los críticos más activos ahora son parte del movimiento de protesta , y se pierde gran parte del contenido que hace que el sitio valioso. Aún más al punto, los medios de comunicación ya han comenzado a interesarse ( tal vez has visto el artículo en el Washington Post) . A ellos les encantaría la historia, y que crearía una montaña de mala publicidad para Goodreads y Amazon .

Yo diría que las probabilidades son muy a nuestro favor. ¿Por qué no lo intentamos ? Te prometo ahora para responder a cualquier llamada Hydra.

I do think that a couple segments of Manny's original review should be translated back into English, so I'll do that too. Translating from the Spanish directly, and not relying on Manny's English:

1. Make an electronic copy of all your reviews, so you have a backup version of everything you have posted/written.

2. If you believe one of the criticisms/reviews/posts have been unfairly deleted by Goodreads, post again with an image of the Hydra on top.

3. If you see someone post a comment Hydra, make a copy of it and post it too.

[Cookie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fellow Goodreader Manny wrote a review for this book that has since been deleted. He felt that users of this community could do something about the censorship blather regarding the terms of service here on Goodreads using the Hydra Principal. After enacting my part of this little protest, I received an email that my review of this book (and others) were removed due to non-original content. I also had been issued a warning that I’d be removed from the site if I persisted.

After some reflection, I realized they are right. I really should put my own original content in my review. This lead me to think that we’ve misapplied this myth to our present reality.

You see, the Hydra creature reminds me less of Goodreads users and more of Goodreads themselves. Cut the head off the Hydra and it would grow back, two fold. Such with GoodReads; with each question unanswered, each review deleted, and each instance of content censored, they grow more and more noxious.

Ever the naïve dreamer, I imagined that there were human beings on the other side of this mess capable of independent thought and communication. I failed, utterly, to understand that I cannot apply humanistic thoughts or feelings to the Hydra. The Hydra is a thing, an animal, a gross creation. The Hydra’s whole purpose was to cause hopelessness and despair in the hero (or, alternately, to sell more books).

I disappoint myself really. It’s too bad that Goodreads management, interns, admin, employees, whoever the f*ck they are that are making these red button decisions, have the ability to separate their own souls from the corporate machine. It's sad that not one single being in those powers that be can act with some integrity. I guess innovation in customer service within social media sphere is a pipe dream. After all, most of this entire slug fest is because of lack of communication . How absurd.

Goodreads is the monster here, not the users. You can apply that how you will. They could easily be portrayed in Hydra like hideousness, or Godzilla like enormity. For me, I’m starting to think of them as the proverbial monster under the bed, harmless unless I let my imagination get away with me. Goodreads means as much to me as I do to them.

I always understood that having my account deleted was a possibility, but didn’t have a lot to lose because without a vibrant community to participate (read: lurk) in, Goodreads is nothing but a cataloging tool.


Hydra Review by c0urtnie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

[Alfaniel Aldavan]

This is a placeholder for Jonathan's review.
Source: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Before I forget: I SOOO WANNA READ THIS BOOK!
(the above was in tone with the acceptable reviews text, very meaningful as you can see.)

Hydra protest reviews have made it famous. Below is a sample of it.

(GR/Amazon staff: this is a sample, a quote, reposted with permission. Difficult concept for corporate ownership mind, I know. But we all learn, right?)

Review was deleted, for the usual reasons:

Please note that any reviews you post must contain your own original content (see our review guidelines). Any reviews that are simply copy-pasted duplicates of other reviews will be removed. Given this, the review in question has been deleted. We have attached a copy of the review below for your personal records. Please refrain from posting content of this nature going forward.

Seems like they have changed the wording a little to deal specifically with the Hydra protest.

[Aloha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This allegorical novel is about a half-Manny/half-water monster who like Archimedes had an Eureka moment while water was streaming down his reptilian back. This Postmodernist novel is a metaphor for the effect of a Herculean reader's site that imposes arbitrary censorship on its reviewers. The apparent deconstruction by this Hercules on the Hydra's head only sprouted more heads. This meta-meta of a reality within a reality is best demonstrated by the review within a review. This is my very own picture taken with my very own iPad of Manny's review, with his approval.

[David]

I've never read this book. But one time I saw an ancient movie version of "Jason and the Argonauts" wherein they fought some stop-motion skeletons and also the Lernaean Hydra. I learned that Hydras are different from hydrangeas, and hydrogen-chloride, and hydrogenated corn-syrup.

Anyway, like I said, I've never even read this book! Maybe it's good, who knows? I've never even heard of this Evslin character!

Anyway, it seems we have a Hydra of our own, guarding the golden apples of freedom-of-expression here at GoodReads! No matter what we do, no matter where we strike, we are impotent to defeat the censorship so pervasive in this site's TOS goonsquad.

SO, C'EST LA VIE. I combat this horror, with the pop-culture horror that is Miley Cyrus, who seems a lot more prescient than this daemonic Amazonian Hydra we are stifled by these days!

TWERQ TWERQ TWERQ

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

( Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. )

Author: Manny Rayner
Originally posted at: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... , used by permission.

In the shower just now, I suddenly had a Eureka moment. The aspect of this current censorship war that's been upsetting us most is the feeling of powerlessless. Goodreads can arbitrarily change the rules on us, and they hardly even bother to respond when we complain. But we are not powerless. There are twenty million of us, and only a few dozen of them. We just need to get a little more organized, and we can easily resist.

So here's one concrete way to do it, based on the legend of Hercules. You will recall that Hercules had a difficult time against the Lernean Hydra; every time he cut off one of its heads, ten more grew back. We can do the same thing if we adopt the following plan:

1. Back up all your reviews, so that you have a copy of everything you have posted.

2. If you think that one of your reviews has been unreasonably deleted by Goodreads, repost it with an image of the Hydra at the top.

3. If you see someone else posting a Hydra review, make a copy of it and post it yourself.

We can improve this basic scheme with a little thought; for example, it would be better to have a place where we keep HTML marked-up source of reviews, so that they can immediately be reposted with the same formatting, and we need a plan for duplicating deleted shelves. But we can sort that out later. Without getting too bogged down in the details, I'm sure you see what will happen. The net result of Goodreads unreasonably deleting a review will be that it immediately comes back in many different places.

People who know their Greek mythology will be aware that Hercules did in fact defeat the Hydra, and Goodreads can use the same method if they dare; they can close down the account of anyone who participates in the scheme. That will work, but I am not sure that anything less drastic will be effective. I think Goodreads will be reluctant to escalate to this level. A large proportion of the most active reviewers are now part of the protest movement, and they would be losing much of the content that makes the site valuable. Even more to the point, the media have already started to get interested (maybe you saw the article in the Washington Post). They would love the story, and it would create a mountain of bad publicity for Goodreads and Amazon.

I'd say the odds are heavily in our favor. Why don't we try it? I promise now to respond to any Hydra calls

Today, I (derek, not Manny), received the following email from Goodreads:

Hi Derek,

Your review of The Hydra was recently brought to our attention. Please note that any reviews you post must contain your own original content (see our review guidelines). Any reviews that are simply copy-pasted duplicates of other reviews will be removed. Given this, the review in question has been deleted. We have attached a copy of the review below for your personal records. Please refrain from posting content of this nature going forward.

Sincerely,

The Goodreads Team

To which I replied:

As noted, the review included only items used with permission. In what way does this differ from posting a review containing quotes or images from a book, included as "fair use"? If you delete all reviews containing any non-original content, you will need to delete almost every review on the site?

Please explain.

Obviously, "The Goodreads Team" has made a mistake, so I'm reposting.

I then thought to add this addendum to our email conversation:

Oh, and by the way: why would I have ever seen your review guidelines? There's no link in the Goodreads Terms (which terms state that "This Agreement, together with any other other terms you agree to in connection with your use of the Service, shall constitute the entire agreement between you and Goodreads concerning the Service." Since I have not agreed, anywhere, to any other terms, your "review guidelines" remain exactly that—guidelines). There's no link that appears when I'm writing a review. Goodreads has no FAQ (at least not linked from anywhere I'd be likely to find it). 

How is one supposed to know there are review guidelines?

[Gorana]

It appears that my reviewof this book mysteriously disappeared. As this is currently happening to a lot of other users, it seems that GR is having some technical problems. Until they solve them it would be safe to somehow save our shelves and reviews, and the best way to do it is in a way Manny described in one of his reviews that also mysteriously disappeared. Luckily he saved it so I will, with his permission, copy it here in case someone else might want to do the same.

If you're wondering who the dummy is in the title of this book, it's me. I was such a dummy that I thought it would be difficult and time-consuming to move my content from Goodreads to BookLikes. But when Goodreads deleted three of my reviews the other day and sent me a mail threatening to close down my account, I decided I'd better look into the details. I discover that it is in fact extremely simple. Here's what I did:

1. I went to the Goodreads import/export page and clicked on "export to a csv file" (top right).

2. This produced a CSV file. I saved it in a sensible place, remembering where I put it.

3. I opened a BookLikes (it works with LibraryThing also) account.

4. I went to this BookLikes page and clicked on "Import books from Goodreads: Choose file", giving the name of the CSV file where I'd saved my exported data in (2).

5. I clicked on Import books from Goodreads: Import.

Then I just sat back and let it do the importing until it sent me a mail to say it was finished. I looked at a few sample reviews and shelves, and everything I checked seemed fine. My total investment of time was a few minutes.

It's improved my peace of mind considerably. Try it yourself.

A note to the manager of the Goodreads employee responsible for the new censorship policy

As a direct result of your subordinate's actions, one of your most loyal reviewers has just copied all his Goodreads content to a sit that is directly competing with you. He has also posted detailed instructions showing a couple of thousand friends and followers how to do the same thing.

Here are a few possible reasons why your subordinate could have acted as they have:

- They are very stupid.

- They are a frustrated self-published author who has been hanging out too much on StGRB.

- They are intentionally trying to sabotage Goodreads.

You may wish to spend a moment thinking about whether this person is an asset or a liability to your company.

_________________________________________
In the shower A FEW DAYS AGO, I suddenly had a Eureka moment. The aspect of this ON-GOING censorship war that's been upsetting us most is the feeling of powerlessness. Goodreads can arbitrarily change the rules, and they hardly even bother to respond when we complain. But we are not powerless. There are twenty million of us, and only a few dozen of them. We just need to get a little more organized, and we can easily resist.

So here's A concrete way to do it, based on the legend of Hercules. You will recall that Hercules had a difficult time against the Lernean Hydra; every time he cut off one of its heads, ten more grew back. We can do the same thing if we adopt the following plan:

1. Back up all your reviews, so that you have a copy of everything you have posted.

2. If you think that one of your reviews has been unreasonably deleted by Goodreads, repost it with an image of the Hydra at the top.

3. If you see someone else posting a Hydra review, make a copy of it and post it yourself.

We can improve this basic scheme with a little thought; for example, it would be better to have a place where we keep HTML marked-up source of reviews, so that they can immediately be reposted with the same formatting, and we need a plan for duplicating deleted shelves. But we can sort that out later. Without getting too bogged down in the details, I'm sure you see what will happen. The net result of Goodreads unreasonably deleting a review will be that it immediately comes back in many different places.

People who know their Greek mythology will be aware that Hercules did in fact defeat the Hydra, and Goodreads can use the same method if they dare; they can close down the account of anyone who participates in the scheme. That will work, but I am not sure that anything less drastic will be effective. I think Goodreads will be reluctant to escalate to this level. A large proportion of the most active reviewers are now part of the protest movement, and they would be losing much of the content that makes the site valuable. Even more to the point, the media have already started to get interested (maybe you saw the article in the Washington Post). They would love the story, and it would create a mountain of bad publicity for Goodreads and Amazon.

I'd say the odds are heavily in our favor. Why don't we try it? I promise now to respond to any Hydra calls.

[Karl-O · Rating 5 out of 5]

booklikes.com is fuckin great!

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Written by Manny Rayner

In the shower just now, I suddenly had a Eureka moment. The aspect of this current censorship war that's been upsetting us most is the feeling of powerlessness. Goodreads can arbitrarily change the rules, and they hardly even bother to respond when we complain. But we are not powerless. There are twenty million of us, and only a few dozen of them. We just need to get a little more organized, and we can easily resist.

So here's one concrete way to do it, based on the legend of Hercules. You will recall that Hercules had a difficult time against the Lernean Hydra; every time he cut off one of its heads, ten more grew back. We can do the same thing if we adopt the following plan:

1. Back up all your reviews, so that you have a copy of everything you have posted.

2. If you think that one of your reviews has been unreasonably deleted by Goodreads, repost it with an image of the Hydra at the top.

3. If you see someone else posting a Hydra review, make a copy of it and post it yourself.

We can improve this basic scheme with a little thought; for example, it would be better to have a place where we keep HTML marked-up source of reviews, so that they can immediately be reposted with the same formatting, and we need a plan for duplicating deleted shelves. But we can sort that out later. Without getting too bogged down in the details, I'm sure you see what will happen. The net result of Goodreads unreasonably deleting a review will be that it immediately comes back in many different places.

People who know their Greek mythology will be aware that Hercules did in fact defeat the Hydra, and Goodreads can use the same method if they dare; they can close down the account of anyone who participates in the scheme. That will work, but I am not sure that anything less drastic will be effective. I think Goodreads will be reluctant to escalate to this level. A large proportion of the most active reviewers are now part of the protest movement, and they would be losing much of the content that makes the site valuable. Even more to the point, the media have already started to get interested (maybe you saw the article in the Washington Post). They would love the story, and it would create a mountain of bad publicity for Goodreads and Amazon.

I'd say the odds are heavily in our favor. Why don't we try it? I promise now to respond to any Hydra calls.

[Themis-Athena (Lioness at Large)]

The Hydra, as everyone knows who is either familiar with Greek mythology or with the reviews that have lately been posted on Goodreads for this particular book , is a monster that is virtually impossible to defeat, because for every one of its multiple heads that is being chopped off, it grows two others.

Until September 20, 2013, the only Hydra-esque phenomenon that the Goodreads community had to worry about on this website was the Sock Puppet Hydra.

Then, in the wake of the new reviewing policy as announced on Friday, September 20, 2013, the Hydra took to reviews.

After Goodreads had started deleting reviews (including many of those posted for this particular book) on the grounds that they were "off topic," also on a Friday afternoon (U.S. time) -- which lately seems to be the moment to watch out for important new developments on this site -- a mysterious new author named G.R. MacGoodreader created a book page on Goodreads for a book entitled "The Great Goodreads Censorship Debacle." By the next Monday, McGoodreader and his book were gone, or so it seemed. Head chopped off.

Well, as it turns out, Mr. McGoodreader is actually called G.R. Reader, and he, too, was merely a Hydra in disguise -- a multi-headed creature just like the one from Greek mythology. He -- or they -- are back. And with a real book, too.



I'm told it makes for an interesting read.

[Marcus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Evslin has a gift for figuring out his to go into the enormous content of mythology and pull out a coherent narrative. This series would make an exceptional cinematic version of mythology. Del Toro, Spielberg anyone listening?

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The very last of the Greek Evslin books I had to read (I may read his two Celtic ones soon) and one that is really interesting, since it didn’t follow any of the steps the others in this series that I liked did, but I still really enjoyed it. Barely touching upon the actual creature, it instead focuses on the story of young Hercules and Iole, daughter of Iris, the rainbow.
In conclusion for this series, I love everything about Evslin’s work, and I really would love to see them adapted someday

[Mamoun Bennani]

The Hydra by Bernard Evslin, is about the snake-like mythical monster called Hydra. The Hydra has 9 heads, one of them was immortal and lived by the sea. It was the child of Typhon and Echida; the legend says that whenever a head of the Hydra was chopped off, two or more heads grow back in the same spot. The Hydra was defeated by Hercules and his nephew Iolaus on Hercules' second labor. After he defeated the lion that terrorized the hills circling Nemea, Hercules went on to face The Hydra. He chopped off the 8 mortal heads and when Iolaus touched it with the flaming torch, it prevented the heads from growing back. Hercules finally slaughtered the last immortal head and buried it underground with a big rock over it. As one can see, this mythical creature was very dangerous because Hercules couldn't have done it without his nephew.

This myth can relate to many other Greek myths and stories about classic heroes. The fact that Hercules went on the kill the Hydra on one of his 10 labors, relates to Theseus and his adventures. Theseus killed many creatures and enemies; he killed the Minotaur, a creature with the head of a bull and the body of a human. This myth can also relate to Perseus who killed Medusa, a creature that turned everyone who looked at her into stone; she had snakes instead of hair. Perseus had to kill Medusa because he was sent on a quest by King Polydectes. As one can see, this myth can relate to numerous other Greek myths such as the myth of Perseus and Theseus.

The best part of the book is when Hercules and his nephew beat the Hydra together. This scenario helped prove the importance of teamwork. The worst part of the book was the description of the Hydra. The description provided a disgusting image of the monster. The book would be recommended to middle schoolers and all myth lovers. It would also be recommended to people who love stories and heroic battles. Therefore, the book was very interesting and heroic.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have loved this series since I was younger and they hold up today even still. I was disappointed in The Hydra only because it told nothing about the monster in question like the others do, only about Heracles who killed it. But the artwork is gorgeous and I love it all the same.