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Mythographers we Love: Fates and Furies by Christine Lucas

Genre legends Gwyneth Jones and Melissa Scott were ecstatic over Fates and Furies.

Visions of the fate of our flesh, set in the far future and in our own bitter times, all informed by ancient Hellas: I think I liked the alien migrants in modern Greece best, but I loved all these stories. A very fine cover too!

Gwyneth Jones

This is an extraordinary collection. Myths old and new sing to readers, drawing them ever deeper into a world deeply informed by the Hellenic world. My only regret is that I would gladly have read more of every one of them.

Melissa Scott

Fates and Furies is available on Amazon and on the Candemark and Gleam website, where a purchase brings along the full digital bundle (PDF, Epub and Mobi, with the PDF containing the usual bells and whistles) . All C&G ebooks are DRM-free. The stunning mosaic that graces the collection’s cover, embedded in the deep sea-blue background created by Alan Caum, perfectly distills the collection’s essence in both appearance and backstory.

Christine Lucas lives in Greece with her husband and a horde of spoiled animals. A retired Air Force officer and mostly self-taught in English, she has had her work appear in many SFF magazines, including Daily Science FictionPseudopod, and Nature: Futures. Her stories appear in highly-claimed anthologies; among them Ellen Datlow’s Tails of Wonder and Imagination (“Dominion”, Night Shade, 2010), and Athena Andreadis’ The Other Half of the Sky (“Ouroboros”, Candlemark & Gleam, 2013). She was a finalist for the 2017 WSFA award; her story “Χίλια Μύρια Κύματα” (“A Thousand Waves from Home”, included for the first time in English in Fates and Furies, translated by Christine herself) won the 2017 Φανταστιcon Award; and she’s working on her first novel. You can visit her at Of (Wo)man and Mau.

Get it on Amazon COM

Get it on Amazon UK

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Let’s Celebrate Mythic Women’s Day

It’s International Women’s Day and we decided to celebrate it in our own way. We made a tag and everything #mythicwomensday.

Be it goddesses of Olympus, monsters that prey on heroes’ flesh or tragic seers that warn others of catastrophes, women have always played an important part in Greek mythology.

Yeah, men didn’t really treat them well. Zeus was the prime bad example. But despite all that they managed to inspire us through the centuries.

Since we have plenty of stories with female protagonists, let’s take a look at some you might like.

Mythic Heroine Warrior Archetype: Amazon

The Amazons were the bad girls in plenty of Greek myths. Pretty much everybody fought them, Hercules, gods, demigods. Feared and respected as warriors, they are used in our stories as a powerful private army under the wing of CEO Artemis.

Read about Aura, renamed as Amazon Antioche (She who goes against the city.)

Lesser Goddess Archetype: Eris

Eris is the goddess of Discord. She’s famous for presenting the golden apple to the Olympian goddesses that said “To the fairest” and inciting the most epic catfight in mythology. In our stories she’s a tornado of a woman, always peppy and smiling, bringing breakups to couples Uber-style.

Read about Eris.

Lesser Goddess Archetype: Muse

The muses were the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne. There are plenty of them strolling around the gods in Olympus. You’ve already met Ourania, the Muse of Astronomy and Melpomene, the Muse of Tragedy. In our stories they are androids (gynoids more specifically) that supervise the projects of the Olympian CEOs and are assigned wards to inspire and help with cutting-edge innovation.

Read the stories with the Muses.

Lesser Goddess Archetype: Kyveli

The meaning of the name Cybele/Kyveli is unknown, possibly from Phrygian roots meaning either “stone” or “hair”. This was the name of the Phrygian mother goddess associated with fertility and nature. She was later worshipped by the Greeks and Romans. In our story she’s an alien princess that can blow up when agitated and take the planet with her.

Read about Kyveli

Mythological Monster Archetype: Gorgon Evryali

The Gorgon sister of Medusa. She was an immortal unlike Medusa. All three have the hair of living, venomous snakes. Known for her bellowing cries and of course her petrifying gaze. In our stories, Evryali is a pianist that puts men and women under an enchantment and makes them love her unconditionally.

Read about Evryali.

Mythological Monster Archetype: Erinyes (Furies)

Erinyes were beings that tormented those that committed the most heinous of crimes. A manifestation of guilt, they chased people forever. In our stories, Erinyes show up from the guilt of a narcissistic teenager and appear through technology to torment her every 108 minutes.

Read about Erinyes.

Mythological Heroine Archetype: Hellenic Witch

Witches were plentiful in ancient Greece. The Hellenic Witch was one with nature and the goddesses Demeter and Persephone, initiated into secrets like Eleusinian Mysteries and the prophesies of Delfi. In our stories, the witches try to live normal lives in the Athens of today, using the wonders of technology along with the arcane practices of the goddesses.

Read about Hellenic Witches.

Comment about which Mythic Woman archetype you like best, or what inspires you.

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#Erinyes is now following you. Forever.

Imagine this entity following you for ever:

Furies Erinyes (Mythical Creature) - Art Picture by vee209
Furies Erinyes (Mythical Creature) – Art Picture by vee209

Erinyes (known as Furies in Roman Latin) are three goddess avengers of the crimes of murder, unfilial conduct, impiety and perjury. They recently discovered selfies as well.

Yes, mythical creatures now have their own Twitter profiles. Feel free to follow her, if you dare.

In the story Erinyes, Mahi is a self-adoring teenager who, just like most teenagers these days, only cares about the amount of likes and retweets that she gets on her (admittedly hot) selfie pics.

Mahimahi
Mahi notices something strange in her latest selfies.

The entity she notices on her selfies is becoming more and more solid, until it actually starts chasing her non-stop. That entity is Erinyes, and she chases her victims precisely every 109 minutes for one frantic minute of intense manhunt. Along with her friend, Deppy, a remarkably tech-savvy girl in her cutesy personality, and the enigmatic Prodromos, a conspiracy-theorist rebel hacker, Mahi has to find out the truth behind an insane corporate conspiracy while Erinyes is following her. Possibly forever.

The story comes out in a young adult novella and a short movie tie-in, which you can get a glimpse of in the teaser here.

She Wanted Thousands of Followers. Now There Is One She Can Never Shake Off.
She Wanted Thousands of Followers. Now There Is One She Can Never Shake Off.

Do you want to know what’s next for the inexperienced self-adoring Mahi? Do you wanna meet the Erinyes?

Download the Erinyes Novella on Amazon!

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