Exclusively for #PoseidonWeek: An excerpt from the story

Posted on August 31, 2016 by andrew

It’s always tough for me to decide on excerpts to use for readings or sharing on social media. I actually prefer to have someone decide for me, since I’m probably too close to the story to evaluate what would make for an entertaining snippet for people unacquainted with the story.

Here I chose a tried and true strategy: the opening scene from the book. It doesn’t require any set up, and my hope with the opening was to set a mystical tone for the narrative through this encounter with the main character Donnogen and a steppe Witch.

I included some images from my Pinterest inspiration board. I hope you enjoy it!

Chapter One

The Witch’s hovel stood on a bald hilltop covered with snow. It had been a half day’s journey for the young hunter to find it, minding his grandmother’s instructions from seasons past.

“Find the spitting cavern on the bank of the sea. Climb the bank to the margins of the ancient woods and follow the trodden path to a glassy plain. There she will be, perched over the barren land, like a shepherdess to a ghostly flock.”

The sun hung low on the horizon, and the snowy field was no longer glassy. The towering trees at the border of the woods cast a lake of shadow that stretched toward the hill, soon to devour it in darkness. An infinite quiet surrounded the hunter. For a delicate moment, fear bit at him, and he halted, suspended in a void of silence while the claw of frost clutched his breath. He pushed on through the field.

It was time for him to know his name.

An illustration that I pinned from 3duegos.com, a prototype for the hunter Donnogen.

Climbing the hill was a trudge through frost-crusted dunes that buried him to the top of his deerskin leggings. There were no other tracks up the hill. Though it was deep into the season of freeze, the clouds had not shed their tears of snow for three suns.

The home was a wattle-roofed roundhouse that looked like a giant mushroom crowning its snowy mount. It was no more than a dozen strides across, and its cone cap was buckled and frayed from many seasons of freeze and thaw. Smoke rose up from its chimney, and the snow encircling the house had melted, forming a gutter. A gnarled stake of wood warded the entrance. A freshly-killed white fox had been impaled on the stake.

The hunter stopped at the threshold for a moment, remembering his amma. He shut his eyes and spoke silent words to reach his grandmother in the otherworld.

“My beard grows thick, Amma. I am a man, and I have come, as you told me. The clan taught me well. I can chase the spotted deer, clean its hide from its flesh, and make my own hatchets and spears. Watch over me. You are always in my heart.”

He pushed aside the heavy mats hanging in the doorway and stepped inside. The sudden heat was arresting, and the stench was choking. The Witch must have been boiling some kind of animal fat. Mammoth hides hung from the hut’s rafters, dividing the space into a puzzle of compartments. In good times, the mammoth hunter clans might have had one pelt they could afford to show off in such a way, and this woman had at least three that he could see! Good barter: men from all parts of the steppe must have traveled to her to ask for name-readings.

Pinned from artofmisc.tmblr.com, a prototype for the Sea People

That was trade from seasons past. There weren’t any clans of mammoth hunters left on the steppe. Not since the white-haired Sea People had alighted from their barges to ferry their antler-headed warriors and their strange machinery from their island kingdom. The raiders had brought war, enslavement, and a killing fever. They tore up the sedge with their stone-tipped harrows and drove the wooly titans from their grazing fields.

It was said the Sea People left the Witch alone, and the hunter had even heard they called on her for her prophecies and cures. How she managed to live by herself, so far from the steppe settlements, was strange to him.

The crackle of her fire filled the space, but he heard no other sound. An earthen pot rested at his foot. He took off the leather coin purse that hung around his neck, unlaced its cord, and turned it over. A dozen copper rings and tin coins tumbled and clanged into the pot.

His amma had never said how much to bring, but only once in a man’s life is he given his true name. It was the little bounty he had put away on his wanderings since his clan had scattered from the steppe. Picking over a few frozen travelers in the snow. Pocketing some spoils from the white-headed rangers he had fought off with his spear. The shiny trinkets were pretty trade, though a hunter made his way with what the land provided. He thought the currency might impress the Witch. They said she horded untold riches.

A voice stabbed at him from an unknown place. “Take off your boots.” He did not look for her, he just obeyed, taking off his mitts and unlacing his deerskin shoes and setting them aside. He stood, barefoot, and waited.

The phantom voice came again, so shrill it could shake the fur from a bear. “Leave your weapons. Take off anything with sleeves, legs, or pockets. You come and go with only what you brought.”

He looked around in disbelief. His spear and his hatchet were one thing. It was bad manners to enter someone’s house with weapons from the hunt. But following her orders would leave him in his thigh-length shift. It was threadbare and stained from many wearings.

The voice shrieked, “No time for modesty. I haven’t all night.”

He stripped down, leaving his pelt, his spear and hatchet, his woolen undercoat, and his leggings in a pile on the floor.

As soon as he had finished, the Witch called out. “Follow my voice. You can do that, can’t you? You’ve got more wits about you than you let on.”

A neolithic hut, pinned from naturalhomes.com

His body, which was broad and tall and built for the hunt, felt suddenly awkward in the enclosed space. He looked around, stepped to one side, and pulled back the flap of a hanging pelt. That revealed a miniature anteroom of sorts. He ducked his head beneath a bowed and rotting rafter and ventured into that space. Another fur-draped divider hung at one side, under which fiery light flickered. He headed for it, found one edge of the fur draping, and parted it to step through.

It’s #PoseidonWeek so if you comment/share below, you’ll be entered into a raffle for Poseidon swag provided by Zazzle. You can also enter the contest all this week (through Thursday, September 1st) at my Facebook page.

Visual inspiration for Poseidon & Cleito

Posted on August 30, 2016 by andrew

I started keeping inspiration boards for my writing the old fashioned way: cutting out pictures from magazines and gluing them to a sheet of oak tag. That old fashioned method had some advantages. It was nice having something to put up in my office where I write, and it was fun taking the time to snip out images that I liked and to place them on the board. But the variety of pictures was limited, especially since my writing takes inspiration from ancient settings. It also could be time consuming, and I knew at some point I would run out of wall space.

So, about six months ago, I converted to Pinterest for my boards. It actually could be just as time consuming. There’s almost an infinite number and variety of images to search through, not that narrowing down that search isn’t easy, but once you get started, it can be hard to stop. Still, overall, it’s much more efficient for me and gives me tons of ancient world and fantasy material to choose from.

For my Poseidon and Cleito board, I was interested in having some images that were evocative of the characters as well as some that reflected costume, setting and mythology. I shared on my board that Maria Sharapova was a modern day inspiration for Cleito, both physically and in terms of her relentless, impassive persona. That may not be fair to Maria. She’s probably a sweetheart off of the tennis court and would never consider murdering her family for wealth and power. 🙂

I think I found the perfect model for the character of Bromios, modeled on the god Dionysius. The one character-model that was evasive in my research was Poseidon himself. I think my publisher did a great job with the cover artwork in depicting him. My challenge was settling on an image of a guy who was hardy, noble, and not conventionally attractive. Male models abound on Pinterest, but they’re too pretty.

People ask me: who would play Poseidon if your book was turned into a movie, and I haven’t come up with any dream choices. There are a lot of excellent, rugged-looking actors (Tom Hardy, Viggo Mortensen), but Poseidon is nineteen, maybe twenty years old in the story, so it would have to be a younger actor, maybe a less-known European with a tall and thin but powerful build. The kind of guy who looks like he has to chase down his dinner in the woods every night.

In addition to prehistoric and ancient Greek imagery, I looked for seascapes, and costumes for the well-clad Adoratrice Cleito, and flora and architecture that would be evocative of the island that would become Atlantis. You can check out the board through the widget below and tell me what you think.

Remember: it’s #PoseidonWeek! On Thursday, September 1st, 9:00PM, I’ll announce winners of Poseidon swag provided by Zazzle. You can enter by commenting or sharing a post or interacting with my Facebook page.

It’s #PoseidonWeek at andrewjpeterswrites.com!

Posted on August 29, 2016 by andrew

Portrait of Andrea Doria as Neptune by Angelo Bronzino. Retrieved from Wikipedia Commons.

It’s Poseidon Week here at andrewjpeterswrites.com! From Monday, August 29th to Thursday, September 1st, I’ll be posting stories, images, and interesting facts about the famous trident-wielder to celebrate the August 29th release of Poseidon and Cleito exclusively on Amazon. You’ll also find excerpts and some extras from the book. And I’m running a contest. Drop a comment, like, or share any post on my website, or my Facebook page, and you’ll be entered into a raffle for Poseidon swag provided by Zazzle. Winners will be chosen Thursday, September 1st 9:00PM EST.

So what is it you could win? Your very own Poseidon t-shirt, Poseidon mug, or Poseidon notebook. Winners will need to provide their e-mail address and mailing address for shipping.

For today’s post, I thought I’d share some of my thoughts about Poseidon and some lesser known stories about him. Poseidon was never my very favorite personage from Greek mythology. Growing up, I was more drawn to the heroic tales of Jason, Perseus, and Theseus. When I came out as gay, I found new favorites in the stories of Zeus and Ganymede, and Apollo and Hyacinth. But there was always something sympathetic for me about gloomy, aloof Poseidon.

He strikes me as a lonely guy, perhaps misunderstood, lashing out at mortals from some inner torment, whether borne from being overshadowed by his older brother Zeus or something else that was never elaborated on. Most of the Greek gods could be said to be moody and capricious in their sorting out of mortal matters, but it seemed particularly tough to get on

Poseidon’s good side. Being a natural skeptic, I’ve wondered if that was a fair portrayal.

“Artemision Zeus or Poseidon,” a famous 5th century BCE bronze statue at the Athens Museum of Archeology

An interesting thing about Greek mythology is that it changed throughout the eras, and most of what endured, what we recognize today, is from the classical era when Zeus and Athena were prominent and beloved. Some scholars believe that the worship of Poseidon was more widespread in earlier time periods and that his significance extended beyond an association with sea and storm. To people of an earlier age, he was probably a beneficent god of an earthly realm, worshiped for fertility and good harvests. Another matter is that the similarity in Poseidon and Zeus iconography makes it hard to determine which god was most popular among the Greeks, or whether they were both offshoots of a father god archetype.

Poseidon remained an important figure in religious practice and folklore throughout and beyond the classical period (and of course, many centuries forward via the Romans co-opting him as Neptune). But for the most part, he was portrayed as fearsome and villainous in the stories from the classical era. In Homer’s Odyssey, for example, Poseidon is an antagonist to the hero Odysseus, preventing the Trojan war hero from returning home to Ithaca in retribution for blinding his son Cyclops. Plato’s story about Poseidon’s kingdom Atlantis in his Critias and Timaeus dialogues has the patron god’s country destroyed by a morally and–one would have to argue–supernaturally superior Zeus.

“The Marriage of Poseidon and Amphitrite” by Italian painter Felice Giani (image retrieved from Wikipedia Commons)

Poseidon and Cleito is a retelling of that legend, including the perspective of the woman Plato named as Poseidon’s wife. A more well-known wife of Poseidon’s from folkore is Amphitrite, who was a Nereid (a daughter of the archaic sea god Nereus), and a sea-goddess herself. Of more notoriety, Poseidon was said to have seduced or even raped the beautiful maiden Medusa in his sister Athena’s temple, which angered Athena so much, she transformed Medusa’s hair to serpents. The Greeks had little charity for women in their myths.

A point of contrast with Zeus: while his older brother was the father of some of the most popular heroes from Greek mythology (Perseus, Heracles), Poseidon was the father of some of the most well-known monsters, such as Polyphemos, also known as the Cyclops, and Charybdis, the female whirlpool monster, of the famous Scylla and Charybdis, aka “the rock and a hard place.”

One last bit of trivia, Poseidon had male lovers too. One particularly interesting story is that of Nerites, who was the handsome brother of the beautiful Nereids (sea nymphs). Both Aphrodite and Poseidon fell in love with Nerites, and the young man refused the love goddess and chose Poseidon, who made him his charioteer.

Let me know what you think about Poseidon by dropping a comment below, and I’ll enter you in the raffle for Poseidon swag!

New title imagines Atlantis as real world prehistory

Posted on August 11, 2016 by andrew

via GIPHY

So here’s a press pinata I’m bursting open today. My new title Poseidon and Cleito is on sale for a special pre-order price of $2.99 at Amazon, with delivery to your e-reader on August 29th. Thereafter, it’s on early release from Kindle Exclusive for $5.99 and available EVERYWHERE on December 5th.

My suggestion: use the three bucks you save to get a nice, grande iced coffee from Starbucks.

How about a look at the cover?

Nice, right?

Are you a book blogger, reviewer, or Goodreads user? Drop me a line, and I’ll send you an e-ARC to take a look at: ajpeters@andrewjpeterswrites.com. You can add the title to your Goodreads shelf here.

Here’s the publisher’s press release to tell you about the story:

Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy is pleased to announce the release of Andrew J. Peters’ fourth book Poseidon and Cleito, the story of how Poseidon became Poseidon and an intriguing portrait of the woman who Plato mentioned as his wife.

In the tradition of David Gemmell and Guy Gavriel Kay, Peters reimagines a well-known mythological character from a human perspective while illuminating a minor, female figure who was relegated to the margins by writers of the age.

Says Peters, “I consider Poseidon and Cleito my most ambitious book to date. Everyone knows Poseidon. It’s almost sacrosanct to break from the canon in portraying him. But I’ve always been curious about the origins of myths and the possibility that men became gods through the passing down of sagas that were embellished over the centuries. Similarly, I wanted to give a voice to a character who the Greeks didn’t tell us much about. Why didn’t Plato have more to say about Poseidon’s wife Cleito, other than putting her name in as a place-keeper in his very detailed account of the history of Atlantis?”

With rich description of its prehistorical setting, Poseidon and Cleito is parts speculative biography, a complex love story, and an action-adventure seasoned with a touch of fantasy. Peters plans to launch a series from this first book in his Atlantis saga.

“Poseidon and Cleito explores the Atlantis story from its early years,” Peters says. “It’s a kingdom that lasted for many centuries, and this first book provides some hints of what led to its demise and erasure from history. A mysterious magical element is introduced that will be developed more in future installments.”

The book is available through Kindle Exclusive through November, with worldwide retail release on December 5th.

Peters is best known for his portrayal of gay characters in mythic fantasy via The Seventh Pleiade, a 2014 Rainbow Awards Honorable Mention, and his 2015 title Banished Sons of Poseidon. Both took inspiration from the Atlantis legend.

Says Peters, “I guess I’ve become an Atlantologist like Lewis Spence and Edgar Cayce. I’m drawn to conspiracies.” On writing a book with heterosexual characters and relationships, he says he was undaunted. “In a way, Poseidon and Cleito is a prequel to my earlier work, and I handled the material with the same subversive approach, though not with the specific intention of ‘queering’ popular mythology. That didn’t feel right for this particular story. But there are gay supporting characters and bisexual supporting characters. I don’t think I’ll ever write a story in which queer characters don’t exist.”

Read an excerpt from Banished Sons of Poseidon

Posted on May 31, 2016 by andrew

This is my third excerpt feature this year. Keeping a New Year’s resolution all the way through May is pretty good, huh? I chose to share a passage from my most recent release Banished Sons of Poseidon, which is the story of a disgraced, novice priest who must find a way to lead the survivors of Atlantis home.

Banished Sons of Poseidon is a follow up to The Seventh Pleiade, and a question I get a lot is: “Should I read the first book first?” My impartial answer is maybe. While my publisher and I worked on plugging the release of the second book, many readers who hadn’t read The Seventh Pleiade picked up the book and posted reviews. Few mentioned they had trouble with the plot or wished they had read the first book first. I’m really happy we pulled the manuscript together in a way that makes it work as a standalone.

Naturally, some people will still prefer to start at the beginning of the story, which is something I usually do. Though there are so many fantasy series out there, I have to admit that I have sometimes picked up a second or third book in a series by mistake and not been disappointed.

I recently read the below excerpt at The Rainbow Book Fair, and introduced it as a preview of what I feel is the heart of the story. Amid sixteen-year-old Dam’s big adventure in an underground world where the survivors of Atlantis take shelter, he’s also contending with baggage from the past, in the form of a falling out with his only blood relative Aerander, who was the hero in The Seventh Pleiade. But Banished Sons of Poseidon is Dam’s story. He’s an orphaned son from a minor noble family, who was raised in the grandeur of a house governor’s palace. He and his cousin Aerander were inseparable until Dam parted ways to make his own way in the world.

Just a little more set-up from the scene: it takes place in the hours before the survivors are to attend their first celebration with an ancient race of men who have given them shelter underground. Dam was invited to attend with an underground warrior and is rushing to get ready.

~~~

Entering his house, he spotted Aerander in the middle of the room. His cousin had fixed his hair in sculpted waves with some sort of concoction and put on a fancy chiton that draped from one shoulder down to the middle of his calf in the style of a statesman. It was spun from elegant silk, and its seamstress had embroidered hems across the top, the single sleeve and around the bottom in the indigo hatch mark pattern of the House of Atlas. With a shadow of a beard growing in, Aerander was looking more like his father by the day. The only thing missing was a gilded lariat for his head.

“Naturally, you’re the last one to get ready,” Aerander said.

“I overslept.”

“You wouldn’t have that problem if you got to bed at a normal time.”

“What happened to your hair?”

That left Dam’s cousin chuffed for a moment. His hair didn’t actually look bad, but saying it made a mischievous little ember inside Dam glow.

“It’s a special oil they get from fish,” Aerander said. “But it doesn’t smell. See?” He bowed his head, inviting Dam to take a sniff.

“No thank you.”

“A lot of the boys are using it. I brought some for you.”

Dam stepped past him to pick out some clothes. He needed a dry pair of trousers and a clean shirt.

“I brought you an outfit, too.”

Dam followed Aerander’s gaze to his bed. There was a chiton laid out there. It was the same style Aerander was wearing. All the highborn boys must have requested noble clothes for the occasion. He was supposed to wear a chiton to the feast while his friends were going in plain shifts and trousers?

“There’ll be two head tables,” Aerander said. “One for Ysalane and her people, and one for us.”

Dam skirted his glance. He felt like a cold shadow had descended on him from above.

“Go on,” Aerander said, glancing at the bed. “We have to get over to the hall.”

“I made plans for the feast.”

Aerander twitched his nose, and then he grinned as though Dam was putting him on. Of course, Dam wasn’t. “What do you mean?”

“Hanhau asked me to go with him as his guest.”

“Hanhau?”

Dam nodded.

“I thought—” Aerander started to say. He grimaced. “It’s a public occasion, Dam. People are supposed to sit with their family.”

“You’ll have Lys and Dardy and Evandros.” Dardy and Evandros were Aerander’s best friends. They were from House Gadir. But they were all so close, they called each other brothers.

“They’re friends. Not family.” Aerander said.

“It’s just a dinner. We’ll all be in the same room.”

“It’s not just a dinner. It’s diplomatic. You knew that, and you made plans without even talking to me about it.”

“It only came up last night.”

“How could you do that to me?”

Dam winced. He pushed on. “Hanhau asked me to go with him, and I told him would. Because I want to.”

“Because you want to. Did it ever occur to you that I need you at the feast? I’m representing everyone. Is it too much to ask that my only flesh and blood could sit beside me?”

Dam looked at his cousin helplessly. Ever since they had been reunited by the disaster, they were like lost pups who rediscovered each other in the wild. Aerander pushed too hard, and Dam nipped and clawed back. He needed time to go back to the way they had been with one another.

Aerander’s face was flushed and trembling. Dam stepped near. “I’ll be there to support you. Does it matter that we’re at the same table?” He reached to clasp his cousin’s shoulder. Aerander jerked away from him.

“What did I do to you to make you treat me like such a shit?”

Cold irons sank into Dam’s chest.

“Why can’t we be brothers, the way we used to be?”

Aerander had lost his birth mother when he was a baby, just like Dam had lost both his parents. They had been raised together by nursemaids in the Governor’s palace. They had both been taken into a household where they didn’t belong, which made them feel like they belonged to each other even more.

“When the flood came, and I couldn’t save my family, all I wanted to do was bury myself in my bed and die,” Aerander said. His eyes were watery and haunted. “You pulled me out of that. You told me that people needed me to give them something to believe in. You said we would stand together. Just like I took your side when everyone thought you double-crossed Leo and Koz, I might need your help someday.”

Dam stared at Aerander, frozen. “It’s only a feast.”

“Is everyone right about you?” Aerander said. “You lie and steal, and you only care about yourself?”

“Aerander, don’t.”

He eyed his cousin steadily. If Aerander wanted to have a conversation about the past, they could start with Aerander’s family brushing Dam aside like a domestic to clear a gleaming path for their one and only rightful legacy. Maybe Aerander couldn’t have done anything to intervene, but at least he could admit that it was House Atlas that had abandoned Dam, not Dam abandoning them.

Aerander drew a breath, and his diplomatic airs came back to him, albeit strained. “Do what you want,” he said. “There’ll be a seat at the table if you change your mind.”

He glanced at the chiton on Dam’s bed, and then he stepped out of the room.

~~~

If you liked what you read, you can pick up the book at my publisher’s online bookstore, Indiebound (to find an independent bookseller near you), Amazon, iTunes, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, or anywhere else you like to buy books. 🙂