excerpts - Dan Simmon's Olympos

The setting of Olympos is highly complex. it takes place in several settings. One is on the plains of Illium where the war between the Trojans and the Aegeans is happening. The other is on Mt Olympos, where the Olympian Gods frolick around, do silly things and whine like kids when things dont go their way. The third setting is on a distant planet with machines and humaniods who study shakespeare and much of human literature. The fourth setting is on earth (but not earth as we know it) where the population of mankind (known as old style humans) are kept at 1 million. they live in blocs of 20 years, to be rejuvenated and rebuilt physically at the end of every 20 years.

the following exchange takes place when Achilles meets Nyx-Night, to find out where Zeus is, because Achilles wants Zeus' permission to place Penthasilea the Amazon Queen into the healing tanks.

"You need to see the Lord of Thunder, the God of all Gods, the Pelasgian Zeus, Father of all Gods and Men, Zeus the Ultimate King Who Marshals the Storm Clouds and Who Gives All Commmands?"

"Yeah," says Achilles.

"What about?" asks Nyx.

It was Hephaetus who speaks up. "Achilles seeks to bring a mortal to the Healer's tanks, Mother of the first black germless egg. He wants to ask Father Zeus to command the Healer to bring back to life the Amazon Queen, Penthasilea."

Night laughs. If her voice had been a wild sea crashing against rocks, Achilles thinks her laught sounds like a winter wind howling off the Aegean.

"Penthasilea?" says the black-garbed goddess, still chuckling. "That brainless, blond, big-boobed lesbian tart? Why on a million Earths would you want to bring that musclebound bimbo back to life, son of Peleus? After all, it was you I watched run her and her horse through with your father's great lance, skewering them both like peppers on a kebab."

"I have no choice," rumbles Achilles. "I love her."
The brilliance of Simmon's writing. Found the passage really hilarious. The plot of Olympos is complex and complicated but no less interesting and intriguing. But to really understand and appreciate the whole sequence of events and the beauty of Simmon's writing and intelligence. really go buy Illium and Olympos. Thick but satisfying. (and really, i dont like science fiction, but i recommend it)

excerpts from sexing the cherry - Jeanette Winterson

'The future and the present and the past exist only in our minds, and form a distance the borders of each shrink and fade like the borders of hostile countries seen from a floating city in the sky. The river runs from one country to another without stopping. And even the most solid of things and the most real, the best loved and the well known, are the only hand shadows on the wall. Empty space and points of light.

your emotions are not complex like mine, my dilemna is poetic
i love to see the sudden glide of wings spread out for prey and then dip and the noise like a lover in pain
i could stay and be unhappy and humilated
i could leave and be unhappy but dignified
i could live in hope and die of bitterness
i was no longer a reality, i was one of those things around him
i was the fence that needed to be removed
i was none of these things, but i became them


these were previously part of my actual blog, but i decided to remove them cause it was beginning to get too wordy and i changed the layout as well. these really struck me when i read them the first time, i picked up sexing the cherry because i was considering it as an s lit text, but i didnt in the end, neither did i use oranges arent the only fruit, but it remains my favourite book till date.