Big News from my fantasy writing desk:
Priestess of Ishana, the first book in my new series, is now available. And it’s on sale for a couple weeks. The e-book is only $2.99 and on Amazon when you buy a paperback, you get the e-book for free. Buy a gift for someone on your list and keep one for yourself. Priestess is also available on Barnes & Noble and Kobo (and eventually Apple). Curl up with a good book while the weather storms outside (or the sun shines, as it mostly does here in Arizona).
Here’s the quick answer to “What’s Priestess about?”:
A curse, a conspiracy and the clash of kingdoms. A defiant priestess confronts her foes, armed only with ingenuity and forbidden magic.
And here’s what Beth Cato, one of my favorite fantasy writers, had to say about Priestess:
“Priestess of Ishana evokes everything I love about historically-inspired fantasy with a strong and savvy heroine, a compassionate hero, and a world both blessed and cursed by the oversight of gods. Mystery, romance, action: this has it all.”
-Beth Cato, author of The Clockwork Dagger and Breath of Earth
Archaeology news I enjoyed:
Leda and a lecherous swan in Pompeii, newly discovered fresco
Ongoing excavations in Pompeii reveal a new fresco—an erotic one of Leda and the swan. The fresco portrays the salacious myth of Zeus disguising himself as a swan to gain access to Leda. I find it interesting that Zeus always chooses animals for his seduction disguises.
Leda subsequently gives birth to four children, Helen, Clytemnestra, Pollux and Castor. Some of these children are said to be her mortal husband’s children, some Zeus’s. One thing for sure, these kids produce a lot of mythological mayhem. It’s a beautiful fresco, apparently the decoration for a bedroom in a wealthy home in the city center. Click here for the BBC news “Pompeii dig reveals erotic Leda and swan fresco”
A new gear found on seabed for the Antikythera Mechanism
Archaeological divers have found a missing piece of Antikythera mechanism on the Aegean seabed. They are conducting further exploration of the shipwreck where the main piece was discovered.
You ask, what is the Antikythera mechanism? Named after the island near where it was found, it is an ancient Greek analog calculator with dozens of gears to do math, calculate sun and moon movements, predict eclipses, track the planets and constellations, and more. We don’t actually know how many gears it had when whole.
If history were actually linear and we built on each accomplishment without losing knowledge along the way, we’d “know” a lot more. Hard to tell if that would be a good thing or not, I suppose. Maybe having to learn and relearn is better for human development. What do you think? And who (or what sort of person) do you think designed the Antikythera mechanism? Click here for Haaretz “Missing Piece of Antikythera Mechanism Found on Aegean Seabed”