Zeus Is Dead - Michael G. Munz

   2014; 442 pages.  Full Title: “Zeus Is Dead: A Monstrously Inconvenient Adventure”.  Book 1 (out of 2) in the “Zeus Is Dead” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genre : Mythological Fantasy; Satire; Greek Mythology.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    The Olympians have returned!!

 

    No, not the athletes who every four years travel to foreign countries to compete in “Summer” or “Winter” games with other athletes from around the world.

 

    We’re talking about those ancient Greek gods, led by Zeus, and residing on Mt. Olympus.  They’ve always been there, they’ve just been keeping a low profile, on orders from Zeus himself.  Now they’re back in the headlines, with a major News Flash for us.

 

    ZEUS IS DEAD!  Killed by persons or deities unknown.

 

    Hey, now I know this is a hoax.  Gods are immortal.  There’s no way anyone could kill Zeus!

 

What’s To Like...

    Full disclosure: if a book has a mythological theme, I’m going to like it.  Zeus Is Dead is no exception; the Greek pantheon of gods and goddesses shows up in the modern-day world with chaotic results, and I knew from the start I'd dig it.

 

    I was impressed with the breadth of the list of the translocated deities.  Sure, one would expect Zeus, Hera, and maybe Athena to have roles.  But the author brings in the Fates, the Furies, and the Muses, and work them all into the storyline.  Even the Titans, banished by Zeus a long, long time ago, are freed from their eternal prison, and rightfully intend to contribute to the mayhem.

 

    The overall tone of Zeus Is Dead is satire, but along the way, Michael Munz has some subtle insights about how modern society, particularly the major religions and right-wingers, would react to the old gods suddenly returning.  Groups like the NCMO (the Neo-Christian Movement of America), and the Pious Reactionists take a dim view of the Olympians’ presence.

 

    I enjoyed following along with several mortals as they tried to determine whether Zeus is really dead (he is an Immortal, after all), and if so. who killed him and where his remains are.  Ares claims to be the assassin, but hey, he’s the god of War, and his nonchalant confession may just be hubris.  The slaying could also be a team effort; it’s hard to imagine one lone killer successfully offing Zeus.

 

    The gods conjure up some fantastic never-seen-before critters for our modern world.  The turtle-frog is a formidable beast, and the razorwings (see first excerpt, below) are adorably lethal.  And if an orthlaelapsian wraith crosses your path, you might as well start digging your own grave. 

    The character-development is also well-done, and true to the way the gods are portrayed in classical mythology.  Zeus may be the head honcho (at least for a while) but he’s also a womanizer and a “my-way-or-the-highway” bully who acts first and thinks later.  Ares is thug who’s always looking for a fight and Dionysius is a party animal.

 

    Everything leads to a decent ending featuring an epic battle with an over-the-top twist or two.  The threats to the Olympians’ continued existence are dealt with, but at a steep cost.  Several mortals are promoted, and a plot thread involving two missing movie-making humans remains unresolved, fully justifying me grabbing the sequel, Zeus Is Undead.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Tachyon (n.) : a hypothetical subatomic particle that is theorized to always travel faster than the speed of light.

Others: Ley lines; (n.); Schmoopifying (v., a made-up word, and way-kewl).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.1/5 based on 1,485 ratings and 337 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.71/5 based on 1,752 ratings and 249 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    And so it came to be that the creatures eventually dubbed “razorwings” were among the most fearsome of all for one particular reason.

    They were impossibly cute.

    In fact, they were kittens—fuzzy, adorable kittens, each the color of fresh snow and no bigger than a cantaloupe.  They were also feral; spat a paralyzing poison; and flew on colorful, batlike wings capable of slicing through a human arm.  Yet once you attached all that to a kitten, it became the zoological equivalent of a death threat on pink stationery with hearts dotting the i’s.  (loc. 1658)

 

    “Okay, so . . . here’s the plan.  We hold them here in this tunnel.  It’s narrow; it’ll help us hold them off.  Tactical advantage.  We can do this, right?”

    “Golly, let me think!  Um, no!  They’re fury on wings; we’re mice with toothpicks!”

    “The tunnel’s narrow!  They can only come at us one at a time!”  Leif’s courage flared as he tried to rally the Muse.  “This is our best shot!”  His adrenaline spiked further as the realization that he was currently in Greece propelled him into a glorious culmination of, “This! Is! Spart—”

    Thalia decked him right in the face before he could finish.  (loc. 6324)

 

Kindle Details…

    Zeus Is Dead is currently priced at $4.99 at Amazon.  The sequel, Zeus Is Undead, goes for $5.99.  Michael G. Munz offers a half-dozen other e-books, including a First Contact Sci-Fi trilogy called The New Aeneid Cycle.  The books in that series are in the $0.99-$3.99 price range.

 

“Well shave my head and paint me blue!”  (loc. 6028)

    There’s a moderate amount of cussing in Zeus Is Dead.  I counted 23 instances in the first 20%, 13 of which involved variation of damn.  Later on, the mother f-bomb pops up.

 

    Quite often, when profanity is called for, the author uses euphemistic myth-based expletives.  Examples: “by the Styx”, “Titans’ armpits”, “Go to Tartarus!”, in the name of Cerberus’s chew toys”, and ”Minos’s golden balls”.  I love this literary device and fully endorse its use more frequently in novels.

 

    Whoever the editor was, they did a marvelous job.  I didn’t notice any typos, and the only punctuation issues were a missing quotation mark and a whole bunch of unwanted spaces after em-dashes.  I suspect those cropped up during the conversion to e-book format and thus not the author's fault.

 

    I thoroughly enjoyed Zeus Is Dead.  The pacing is good, the mystery angle of who killed Zeus was developed deftly, the world-building was convincing, and the interrelations between humans and gods was convincing.  The sequel now resides on my Kindle, and I’m looking forward to reading it in the near future.

 

    8½ Stars.  One last thing.  There’s a gizmo called the “Idiot Ball” that plays an important part in the story, for better and for worse.  I need to find me one of these and put it to good use.