Robins - Jan 22

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Somehow, when we talked about the premiere of HBO ‘Knight’ last time, I did not expect to be suckered into talking about robins of all things. To Mr. Martin, robins are somewhat important, I think, as there are a couple of secondary characters that are named, or nicknamed, ‘Robins’, in the honor of the bird. I am guessing that Mr. Martin was inspired, a bit, by the British folk song ‘Who killed Cock Robin?’ here. If he was, good for him.

…Robins are an important feature in the British culture; even Shakespeare, (one of Mr. Martin’s most important inspiration sources) mentioned them in his plays from time to time. Those are the European robins, Erithacus rubecula, the robin redbreast of the British poems, songs, and the like. They are smallish songbirds, about 12.5-14.0 cm in length, and are members of the Old World flycatcher family – meaning that they specialize on insects, and forage on trees and shrubs rather than elsewhere. Their breasts and faces are orange-red; their upperparts are brown, while the underparts are white instead. Overall, the European robins give the European winters a splash of color, (they do not usually migrate south for the winter), and are popular birds, especially in the U.K.

The other birds named robins are different. The most known one, of course, is the American robin, Turdus migratorius. It is a member of the ‘true thrush’ family, and is a thrush itself. In the wild, it is an exclusively New World bird and is not found anywhere else, (i.e. not an introduced species). It is the bigger bird out of the two – at 23-28 cm in length, it’s twice as big as the European robin is, and like many thrushes, it feeds both on the ground and in the trees; its’ legs are long and strong; it has a red belly rather than a breast, its’ back is black, (especially in the adult male birds), as is its’ face. (Its’ beak is yellow). It lives on the North American continent and does not go further south than Mexico in winter. It is a lively and a common North American bird.

Other robins are much more exotic to the Western people. The so-called Pekin robin, also – the Pekin nightingale or the Japanese nightingale, is one of them. The modern name is the red-billed leiothrix, Leiothrix lutea, and it is a handsome and colorful bird. It is 15 cm long, about the size of the European robin and it behaves similarly – i.e., it forages among the shrubs, and it prefers animal matter (insects) rather the plant matter (fruit and the like). The American robin, conversely, is more of a generalist, (though the chicks do prefer insects), and it prefers to forage on the ground instead. Moreover, the red-billed leiothrix is olive-green, but its’ yellow throat does have an orange shade to it, as are the edges of its’ wing feathers – in fact, they are red, orange, yellow, or black, as is its’ olive-brown forked tail – at the end, it is more blackish in color. Overall, the red-billed leiothrix is vaguely similar to the European robin, but its’ family, the Leiothrichidae, while related to the Old World flycatchers (and thrushes), are separate from both.

It should be noted that Andersen, whose stories ‘The Little Mermaid’ and ‘Snow Queen’ were adapted by Disney, also wrote a shorter story called ‘The Nightingale’ that was about the relationship of the nightingale and the emperor of China. The European nightingale that Andersen knew well doesn’t live in China, and neither does the red-billed leiothrix, but when did that stop Disney? The live adaptation of TLM was a biological/biogeographical mess in particular, so if Disney decides to adapt ‘The Nightingale’ next, why not use a red-billed leiothrix instead? It is more closely related to the common nightingale (and the European robin) than a gannet is to a sea gull…

Back to the robins proper, we have the scarlet robin, Petroica boodang, or rather several Australasian passerine birds known as the Australasian robins. Again, they have their own family among the passerines, the Petroicidae; the scarlet robin, as a sample bird, lives only in Australia in the wild. What does it look like? Unlike the previous three bird species, the scarlet robin is sexually dimorphic – the adult males and females of the species look different. Namely, the males are black and white with red, or even scarlet, underparts, while the females are much more drab and subdued. Up to 13.5 cm in length, they are roughly the same size as the European robins are too, as is their behavior – sort of. In the summer, they feed on trees, while in winter – on the ground. (Keep in mind that since Australia is south of the equator, the summer and winter months are opposite of ours).

Finally, we have the forest robins of Africa. They are three species in the genus Stiphrornis… and they are the closest relatives to the European robin out of all the birds mentioned here – they are a part of the Old World flycatcher family too. The orange-breasted species, Stiphrornis erythrothorax looks especially robin-like: is about 12 cm long, (the same length as the European species), has dark upper parts, while its’ throat and chest are deep orange… or yellow-orange – close enough. The behavior is similar too – foraging on trees rather than on the ground. Pause.

Are the African forest robins the most accurate imitations? From one point of view, they are the closest relatives of the European robin that we went through here. From another, the designation ‘robin’ is a human one, and all of the robins talked about here do not perceive themselves as ‘robins’; what do they perceive themselves is another question, one that we do not know the answer to – yet. The cow that used a human tool to scratch herself is Austria may very well know – we just do not know how to communicate with her… What we do know is that all of the ‘robin birds’ are perfectly adapted to life on trees, on the ground, or both… and that is good enough for them.

And for now, moreover, this is it. See you all soon!

Knight of 7, series premiere - Jan 21

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Toronto Public Library, of which I am a card-carrying member and all, decided to remake its’ website fully, and so now I had to re-register myself online and all. It was unnecessary, redundant, and all, but they did it regardless. Damn them.

The weather is just as bad – this winter is a bad one and the weather network cheerfully reiterates it day after day. Between that, and our apartment needing repairs, life sucks. So, let us look at HBO’s ‘Knight of the seven kingdoms’, shall we?

…Well, my first avenue of escape from reality was our RPG, based on D&D 3.5. (Why is a story for another time). One of our opponents was a Green Star Adept, that is to say something of a magic user who is slowly becoming a construct instead. The person who was designing this opponent just had the GSA be a wizard before becoming a GSA; one of our players wanted the GSA’s base class story to be more diverse, and so the gaming session just imploded; person 2 proclaimed that the GSA was just a basic wizard with the prestige class tackled on and that the base class history should’ve been more diverse, and person 1 pointed that a lot of GSA’s skill requirements were Knowledge skills, and so a wizard was a best choice… it was a mess. Onto the ‘Knight’?

Eh, after watching the series’ premiere I have one question: what happened to HoD? GoT was able to finish itself, though no one was pleased as to how it happened, and HoD? HoD ended with S2, so far there is no info when HoD will go onto S3, and HBO is already presenting an entirely different Westeros show. Is HoD on a hiatus or something? People would like to know, I bet…

As for ‘Knight’ itself… it is an RPG. It is a quasi-historical RPG, set in a quasi-England, with Dunk and Egg being the main players. They have to pass obstacles, surmount challenges, flat-out survive and all… it is not a bad concept, and not a bad delivery, and I, for one, have no problem with ‘Knight’, but that robin…

One of the scenes in 1x01 is Duncan hearing – and seeing – a robin in a tree. Since Westeros is based on England (of Shakespeare, and Chaucer, and even Bearns, just a bit), I am guessing that it is a European robin rather than some other – in our times the name ‘robin’ is applied to several bird species, not really related to each other. Of course, given how Westeros is imaginary, and that Mr. Martin tends to use animals in his novels as random monsters if at all, HBO could’ve used an American robin just as well, seeing how no one cared; but.

But what exactly did they do with the robin? I am reckoning that they could have gone into public video domain and got the footage of the European (or any other) robin to use in their show. Instead, I am mostly convinced, they used some sort of an AI to generate the bird; it is not a bad idea, it just makes the bird look rather fake. Duncan’s (ok, his actor’s) look at the singing bird only drives this point further – it’s quite fake and the show didn’t even tried to pretend that the fellow was really staring at an actual bird; instead, the actor just did his best to look incredulous… at nothing in particular. Fun!

That said, CGI-birds and the like aside, ‘Knight’ is a good TV series and I am surprised at the general lack of reaction towards it. Sure, there are reviews about it online, but little else; seemingly the Westeros fanbase itself is suspicious of HBO’s new move, even though ‘Knight’ does work. Oh, and Mr. Martin is teasing his new book, ‘The Winds of Winter’. Sigh.

Did not want to go there, but perhaps part of Mr. Martin’s, and HBO’s, problem is that people are moving past Westeros; his books aren’t selling as they did before, and overall the franchise’s popularity is waning; HBO tries to fix this, and they’re doing it better than how Disney did with SW, but regardless…

Regardless, it might not be enough. Right now, it’s winter 2026, it’s a bad and snowy one, and the Donald seems to be trying to destroy democracy on the planet, so of course people will watch anything to escape reality, and ‘Knight’ is a good show. Of course, so far, it is just the series’ premiere, so what happens next is anyone’s bet, but so far, the show is promising, so let’s be optimistic for the moment, even though real life still sucks.

Well, this is it for now, actually. See you all soon!

Story idea 1 - Jan 14

 Obligatory statement - real life sucks, so here's an idea for a fiction story if anyone's interested:

Story outline.

Aphrodite is a schemer, like most other Olympians are, and she planned to make one of her children into something more than just a demigod. Initially, she was going for Silena, grooming and preparing her for her potential destiny discreetly but Silena died during the war with Chronus, and Aphrodite had to start anew.

Not a problem, she has two candidates, the heir – Piper, and the spare – Drew. Well, Drew is mostly out because Piper seems to be perfect, doing exactly what Aphrodite wanted her to do, including saving Olympus from Gaia and the giants, but also a relationship with Jason.

Jason is the youngest son of Zeus/Jupiter, (so far, officially), and the latter has an ambiguous relationship with all of his sons: he keeps a close watch on them, and if they stand out and rebel (by the Thunderer’s standards), he ends them. Initially, Piper’s job was to occupy Jason’s attention and ensure that he did not do that – and in return, both she and her mother were to receive benefits from the king (and the queen) of Olympus.

At first, it worked, but when the pair moved to college, it stopped. The relationship ended, Jason stood up for Apollo, (who was in Zeus’s bad books now), and ended up dead with no chance of coming back, because you do not come back after you argue with Zeus. Hera is not happy and scheming, but Aphrodite and Piper are not a part of it.

Aphrodite tries to manipulate Piper by giving her Shel – who is almost a literal shell of a person, but it backfires: Piper is done with gods, demigods, and monsters, and takes what Shel de-facto offers her – a life as an ordinary mortal. (There is some squiggle room, but since Piper has de-facto renounced her status as the daughter of Aphrodite, none of the options are good). Aphrodite goes to Drew.

Drew knows that Aphrodite came to her only after Piper is done, and knows that for Aphrodite she is the last option. Still, Aphrodite is her mother, and so, when Aphrodite gets her to go on a quest, Drew accepts.

The quest is the first step out of several that are supposed to make Drew into something more than a demigod, almost like a junior partner for her mother. Drew suspects that something is off from the start, and though she loves and obeys her mother, she doesn’t do so without questions and doesn’t do all the right moves fully, and Aphrodite can’t manipulate/force her to do that, because that would ruin her whole plan – so now the mother and daughter are stuck in a very precarious position as both found themselves bound to each other by Aphrodite’s plot.

Add the Egyptian magicians, led by the Kane siblings. They do not know the Greek-Roman world too well, but Drew is helping them learn, (and learns back), and they recognize enough of Aphrodite’s plan to be wary. (Drew wants them to stop it, on some level). The story is set, and many people are going to have headaches before it ends.

This is it for now. See you all soon.

PJO S2, take 2 - Jan 13

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us return to PJO S2 once again.

We start with ‘the Sea of Monsters’, obviously. Riordan’s novel was one thing, and Disney+ went with something visibly influenced by the PotC franchise – remember the entire Depp vs. Hearst RL story? Yes, that PotC. Disney is continuing to play fast and loose with its properties – guess the Sequel Trilogy of SW did not teach them anything…

No, really, let us expand. In the SW 7-9 films, Disney tried to push female power and other progressive politics onto the movies’ audiences, and failed. The state of affairs where Disney/SW just swung back and forth between bending backwards to appease the viewers to flat-out defying them (Witcher S4 style) to elsewhere made it worse. In PJO S2, this state of affairs is not present, instead we have POCs, especially young women of Afro-American origin, being the main characters – mostly. Circe took over for Medusa here, (sort of – out of the two, Medusa is the more appealing character), and PJ (who is played by an Anglo-American male), and Grover, (who is a POC, but male, rather than female), are still important to the plot. However, otherwise? Athena is depicted here as a POC. Not a problem – she is a goddess; in Homer’s ‘Odyssey’ she tended to alter her appearance constantly whenever she was in the mortal world – she could appear as anyone, male or female, as well as human or bird. Right now, we behold her as a woman of color, just as Zeus is an Afro-American man – but that does not matter at all. Zeus courted Europa as a bull, Danae – as a shower of gold, Alcmene – as her legitimate husband, and Leda – as a swan to name a few; right now he looks like an Afro-American man; in the next moment he can look like an animal, an inanimate object, or, Tartarus, even a woman – he seduced and impregnated Callisto in the shape of his another daughter, Diana slash Artemis of the hunt, so, clearly, the divine equipment is different from the mortal on many levels…

Athena, of course, is supposed to be a virginal goddess. Pause. In the second series, Riordan made it so that Minerva is a virginal goddess, but Athena isn’t – and now, in ‘The Court of the Dead’, there are ‘legacy demigods’ of Minerva too. He is clearly doing his best to adapt to whatever Disney is doing with his franchise, for what else is there?

Calling it quits and leaving with some originality and integrity intact. As king Midas showed, you cannot have all the money in the world, and Croesus showed that you could be rich, but still have an unhappy ending to your life. (Neither appeared on PJO yet). Riordan has 15 books on the Greek-Roman myths, 3 on the Egyptian, and another 5 on the Norse – plus oodles of supplementary books. That is quite enough for a single person; the royalties for them should last him a lot – and then there are the ‘RR presents’ YA novels – but we’ll talk about them another time. Right now we reach the point that Riordan’s characters can be POC or WASP and move to the fact that Disney is trying to pull an ‘Ironheart’ here – Annabeth, Clarisse, even Thalia (in the flashback), all are POCs, and they almost steal the show from Percy, who is not. The show is good, but now the fans have reached the acceptance stage – they do not care about the race bending, (good for them), or about anything else. They just watch the episode of the week, and move on. Riordan and Disney tried to reinvigorate the franchise. It does not appear to have worked. Of course, if they kill Clarisse, (rather than Luke) on the show, I will be sad and disgruntled for one, but that is unimportant. I believe they are trying to make Clarisse almost like a mentor/big sister to Percy and that, again, is original content. Pause.

There is nothing wrong with original content; Hell, Tom Holland’s ‘Spider-Man’ movies are full of it, and if original content is delivered correctly, (in those movies it is), it works. Otherwise, you have ‘Ironheart’ or even ‘Marvel Zombies’, where it does not work. What next?

Clarisse’s heartfelt speech in the scene with Scylla. Of all the depictions they could have taken with the sea monster, this one was disappointing – a watered-down version of the PotC Kraken. Seriously, they just could have made her a giant squid and be done with it, ‘cause why not? In addition, on another note, it is Epic: the Musical. What?

In JRH’s version, Odysseus sacrificed a random half-a-dozen of his crew so that he, and the rest, could get through and to Ithaca, eventually. In Homer, Odysseus prepared to fight Scylla, but since six heads can be smarter than one, Scylla launched a surprise sneak attack and stole six of Odysseus’ crew before Odysseus could do anything. In addition, here, in PJO S2, we have Clarisse and co. doing their best to save Clarisse’s crew (who are not entirely human themselves, but Scylla does not care)… with mixed success, but still. I honestly wonder if the script of Epic: the Musical, (there the Scylla episode is something of a response to the ‘Survive’ song set in Polyphemus’ cave), hadn’t influenced Disney’s PJO script writers and they went the other way…

Polyphemus, of course, is Polyphemus, (just as Tyson is Tyson). Here, the PJO script did something different from the book again – the Tyson vs. Polyphemus fight, for example. Clearly, the PJO scriptwriters felt that they needed to do something different from the book (and the movie) here, and they did. It was certainly dramatic, too. Good for them. Pause.

Do I like the PJO S2? It is not bad. It is full of progressive politics, just like Ms. Haynes’ books, and as I wrote before, Ms. Haynes seems to be doing her best to be noticed by Disney and co. – but she does not appear to have much luck in this direction. As it was written earlier, her writing usually does not have any passion, any investment – it is not written by an A.I., but that is not necessarily an improvement.

What is the advantage of A.I.? It allows you to bounce your ideas around, to see what they look like as a draft.

…Ok, it can enable you to do a lot more – write an official letter, an essay, explain a complex myth to your child and so on. The A.I. is here to stay, but you must learn how to handle it precisely – a slight mistake and the result is nothing that you wanted. If this sounds familiar, it is. It is Athena and her wisdom – she can help you see clearly, (or clearer), what you want, but nothing else. You are in charge, in fact, you decide where to go from there, what to do with this advice, and so on. The ‘Odyssey’ shows this clearly – Athena, disguised as Mentor, (a man – therefore, for all that we know, she was hanging around Annabeth regularly, Annabeth just never knew that it was her mum), helps Telemachus to organize his thoughts, make up his mind, design his plan, and go off to execute it. It is clean, precise, methodical, and not exactly humans – but the gods of Olympus are not exactly human to begin with, and neither is A.I. I am not saying that Annabeth is the daughter of a divine Skynet, but wouldn’t it be cool if it were?

Back to PJO… it was not written by A.I., or at least – not purely by A.I., and neither were Riordan’s original YA novels, and therefore, the PJ franchise feels more emotional than Ms. Haynes’ works. Her non-fiction works are something else, and ‘1000 ships’… well, it has Odysseus and Penelope in it, and so it is a much more interesting read than ‘Stone’; as for ‘House’ (her upcoming 2006 novel), we will just have to wait and see.

For now, though, this is it. See you all soon.

 

PJO, Riordan, and Ms. Haynes - Jan 11

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. My apologizes for vanishing for the rest of 2025, but real life sucks, and I did not have a regular access to computer until now. I really hate my life, you know? That said, the ‘Endlings’ have ended for now, (and we will talk about them some other time), MCU is about to bring forth ‘Wonder-Man’ by the end of Jan 2026, (and we will talk about it then), so what is left?

The second season of PJO, mostly. After the excitement of the first season, the second is going down much quietly, people have accepted this PJ reality and just go with it – or not. The sirens, for example, clearly designed via 3.5 edition’s D&D Monster Manual II, are just… not working. This probably brings us to Annabeth (and Clarisse). Pause.

Once upon a time, there was plenty of racebending artwork – not just of PJ, but also of HP and the like – and then the first season of PJO came out, and racebending became official, and unofficially? The racebending stopped. Even via the AI, as well as the more traditional artwork. In fact, the popularity of the entire Riordan franchise still appears to be gradually dying down, which brings us to Ms. Natalie Haynes.

Ms. Haynes, judging by her books, both fiction and non-fiction, wouldn’t object being noticed by Disney or someone like that; to achieve this, she’s trying to be politically progressive, especially in ‘Deific Might’ (that features a particularly cheeky goddess Athena on the cover)… just when the progressive politics are dying – thanks to the Donald (at the moment). Moreover, as I wrote in 2025, most of the time, Ms. Haynes’ prose is more mind than passion, more Athena than Medusa (by her standards), and while she does get passionate (say, about Phaedra in ‘Pandora’s Jar’), most of the time she is not. Therefore, it is rather hard to get excited/involved/etc. in her writings as well. You read them, and you are done. Onto Athena?

Athena… is a special case for Ms. Haynes – she is clearly her favorite goddess, she tries to put her into every entry of PJ and DM. Ms. Haynes tends to be long-winded anyhow, (and it doesn’t always work in her favor), but when Athena, (or Odysseus, Penelope, or Homer), is talked about, she becomes especially so. Ms. Haynes has her favorites, and no matter how hard she tries to some across as a politically progressive person, she does not always achieve this. So what does Riordan has to do with this?

As we have seen the goddess Athena in PJO, she too is now Afro-American, as is Annabeth, her daughter. This means nothing, because Athena is a fully blooded goddess and can look like everyone. This is traditional, in fact, because in Homer’s ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey’, (as well as the later works, especially Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’) Athena was quite fond of disguises and could be anyone, before revealing her godly might and surprising the unlucky mortal. She got it from Zeus, of course – the king of gods and mortals really loved disguises, especially when it came to seduction; he usually didn’t go as himself (unless the other party themselves was divine, like Leto or Maia), but rather as someone else – as the lawful husband when he sired Heracles, as his own daughter when he seduced Calypso, as a bull, or a golden rain, or – you get the idea. How does Athena fit here?

Zeus was worried about himself being dethroned. After all, his father, who was dethroned by Zeus himself, so there was tradition, dethroned his grandfather and since it was in Zeus’s disfavor, he did not like it. Therefore, his Olympian children were rather worried about him whipping out his old thunderbolt and sending them off the Olympus into who knows where. There are actually myths about Apollo (and sometimes Poseidon) having this sort of experience – usually serving mortals as well. Riordan’s TTOA books have precedent on their side.

For Athena’s part, she was the daughter of Metis. Zeus was worried that Metis will bear a son, who will dethrone him, so he swallowed her, and Metis bore Athena, a daughter, instead. I.e., Athena is the son that Zeus always wanted – a daughter who cannot inherit his throne (or deposit him – theoretically). In addition, for her part Athena is always obedient to Zeus in the canon and usually does what he wants and nothing more. That is one.

Two is that Athena is wisdom, true, but… the wisdom she gives is the one that the person already has. Look at Aphrodite. As love, she can be anyone, so all of those depictions of her are all true – she can take any shape, from a skinny blonde-haired woman to a short and busty redhead, to anyone else – and she will always be Aphrodite. Athena, too, can be anyone or anything – an old woman, a bird (and not just an owl), your best friend or even your sibling – and she will always give wise advice. Only… everyone has their own wisdom (and common sense), and that is what Athena does. She tells the person not so much what they want to hear, but rather what they are already thinking; she helps them work through the thinking process and arrive where they want to go mentally – and that can be dangerous. In the ‘Iliad’, for example, Athena pretended to be one of Hector’s brothers (who wasn’t Paris), who promised to help Hector with his fight with Achilles – and so Hector went to fight Achilles, and his brother (let alone Athena) wasn’t there to help him, and that was one of the reasons he died.

The rub there, of course, is that it might’ve been one of Hector’s brothers (who wasn’t Paris), who wanted Hector to die so that he can be the next commander in chief of the Trojan forces, and Athena just helped him figure out how to do it – how to set Hector up. Athena, the wisdom, does what you want to do, she helps you get to your goal without caring about morality, and if you fail, or succeed, and the price is paid – Athena is already gone; she usually does not care about mortals, normally she does not care about the mortals at all…

You know who, or what, this sounds like? An AI or a robot. Athena is almost all intellect, normally; she does not have much emotions. Poor Annabeth has her work cut out for her trying to impress her divine parent – it is not that Athena does not care about her children; it’s that she doesn’t do that emotionally. Moreover, I do not think that she would have children without Zeus’ permission – he is not exactly grandfather material, he is always suspecting that there is a rival within his family and so he keeps his thunderbolt ready and primed. If he suspected that Athena was not loyal to him, he would smite her too – as he did with Apollo, most likely. Therefore, Athena can prance before Ares and proclaim that she is better than he is at war and his domains, but in reality? It is a superiority of a computer/robot over a human being (in a matter of speaking), and we all know how it goes does in a sci-fi movie (or a TV series) – the human eventually triumphs…

It would have been an interesting twist, if in PJO Riordan did not make Ares the villain in the ‘Lightning Thief’ book, but rather Athena: she could have started as this flawless, perfect being, and then gradually the titular hero and his friends realized that this perfection is hollow and that Athena is manipulating everyone without caring about anyone. Chronus, of course, would still be the puppeteer; Athena would be free from his control and would spend at least a couple of books putting her life back together after this disaster. (Instead of Trials of Apollo, we could have Trials of Athena – that would be interesting too). However, no – Ares is a stereotypical villain, Percy defeats him, and Ares recovers his standing by the third book of PJO, the end. Clichéd and boring – no wonder that Riordan’s world is slowly fading into overall oblivion, Disney+ series or not. Meanwhile, Ms. Haynes?

The same thing. Her fiction books, feel like they have been written by an A.I. (or Athena) – smooth, flawless, easily forgettable. Her non-fiction books… Ms. Haynes tries to be politically progressive, but sometimes she sounds like a neophyte who arrived at progressive politics late in her life and who tries to compensate for this fact with extra zeal – and sometimes she sounds more like an opportunist, who doesn’t care about the progressive politics but wants to use them to get ahead… isn’t that Disney? It sure is – no wonder Ms. Haynes is trying to hit all the right notes and be notices – after all, if Disney worked for Riordan, and made him successful and rich, why not for her?

…Because Riordan actually has passion in his writing and emotion. Some of his novels – especially the second pentalogy, where Percy and friends meet the Romans and have to ally with them to defeat the giants – are quite good. Ms. Haynes’ novels are not so much. (In addition, authors are publishing fictive books based on Greek myths quite regularly in the last few years, so Ms. Haynes is also getting lost in the crowd). However, hey, Athena would be proud!

…Athena is not the goddess of creativity or literature – that is the role of the Muses and Apollo. Riordan invested into the latter a lot – five entire books, a whole series. Maybe Ms. Haynes should try to do something similar rather than sticking with ‘girl power’ – something that Athena does not have much in common with anyhow. (Seriously, Athena does not care all that much for mortal women, unlike the other Olympian gods and goddesses). However, hey, it is her call. (The real life sucks, again – unlike the sirens of PJO who are not even good or bad – just bizarre, and looking like some animatronics gone wrong – but that is a rant for another time).

For now, though, this is it. See you all soon!