Mythologies

Our friends at the award-winning Scottish independent publishers Canongate have been telling us a little of what sounds like a remarkable new series of books due later this year. The Myths will allow a wide variety of contemporary authors to re-interpret and re-tell some of the great tales of world mythology. Already I can hear the ears of the Neil Gaiman readers picking up at this.

Karen Armstrong has written A Short History of Myth to begin the series, while Booker-winning Margaret Atwood (who has intrigued SF readers with the excellent Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake) will bring us The Penelopiad, drawing on the myth of Penelope and Odysseus and Jeanette Winterson explores the myths of Atlas and Heracles in Weight.

In a unique move the series will involve a simultaneous launch by twenty four publishers around the globe (mirroring the fact that these are myths and tales which belong to the whole of human culture) this October, so expect to hear a lot about it in the media.

I’ve been lucky enough to have a little peek at some of what’s coming our way and I think this is a very exciting series – it is very unusual and I believe it will have enormous appeal to those of us who enjoy serious fantasy literature such as the works of Neil Gaiman (often so richly layered in folklore and myth), Robert Holdstock or the recent Brian Aldiss novel Jocasta I mentioned a couple of weeks back – which by the way is just entering our stores. It’s a limited run of 750 exquisite copies, so if you’re interested you better not dawdle.