Book Review: Myths and Symbols of Pagan Europe by H.R. Ellis Davidson

Title: Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe: Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions
Author: H.R. Ellis Davidson
Published: New York: Syracuse University Press, 1988
Page Count: 268
Total Page Count: 26,780
Text Number: 78
Read For: Celtic Reconstruction research, checked out from the Portland State University Library
Short review: A useful introduction to the structure, key concepts, and beliefs of ancient Scandinavian and Celtic religions. Davidson covers a number of topics, including holy places, feasting and sacrifice, battle rites, land spirits and ancestors, divination, the Otherworld, and what she calls "the ruling powers." Her text is an overview and an introduction: not very deep, but a good place to begin one's study. Because she discusses both Germanic and Celtic religions, there is too much ground to cover to do so in depth. Sometimes the religions feel confused or one of the other is ignored in order to move on to the text subject. Nonetheless, the text is scholarly, well-footnoted and clearly based in research; for the most part her analysis manages to identify key themes and symbols in an analytic, readable fashion. I believe that her attempt to categorize the gods at the very end of the book fails, but with that one exception the book is on the whole a useful, intelligent introduction to these ancient religions, and the writing style is approachable while still scholarly.

( Long review. )

Review posted here at Amazon.com.

Book Review: Olympos by Dan Simmons

Title: Olympos
Author: Dan Simmons
Published: New York: HarperCollins, 2005
Page Count: 690
Total Page Count: 27,470
Text Number: 79
Read For: my own enjoyment, checked out from the library
Short review: The sequel to Ilium, and unfortunately not as good. Olympos picks up where Ilium left off: On Mars, where the Trojan War has been lived again, the scholic Hockenberry has changed the course of events and started the Greeks and Trojans in a joint war against the gods—but the gods have plans to restart the war between the mortals. Meanwhile, on Earth life as they know it of the old-style humans has been completely changed, and rather than endless parties and good health they must now fight for themselves while being attacked on all sides by the very machines that used to serve them. Sentient robots called moravecs unite the two storylines when they leave Mars for Earth in order to stop the wild quantum fluxations that originate there. A sci-fi epic on a grand scale, Olympos unfortunately has too many concurrent plot lines to stay afloat and feels disjointed and incoherent. Nonetheless, the characters are interesting and the plot original. The book does bring to a satisfying close the story begun in Ilium, if you've read the prequel you'll care enough about the story and characters to make it through this volume, and the science-fiction aspects (while not particularly well explained) are innovative and make for a unique setting. I'm fairly ambivalent about this book: it was ok as a sequel, but I didn't enjoy it much in its own right.

( Long review. )

Review posted here at Amazon.com.