Saturday, July 21, 2018

Golden Apples

While I was thinking about language in historical fiction I decided if I were to write the Atlantis story it would be in unapologetically modern language.

Trouble I have with that one is merging the two worlds. One thread is the Luwian Hypothesis, which puts a coalition of bronze-age Mycenaeans against a powerful empire based around Troy. Which in my particular conflation is also the Evil Empire of Atlantis, scourge of Plato's heroic Athenians.

And that's a lot of fun, a clash of technologies, chariots versus flying machines, crystal-powered rayguns versus spears. With all the gadgeteer type military SF fun of reverse-engineering and stealing and otherwise making rapid adaptations in the tech and methods of both sides.

The other thread is the Trojan War epic. Which is really two stories. One is the war, the other is the back-alley shenanigans of the gods. At various crisis points they intersect.

And when I think about the Atlantis story, it is this half I find myself inventing for. Moments like Oenone giving Paris a big dressing-down after his terrible lapse in Judgement, and then settling in to the long fight of a mere nymph against one or more of the Olympian Gods (conniving Aphrodite first on the list, of course.) Or, through connection to her sister Thetis (not canonical but why not?) a late-story turning of Achilles to the side of good. And particularly Paris as a young, callow, realistically flawed hero who grows and learns.

I don't know if those two worlds can ever meet but I sense a heck of a fun story in there if they could.

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