Black Ships
In a time of war and doubt, Gull is an oracle. Daughter of a slave taken from fallen Troy, chosen at the age of seven to be the voice of the Lady of the Dead, she is destined to counsel kings.When nine black ships appear, captained by an exiled Trojan prince, Gull must decide between the life...
show more
In a time of war and doubt, Gull is an oracle. Daughter of a slave taken from fallen Troy, chosen at the age of seven to be the voice of the Lady of the Dead, she is destined to counsel kings.When nine black ships appear, captained by an exiled Trojan prince, Gull must decide between the life she was born for and a most perilous adventure - to join the remnant of her mother's people in their desperate flight. From the doomed bastions of the City of Pirates to the temples of Byblos, from the intrigues of the Egyptian court to the haunted caves beneath Mount Vesuvius, only Gull can guide Prince Aeneas on his quest, and only she can dare the gate of the Underworld to lead him to his destiny.In the last shadowed days of the Age of Bronze, one woman dreams of the world beginning anew. This is her story.Just as Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon breathed new life into Arthurian legend, BLACK SHIPS evokes the world of ancient Greece with beautiful, haunting prose, extraordinary imagination, and a profoundly moving story.
show less
Format: mass market paperback
ISBN:
9780316067997 (0316067997)
Publish date: December 1st 2009
Publisher: Orbit
Pages no: 480
Edition language: English
Series: Numinous World (#1)
This is the story of Gull, a slave born of a slave. Her mother and many people like her were taken from fallen Troy. Gull was allowed to stay with her mother, working the flax that grew along the irrigation ditches until the day an accident left her crippled. Her mother found her another role in lif...
Even though this book can be found in the fantasy aisle of the bookstore, there is little fantastical here that couldn't be rationalized, other than a few visions of prophecy. With Vergil's Aeneid as her basis, Graham uses the latest scholarship to recreate the late Bronze Age Mediterranean world. I...
Jo Graham takes Virgil's Aeneid and does a retelling of it from the point of view of the Pythia. She begins the story as Gull, a slave born of rape but still loved by her mother. When her ankle is broken she is apprenticed to the Pythia of the dark goddess Persephone, Lady of the dead, and she bec...
This book is so far up my alley that it's in my backyard, or possibly in my living room. I adored it! I don't know if I'll enjoy the sequels as much, since I loved these specific characters so much and as I understand it there's a lot of reincarnation ahead, but I look forward very much to finding...
A re-telling of the Aeneid, from the point of view of Aeneas’s oracle. It made an interesting counter-point to Ursula LeGuin’s Lavinia, which I loooooooved. Graham’s retelling is very solid, with a sense of the world changing around the characters, which generally speaking I really enjoy. And Gull i...
Log in with Facebook 
