The Arms of Hercules (Book of the Gods, Volume 3) [Paperback]

Fred Saberhagen (Author)

Book Description

Series: Book of the Gods | Publication Date: November 18, 2000

Continuing Book of the Gods, the series that kicked off with The Face of Apollo and Adrian's Web, New York Times-bestselling author Fred Saberhagen (The Berserker (tm) Series) again puts his own twist on Greek mythology in Book III, The Arms of Hercules.

Hercules is the son of the nearly omnipotent Zeus, King of the Gods and a human, whose beauty sparked lust in the great god. The arms of Hercules looked no more muscular than those of many other men--but his father was the greatest god in all the world. Hercules, the son of Zeus, crushed monsters, Giants, and legendary warriors in combat.

Until one challenge remains: the harrowing of the underworld, the one place where strength does not matter. Hercules is pitted against the greatest monsters that classical literature and Saberhagen's vivid imagination could create, and his struggles come vividly to life in his fight to the death, against death itself.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Mutant livestock such as mastodroms and cameloids roam a land very like Greece, where Saberhagen places a mild retelling (with obligatory debunking from the hero's viewpoint) of the Hercules legends. Our hero here has admittedly superhuman strengthAbeing an acknowledged son of ZeusAbut is humble about his prowess, leadership skills and even appearance. His famous first task, the killing of the Nemean lion, occurs in the course of a normal chore assigned to troublesome youths: guarding remote herds. Other tasks he stumbles into by even greater chance, while more are assigned by Hermes, the messenger of the gods. But Hercules regards the codified list of his 12 Labors as ranging from misinterpretation to complete fabrication by his fans. Saberhagen, the veteran author of some three dozen novels, including a series featuring Count Dracula and the SF Berserker books, sticks fairly close to familiar territory, offering a classical fantasy with centaurs and rare but convincing appearances by the gods. He drops a few unsatisfying hints that magic and divinity are based on an unexplained technology (one word, "odylic," describing this mysterious technology, dates from 1850: briefly, this seems to be a clue, but goes nowhere). This tale will satisfy those who like hero stories, but the book, third in a series (The Face of Apollo; Ariadne's Web), lacks the frisson possible to SF with plausible explanations, as well as the power of some other retellings. (Dec.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The third of the Books of the Gods continues Saberhagen's exploration of classical mythology as a springboard for fantasy. In it, Hercules is an experiment of Zeus'--a type of mortal hero who can survive to champion the gods in their battle with the Titans. From his mid-teens, Hercules proves that Zeus knew what he was doing. Hercules lacks heroic stature, but he has street smarts, along with magical strength and magical invulnerability. He progresses through his various labors and other adventures over the years, with Saberhagen sometimes interestingly varying some of them, such as Hercules' aborted attempt to accompany the Argonauts. As the book proceeds to its climax, Apollo and Theseus arrive from previous volumes of Saberhagen's series. Finally, there is the long-anticipated battle with the Titans. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; First Edition edition (November 18, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312877765
• ISBN-13: 978-0312877767
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,465,360 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Ho hum, another sequel, May 6, 2001

By 

James D. DeWitt "Alaska Fan" (Fairbanks, AK United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Arms of Hercules (Book of the Gods, Volume 3) (Paperback)

Saberhagen can be terrific or he can be annoying. The man write a good book - the first Sword Book and the Mask of Apollo in this series - and then he drives the idea past any point of entertainment in a sometimes unending series of sequels. How many Swords books are there now?

This time the author takes on Hercules, who narrates the story in the first person. Hercules wanders through 9 or 10 of the labors, disavows the others as myth and gets involved in an apocalyptic war between the gods and the giants. Saberhagen uses this war to explain away a lot of inconsistencies in Mask of Apollo and Ariadne's Web, the two earlier books. Zeus, for example, is revealed to be missing because he is afraid of a weapon of the giants.

Any doubts Hercules will survive are eliminated early, when he reveals he is telling the story from a later time. If we can't worry about Hercules, it just gets that much harder to get involved in his story. It's no longer a question of whether he will survive; rather, it's how he will muscle his way out of the next problem. Hercules' annoying shifts from clear thinker to muscle-headed moron distract as well.

Frankly, aside from the idea of faces, the gods of the early Swords books were a lot more interesting. And the gods of the much earlier Empire of the East more compelling still.

A lot of fantasy/science fiction writers have trolled mythology for ideas. And a lot of their stories are more interesting. Saberhagen's face idea is new; most of the rest is like reading Bullfinch.

I keep hoping Saberhagen will write a novel linking together the plainly related worlds of Empire of the East, Swords and this new Faces of the Gods series. That might be more interesting...

4.0 out of 5 stars A pleasant if not captivating addition to the series, December 8, 2005

By 

Omar Siddique (Ellicott City, MD USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Arms of Hercules (Book of the Gods, Volume 3) (Paperback)

Saberhagen continues his saga of gods from Greek/Roman mythology with this volume written from the first-person perspective of Hercules.

Saberhagen does a nice job of tying together the legend of Hercules with his own story line, although this volume is a little bland compared to the last two, with things going a little too easily, too simply. Hercules character development is a little stilted, and somebody missing from the first two volumes makes an appearance. But Saberhagen's narrative style is quite enjoyable, and I sped through this volume. Recommended if you enjoyed the earlier books, but not a good place to start the series.

4.0 out of 5 stars Not bad, April 3, 2003

By 

"scorchen" (Lyman, Wyoming United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Arms of Hercules (Book of the Gods, Volume 3) (Paperback)

This was actually alot better than the previous one. I read it clear through. Its a good read. And educational too..