THE CURSE OF THE MINOTAUR: An Annotated Tale of Ancient Greece [Kindle Edition]

Tom Stone (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Like "The Once and Future King" and "Lord of the Rings," Tom Stone’s "The Curse of the Minotaur" is an action-packed tale written for young adults of all ages. Set in Bronze Age Greece some 250 years before the Trojan War, it tells of a world where fantastical monsters, good and evil sorceresses, and power-mad kings stalk the earth, and the old gods and goddesses appear to their worshipers in dreams and as animals. But it is also a world on the brink of momentous changes: a monstrous, sea-girded volcano is threatening to wipe out mankind, and heroes — mortals with superhuman powers and all-too-human weaknesses — are newly emerging to challenge the old balance between men and their rulers and gods. One of these, a young prince named Théseus, goes to the island of Crete to try and kill the Minotaur, a flesh-eating, bull-headed man that has been terrorizing his kingdom. There, the prince finds himself falling in love with the Beast’s half-sister, an enchanting Cretan princess named Ariádne. Meanwhile, the Minotaur awaits him in the spooky depths of the Labyrinth, less of a bloodthirsty monstrosity than a confused and abandoned mutant beaten and starved into savagery.
Stone has enriched his tale with the addition of a series of endnotes, images, and maps that place the story in its historical and mythological contexts and lend considerable depth to an already fascinating story.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tom Stone, who once lived in Greece for 22 years, is the author of seven previous books about the country and its culture and history. These include "ZEUS: A Journey Through Greece in the Footsteps of a God" (Bloomsbury, 2008), which has been a success as a Main Selection for the History Book Club and the QPBC. Recently, he appeared in three segments of the History Channel’s series, "The Clash of the Gods." Stone is also the author of "The Summer of my Greek Taverna" (Simon and Schuster, 2002), a Book-of–the-Month Club and QBPC selection, which has been translated into ten languages, including Mandarin, Hebrew, and Russian. He now lives in Los Angeles with his lovely wife, Fárzaneh.

Product Details

• File Size: 970 KB
• Print Length: 201 pages
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004V17XEK
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #156,081 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #17 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > History > Europe > Greece

More About the Author

TOM STONE has pursued a multi-faceted career as a novelist, travel writer, historian, and stage- and screenplay writer. Simultaneously, he had a very successful stint in the professional theater as a director, lighting designer, and stage manager.

In his early years, he devoured the myths of Greece and Norway. Later, he snapped up related books by Edith Hamilton, Robert Graves, Mary Renault, Lawrence Durrell, Nikos Kazantzakis and Joseph Campbell--among many, many others.

After graduating from Yale, where he gained a BA in English Literature and an addiction to the theater, he was able to first visit Greece as an assistant stage manager for Jerome Robbins' ballet company. He spent the next decade working as a stage manager and assistant director for Jerome Robbins and Harold Prince on the original productions of "She Loves Me," "Funny Girl," "Fiddler On The Roof," and "Cabaret" as well as the now-legendary efforts of Robbins' American Theatre Laboratory.

In 1969, he took a sabbatical from Broadway with the intention of spending a single summer on one of the islands writing a novel. Instead, he stayed twenty-two years, principally on the islands of Patmos and Crete and near the mainland capital of northern Greece, Thessaloniki. In the process, he became a father of two, a teacher of English and Theater at Anatolia College in Northern Greece, and a lighting designer and director for the Greek National Theater.

While in Greece, he wrote and published his first novel, "Armstrong," and numerous books and articles about living abroad. These include "The Essential Greek Handbook," "Greece: An Illustrated History," "Patmos: A History and Guide," and "The Greek Food & Drink Book."

In 1992, with his children in U.S. universities and his marriage moribund, he accept an offer by Harold Prince to become the Resident Director in London of Mr. Prince's new, Broadway-bound musical. "The Kiss of the Spider Woman." Subsequently, Mr. Stone directed the London company, starring Bebe Neuwirth. Shortly afterwards, he directed the German-language version in Vienna.

Upon returning to New York, Mr. Stone put Brian Stokes Mitchell into the cast of "Spider Woman" and then worked for a season with the Circle Repertory Company as casting director and stage manager. But breaking back into the theater proved to be impossible after so many years. When one of Mr. Stone's short stories was optioned for a TV movie, he headed west. He has since written eight film scripts for hire, but as of this writing, none have been produced.

He has now returned to teaching English as a Second Language in the adult school system of Los Angeles, and to occasionally lecturing on Greek history with Pierce College. Meanwhile, he is devoting most of his time to writing books. His memoir of living on Patmos, "The Summer of My Greek Tavérna," was published by Simon & Schuster in 2002 and was selected by the Book-of-the-Month Club and Quality Paperback Club in 2003. It has been translated into ten languages, including Dutch, German, Danish, Hebrew, and Mandarin (Taiwan). It will soon be published in Greek.

In February, 2008, he published "Zeus: A Journey Through Greece in the Footsteps of a God"(Bloomsbury). It became a Main Selection of the History Book Club and the QPBC, and this led to his on-going appearances in three segments of the History Channel's series on mythology, "The Clash of the Gods."

His latest effort is "The Curse of the Minotaur: An Annotated Tale of Ancient Greece." As with all his books, Stone writes to both entertain and inform, and this action-packed adventure is appended by a large number end notes, images, and maps explaining the historical and mythological background of this timeless and fascinating story.

He lives in Los Angeles with his lovely wife, Fárzaneh. His website and contact e-mail address are at http://tomstone-gr.com/.