Stop That Bull Theseus

Zeus's version of the Theseus myth is totally fabricated! Theseus went into the labyrinth all right, but the only thing he did in there was get lost. He never killed the Minotaur. Zeus made the whole thing up so everyone would think the Minotaur was gone for good. Hades, King of the Underworld, sets the record straight on the story of Theseus and the Minotaur.

Puts a modern spin on the Greek myth of the hero Theseus, whose desire to accomplish great deeds without doing anything the easy way is exceeded only by his astonishingly poor memory.

The story about Pandora opening a box and releasing terrible evils into the world? Totally made up! Pandora couldn't have cared less about what was in that box. The one who was really dying to know was Zeus. Zeus gave Pandora a box alright. A box full of really nasty items. But disease? Pain? Greed? No way. Hades, King of the Underworld, reveals the true story behind the Pandora myth.

The story about the handsome Greek god Cupid and how he met Psyche? Just another lie from that myth-o-maniac Zeus! The truth is, when Cupid met Psyche he was a gawky teen god with bad skin and braces. Psyche was so beautiful, Cupid was scared to even approach her. Instead, he and Zeus cooked up a plan to kidnap Psyche. Hades, King of the Underworld, is here to shine some light on what really happened.

“A brilliant new telling” of the Theseus and Minotaur myth set in a cyberspace labyrinth—from the award-winning Russian writer (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Victor Pelevin, the iconoclastic and wildly interesting contemporary Russian novelist who The New Yorker named one of the Best European Writers Under 35, upends any conventional notions of mythology in this “sharp, funny and . . . numinous” novel (The Sunday Times). By creating a mesmerizing world where the surreal and the hyperreal collide, The Helmet of Horror is a radical retelling of the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur set in an Internet chat room. They have never met, they have been assigned strange pseudonyms, they inhabit identical rooms that open out onto very different landscapes, and they have entered a dialogue they cannot escape—a discourse defined and destroyed by the Helmet of Horror. Its wearer is the dominant force they call Asterisk, a force for good and ill in which the Minotaur is forever present and Theseus is the great unknown. The Helmet of Horror is structured according to the way we communicate in the twenty-first century—using the Internet—yet instilled with the figures and narratives of classical mythology. It is a labyrinthine examination of epistemological uncertainty that radically reinvents this myth for an age where information is abundant but knowledge ultimately unattainable. “The classical myth is reinterpreted with black-comic brio . . . Is Pelevin after all Russia’s Thomas Pynchon?”—Kirkus Reviews “A brilliant post-modern, eclectic vision of myth, mind and meaning. And of the human dilemma and its horns, ancient and modern.”—A. S. Byatt, The Times

In this modern version of the Greek myth, Persephone asks Hades for a ride to escape her overprotective mother, sneaks into the Underworld, and refuses to leave.

You've heard of Hercules, right? Big, strong guy who did tons of amazing, heroic deeds? Well one part of that myth is correct. Hercules was big and strong. But he had an teeny-tiny brain. He couldn't have done any of those heroic deeds if it hadn't been for his friends telling him exactly what to do. Hades sets the record straight on the true story of Hercules.

Think you know the real story behind the Greek myths? Think again. Most people only know what Zeus wants them to. But the truth is, Zeus is a total myth-o-maniac. Hades, King of the Underworld, is here to set the record straight on how he ended up as Ruler of the Underworld and Zeus became King of the Gods.