The Coin of Zeus - Bloodlines

Hiya All,

I thought I would share the Prologue of the "big" book that I have been working on.
It should be up on Amazon by either the end of this month or around the middle of next month. Any thoughts and/ or feedback would be great.

Huggles,
Katja


Prologue


In a time long gone, when gods and beasts still roamed the Earth, when people still feared the wrath of the divine, a young Perseus was tasked with slaying the Medusa; a Gorgon, so horrible that all those who laid eyes upon her were instantly turned into stone. Her lair was deep within Hades, the Underworld, named after its fierce ruler Hades himself.

To help Perseus, his father, Zeus, gave him a magical coin. The coin was to be given to Charon, the Ferryman of the Kingdom of the Dead, as payment for Perseus’ safe passage across the river Styx. However, Zeus’ intentions were not as honorable as they may have seemed at first glance.

After the battle against the Titans, the three god brothers Zeus, Hades and Poseidon squabbled amongst each other over who would rule the kingdom. Zeus, the most powerful of the three, would have taken it all, but he knew that his brothers would not allow that to happen. It was then that Charon, a lesser god and partial to Hades, dared to offer a compromise.

Zeus became furious. He stripped Charon of his youth and most of his power. Next, he condemned him to ferry the dead from the World of the Living into the World of the Dead for all eternity. In the end, Zeus was decreed to rule Heaven and Earth, Poseidon would rule the Oceans and Hades became the ruler of the Underworld.

Zeus was not happy; he wanted to rule it all, and the only thing that stopped him from attempting a power grab, was his fear that the other two brothers would unite against him. Zeus knew that he was not powerful enough to defeat them both at the same time.

After the split, neither of the brothers was permitted to enter the kingdoms of the others. Each used old magic to safeguard his share of the split. Spells were cast and monsters were created to make certain that should one of them try to enter their domain, the most horrible of fates would meet them.

For centuries, Zeus plotted and schemed how to steal either one of his brothers’ power, and in time he managed to forge two coins. One of the coins was imbued to strip and absorb Hades’ power; the other would do the same to Poseidon. The problem was that each coin would have to be held by the corresponding brother. Their hate for each other was fierce, and only managed by the lack of power that each possessed over the other.

When Zeus found out about his son’s plan to slay the Gorgon, he saw an opportunity. He adjusted the power of Hades’ coin, so that Perseus could use it to pay Charon for passage across the river Styx. Zeus knew that there was nothing that Charon desired more than to leave the Underworld. His master, Hades, had grown possessive, and as the Keeper of Balance between the living and the dead, he refused to ever let any of his subjects leave his kingdom - that included Charon.

But, once Hades would lay eyes upon the coin, his dark heart would remember love and pleasure, and he would desire the coin so badly that he’d give anything to possess it. That was part of the magic that Zeus’ had imbued into the coin, but Charon did not know about the whole plot. All he knew was that the coin would buy him his freedom, and that he finally would be able to return to Mount Olympus.

When Perseus presented Charon with the coin, the ferryman was thrilled at the opportunity to ascent back to heaven, and he granted passage to Perseus and his company. But, what no one, not even Zeus, could have foreseen was that there was a thief amongst the company.

While Perseus fought the Medusa, the thief stayed in the boat, and Charon continued to ferry the dead across. He needed both hands to steer the vessel, and slipped the coin into the folds of his cloak. During a moment when Charon was distracted and growled at the lost souls, the thief stealthily slipped his fast, gloved hand into Charon’s pocket and stole the coin. The next time that they reached the far shore, the thief slipped off the boat, and vanished into the continuous on-flow of newly arriving souls; he escaped the Underworld.

Perseus, afterhe defeated the Medusa, was the only survivor and weary from battle. He returned to the shore of the river and Charon ferried him back across. It wasn’t until Perseus had already left the Underworld that Charon noticed that his prized possession was gone, but he couldn’t leave. He was bound.

But, just as Charon was bound to Hell, so he was now bound to the coin, because he had held it in his skeletal hand. In turn, the coin was bound to him, and a chain reaction was set into motion. He could feel the coin. Most of all, even though he was not able to physically leave the Underworld, he now was able to manifest through the coin.

The first time that the thief pulled the coin out of his pocket and touched it with his bare hands, Charon was struck by a pain like sensation. He projected part of himself to the thief and hoped that this would instantly kill the bandit. However, the terrified thief just threw the coin away and ran for his life. This is how it came to be that the trinket that would grand Charon his freedom and transfer Hades’ power to Zeus was lost for ever, or was it?

OMG that came over very different than what it looked in the actual message box.... sorry about that.

Huggles,
Katja

OK, was able to edit it... and am looking forward to your feedback

Huggles,
Katja

I'm looking forward to reading. Anything to do with mythology is always going to catch my interest.

Thanks Ann,

much appreciated

Huggles,
Katja

Very good. I was immediately grabbed by the prologue.

Thanks Abe,

much appreciated

Huggles,
Katja

You asked me to take a look at this.

The prologue;

Look at the back of any book. The author will tell you what the story is about within three to four sentences.

Learn how to do that.

You will save years...if you spend most of your writing time, learning the tricks of writing. Read Sol Steins book over, and over, and over...then do it again.

You have talent, and you want to write. It only makes sense learning the tricks first.

Hiya Domenic,

I thought the 3 or 4 sentences on the back are the blurp. That I keep short.

A prologue is something different, isn't it? Something that happened prior, is important to the events, but does not necessarily get repeated in the book itself.... is my understanding of prologue wrong?

I have not worked on the blurp for COZ, yet... I am still editing on parts of it.

On SB I had a very short blurp (4 sentences), as it was suggested in several books about writing. When I posted it into the Kindle Author Forum, folks came back, and said that it was too short.

I certainly appreciate the feedback that you are giving, every bit helps.

Huggles,
Katja

KatjaB wrote:

Hiya Domenic,

I thought the 3 or 4 sentences on the back are the blurp. That I keep short.

A prologue is something different, isn't it? Something that happened prior, is important to the events, but does not necessarily get repeated in the book itself.... is my understanding of prologue wrong?

I have not worked on the blurp for COZ, yet... I am still editing on parts of it.

On SB I had a very short blurp (4 sentences), as it was suggested in several books about writing. When I posted it into the Kindle Author Forum, folks came back, and said that it was too short.



I certainly appreciate the feedback that you are giving, every bit helps.

Huggles,
Katja

You are correct, a prologue is different. Trick; Make the prologue the setting of the story. The best method of hooking a reader is to give an example of your writing style. If you keep the prologue the first page of the story, and keep it short, the reader will see how you write. You will either hook them, or lose them.

read the first page of John Steinbecks, "Cannery Row," or Ernest Hemingways, "A Farewell to Arms." These two writers were masters at weaving the prologue into the first page of a story...they knew how to hook a reader.

Hiya Demenic,



thanks for the feedback.



Have not gotten too much into Hemmingway, but love Steinbeck - think that there is not a whole lot that Steinbeck does in one page - which is one of the things that I love when I read his works, so it is not a downer.



The work that you have included... is that yours?



Huggles,

Katja

Yeah...I did that book about three, or four years ago.

I always like to set the stage before I bring the characters in.