Thursday 5 June 2014

Guest Post: Dark Mountain by C.B. Pratt

Guest Post

Me and My Secret Identity
By C.B. Pratt

I’m a pleasant-faced fifty-something year old American woman. I’ve traveled a bit, lived in different places, been married to the same guy for 25 years, a mom. Fairly ordinary, really. But like Clark Kent or Diana Prince, I have an alter-ego.

My secret identity is a mighty man, a towering, brawny mass of muscles. He’s available to fight your battles, defeat your enemies, magical or mortal, and maybe seduce a maiden or two on the way out of town. He has a wry sense of humor and a slightly twisted sense of chivalry. He is Eno, a Thracian. He lives in the Ancient World, Greece, Egypt, Babylon, circa 1250 B.C.E.

I live in Orlando, circa 2014.

So how did we meet? Why does this ordinary woman write about Gods, monsters, and a mercenary hero with the motto ‘Swift Sword, Reasonable Rates’?

I’ve been fascinated with the myths of the Ancient World since I could read. But I always felt there was something not quite right about the versions we grow up on. The Greeks were especially fond of good living. Wine, cheese, parties, singing, dancing, drama, comedy…if the Greeks didn’t invent leisure activities, they certainly worked at perfecting them. So then why are so many of the myths dreary, quasi-Biblical, and, frankly, a bit boring?

I blame the interpreters. Most of the men who interpreted the Greek myths were in Holy Orders. They’d grown up on the Bible, the beautiful but not exactly laugh-a-minute King James’ Version. So when they began translating the Greeks, they adopted the same style of language. Besides, many of them were school-teachers and you didn’t want the fifth form breaking up every time Homer mentions Aphrodite’s glorious white breasts. So we wound up with much more serious stories than I think they were intended to be.

Some are serious. The story of Orestes’ torture by the Furies or Oedipus’ crimes (unwitting though they were) are not cheerful tales to pass an afternoon. But Hermes’ making off with older brother Apollo’s cattle? That’s funny! Odysseus’ adventures would be a primitive laugh riot. You can just imagine the guardhouse on a golden afternoon with a passing bard earning his supper telling the rough-necks all about Hephaestus catching his wife in bed with Ares and getting the worst of it.

When I started writing Eno’s adventures, I wanted to bring out the joyful, funny side of the stories and the ‘embrace the moment’ ethos of the Ancient World that lives and breathes throughout those stories, once you know where to look.

So much for the intellectual reason for writing my books. Now let me tell you about the emotional side.

For a couple of years, I had been suffering from writer’s block. It wasn’t so much that I couldn’t write, I simply felt that nothing I was writing was worth pursuing. Then, one day, Eno came along and just wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. I’m now three books into the series and can’t see running out of monsters for him to fight, Gods to meddle with his personal life, or jokes to tell. He made me a writer again. I’m very grateful and happy to be sharing Eno with readers through these e-books.

About The Author

C.B. Pratt is a multi-published author, both traditionally and independently. She lives in Orlando, Florida, not far from the Mouse Empire.


About The Book

Got monsters? You need Eno the Thracian! He's the guy with the answer to your problems, whether they're as small as a dragonet you need moved to the other side of the mountain or as big as a minotaur wreaking havoc in your palace. He can train your youth for battle, cure your vizier of fatal ambition, or slay hydras (up to seven heads only, please).

As you may know, there's a serious hero shortage in Greece at the moment. Most of the more famous heroes have heeded their ancient promises and gone to help out one side or the other in the Trojan War. But the need for heroes hasn't lessened since the war; if anything it has increased. More monsters than ever are appearing in our blessed islands. If you're one of the unlucky ones beset by strange beasts, summon Eno the Thracian.

Swift sword...reasonable rates.

Links

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