 First edition cover | |
| Author | Evangeline Walton |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Rowena Morrill |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Historical fiction |
| Publisher | Timescape Books |
Publication date | 1983 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover & paperback) |
| Pages | 347 |
| ISBN | 0-671-46490-6 |
The Sword Is Forged is a 1983 historical fiction novel by Evangeline Walton. It is based on the story of Theseus and the Amazon queen Antiope from Greek mythology.
The Amazon queen Antiope is captured by Theseus and brought back to Athens to become his bride. They fall in love and she bears him a son, Hippolytus, but soon the Amazons besiege Athens to reclaim their queen.
According to Douglas A. Anderson, Walton wrote a trilogy of novels about Theseus in the mid-1940s. [1] She completely rewrote all three books in the mid-1950s, but put them aside when Mary Renault published her own Theseus novels, The King Must Die (1958) and later The Bull from the Sea (1962). [1] [2] After the success of the Ballantine editions of her Mabinogion tetralogy in the 1970s, Walton visited Greece and started reworking her own Theseus trilogy. [1] The first volume was published as The Sword Is Forged in 1983. [1] [2] Walton died in 1996, and the other two installments remain unpublished. [1] [3]
In The Encyclopedia of Fantasy , John Clute and John Grant cite The Sword Is Forged as an example of the use of the Amazon in sword and sorcery as "an icon of female autonomy". [4] They go on to explain that novel uses Theseus to present "a patriarchal challenge to the Amazon in terms which allow some inspired debate". [4] Kirkus Reviews suggests that the takeaway theme of the novel is that "love 'must always mean bondage' for women". [5]
Kirkus Reviews called The Sword Is Forged "an earnest, hard-working, but spindly reconstruction" of the Theseus myth, noting that "Antiope has a certain pep in the first half here ... But the Amazons emerge as a kind of terrorist branch of NOW, and Antiope's decline into All-for-Love milque-toastery is truly tedious." [5] Don D'Ammassa wrote in his Encyclopedia of Fantasy and Horror Fiction that the novel is "an entertaining story but fails to measure up to [Walton's] Welsh stories". [3]
Mary Renault described The Sword Is Forged as "a keen exploration of Greek myth", and Poul Anderson wrote that Walton's "scholarship and realistic detail never get in the way of an exciting and moving story." [6] Praising Walton's combination of feminism and romantic love, Fritz Leiber called the novel "the best fictional depiction of the Amazons that I've ever encountered". [6]
The novel was nominated for a 1984 Locus Award, but lost to The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. [7] Bradley had previously called Walton's novel "a book of wonderful humanity and great classic force." [6]
Theseus was the mythical king and founder-hero of Athens. The myths surrounding Theseus – his journeys, exploits, and friends – have provided material for fiction throughout the ages.
Sword and sorcery (S&S) is a subgenre of fantasy characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent adventures. Elements of romance, magic, and the supernatural are also often present. Unlike works of high fantasy, the tales, though dramatic, focus on personal battles rather than world-endangering matters. Sword and sorcery commonly overlaps with heroic fantasy.
In Classical Greek mythology, Hippolyta, or Hippolyte was a daughter of Ares and Otrera, queen of the Amazons, and a sister of Antiope and Melanippe. She wore her father Ares' zoster, the Greek word found in the Iliad and elsewhere meaning "war belt." Some traditional English translations have preferred the more feminine-sounding "girdle." Hippolyta figures prominently in the myths of both Heracles and Theseus. The myths about her are varied enough that they may therefore be about several different women.
In Greek mythology, Phaedra was a Cretan princess. Her name derives from the Greek word φαιδρός, which means "bright". According to legend, she was the daughter of Minos and Pasiphaë, and the wife of Theseus. Phaedra fell in love with her stepson Hippolytus. After he rejected her advances, she accused him of trying to rape her, causing Theseus to pray to Poseidon to kill him, and then killed herself.
Eileen Mary Challans, known by her pen name Mary Renault, was an English writer best known for her historical novels set in ancient Greece.
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The King Must Die is a 1958 bildungsroman and historical novel by Mary Renault that traces the early life and adventures of Theseus, a hero in Greek mythology. It is set in locations throughout Ancient Greece: Troizen, Corinth, Eleusis, Athens, Knossos in Crete, and Naxos. Renault wrote a sequel, The Bull from the Sea, in 1962.
In Greek mythology, Molpadia may refer to the two different women:
In Greek mythology, Antiope was an Amazon, daughter of Ares and sister to Melanippe, Hippolyta, Penthesilea and possibly Orithyia, queens of the Amazons. She may have been the wife of Theseus and mother to his son Hippolytus of Athens, but differing sources claim this was Hippolyta.
In Greek mythology, the Attic War is the conflict between the Amazons, led by Amazon queen Penthesilea, and the Athenians, led by Theseus or Heracles. The war lasted 4 months and concluded with a peace treaty in Horeomosium, near the temple of Theseus.
Evangeline Walton was the pen name of Evangeline Wilna Ensley, an American writer of fantasy fiction. She remains popular in North America and Europe because of her “ability to humanize historical and mythological subjects with eloquence, humor and compassion”.
The Fallible Fiend is a fantasy novel by American writer L. Sprague de Camp, the third book of his Novarian series. It was first published as a two-part serial in the magazine Fantastic for December 1972 and February 1973, and subsequently expanded and revised for book publication. The novel was first published in book form as a paperback by Signet Books in 1973; it was later reprinted by Remploy (1974), Sphere (1978), Del Rey/Ballantine (1981), Baen (1992) and the Thorndike Press (2002). The Remploy edition was both the first British and first hardcover edition. An e-book edition was published by Gollancz's SF Gateway imprint on September 29, 2011 as part of a general release of de Camp's works in electronic form. It has also been translated into German and Italian.
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