From: "James Wynn" 
Subject: (urth) Reading the Soldier books
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 13:04:24 -0600

Regarding reading the Soldier books, Nutria wrote:
You might want to skim Bulfinch's Mythology before starting in. You've
gotta know a bit, yea more than a bit, about ancient Greek mythology. And
if the series continues, you're going to have to know something about
Zoroastrianism also, I suspect.


Crush refutes:
I gotta respectfully disagree with this. This is no more true than that one
needs to know a lot about Sun mythology and symbolism to enjoy the "New Sun"
or (the "Long Sun"), or to know about world Serpent mythology and classical
references to enjoy the "Long Sun".

When you read these books you will **want** to find out more about the
things you read about there (e.g. Cybele, Spartan culture & history, etc.).
But, one might know a decent bit generally about Greek mythology,
literature, and history and still find he has plenty to learn while reading
"Mist" and "Arete."

For reading the Soldier books, I recommend doing what one would do for
Wolfe's other works:
1. Read the books
2. Look up the obvious blanks the stories imply to you (or read Graves'
"Complete Myths" from start to finish because this was an important source
for this work)
3. Reread the books
-- Crush




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