Havoc Rising Blog Tour: Greek Mythology Trivia + A Giveaway!

Today I'm super excited to be a part of the blog tour for Havoc Rising, the latest release from author Brian S. Leon. Those of you who read this blog with any frequency know I've always been fascinated by Greek mythology and love learning new and fun things, so I asked Mr. Leon to share some interesting trivia tidbits he discovered during his research for Havoc Rising. You never know when you're going to need to blurt out a random fact about Diomedes, Achilles, or Medea at a social gathering (am I right?), so now you'll all be prepared!

GREEK MYTHOLOGY PARTY LINES

• There is a group of people in what is now Iran that trace their ancestral roots back to a race of people called the Medes. The Medes were said to have been historically founded by Medus, the sole surviving son of Medea, the powerful mythical witch and villain of Havoc Rising.
• The greatest wars before Troy were the War of the Epigoni and the Seven Against Thebes before that. Little is known about them because almost everything written about them has been lost. We do know that Diomedes’ father, Tydeus, fought and died in the Seven Against Thebes campaign. And as an early teenager Diomedes and the other sons of the Seven avenged their fathers and won the war they began. Diomedes’ fame as a soldier began there.
• Diomedes is the only mortal Greek hero to ever wound a God in combat. He wounded not just Ares, but also Aphrodite. He even went after Apollo but was blinded. He was helped by Athena who granted him the ability to distinguish Ares on the battlefield and gave him greater strength and agility as well.
• Diomedes is the only mortal every to see Athena in her true form. Even Odysseus, whom she also favored, saw her as a young maid.
• In the Iliad, Homer never says Achilles is immortal, or is anything other than a highly skilled but egotistical warrior. And he is killed by an arrow, likely to his torso. The legends about his immortality gained from being dipped in the River Styx or having Ambrosia burned from his body came about over 800 years after Homer.
• Some of the oldest vampire myths come from Ancient Greece. Lamia and Empusas were both demons that feasted on human blood and predate the traditional Eastern European myths by centuries.
• The titan Prometheus was sentenced to his fate of being chained up and having his liver eaten by a giant eagle every day only to have it regenerate as punishment for tricking Zeus and giving fire to mankind as a tool. Heracles (Hercules) broke the chain, which could only be broken by someone with truly altruistic intentions, and freed him.
• Croesus, the King of Lydia was considered to be the wealthiest king in the world during his reign. When the Persians attacked, he prayed to Apollo for help and the god saved him. The God of the Sun also took the King’s fabled fortune, the Karun Treasure, and set it in perpetual motion so that it could never be found. The treasure is the origin of the phrase “Rich as Croesus.”
• The witch Medea, and one time wife of Jason of Argonaut fame, was also a high priestess for Hecate. She used magic to influence one of the Argonauts to defeat the bronze giant Talos and also helped them beat the dragon toothed warriors called Spartoi when recovering the Golden Fleece by telling Jason how.
• Because Diomedes injures Aphrodite and nearly kills her mortal son Aeneus, she curses him by having his wife turn against him. She convinces her many lovers to attack Diomedes every time he tries to return home, so he never sees his family again. Instead he heads to what is now Italy and disappears from history.
• Achilles had a magical spear called the Pelian Spear that he inherited from his father (Peleus) and a mythical shield and cuirass, both made by Hephaestus. The spear was said to be able to penetrate anything.
• Diomedes was said to have had a magical cuirass made by Hephaestus, the only other Achaean warrior other than Achilles to be so equipped.
• Diomedes’ father, Tydeus, was considered the greatest warrior of his age (pre-Trojan War) and was highly favored by Athena. She was said to have offered him immortality because of his skills and honor but rescinded the offer upon finding him eating the brain of a victim. Tydeus was mortally wounded and Athena chose to let him die. Legend says Athena made the same offer to Diomedes after the Trojan War for the same reasons.
• Strixes are gigantic flesh eating black owl-like creatures that guarded Tartarus. Legend says they were cursed to their form for cannibalism and had talons like steel.
• As a suitor of Helen, like the other Greek kings involved in the Trojan War, Diomedes was honor bound by the Oath of Tynadareus to protect the man chosen by her in the event of any wrong done against him with regard to their marriage.

Thanks so much for sharing Brian!

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HAVOC RISING

Eternal life. Eternal battle.

Steve—Diomedes Tydides to his Trojan War buddies—just had a bad day on his charter fishing boat in San Diego, but when the goddess Athena calls on her faithful warrior for another secret mission, he’s ready. The bomb that exploded inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art isn’t the crime American authorities think it is. Someone also stole the Cup of Jamshid, and Diomedes knows its fortune-telling abilities won’t be used for anything benign.

Though Diomedes recovers the Cup from a determined shaman holed up beneath Central Park, when he finds his allies slain and the Cup taken once more, he knows he’s up against a truly powerful enemy. Over a millennium has passed since Diomedes last contended with Medea of Colchis, deranged wife of Jason the Argonaut, but neither her madness nor her devotion to Hecate, goddess of witchcraft, has waned, and she intends to use the Cup of Jamshid to release across the world a dark brand of chaos unseen in human history.

Immortal since the Trojan War, Diomedes must once again fight for mortals he understands less and less, against a divine evil he may never truly defeat.

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BRIAN S. LEON

Brian S. Leon is truly a jack of all trades and a master of none. He writes just to do something with all the useless degrees and skills he’s accumulated over the years. Most of them have no practical application in civilized society, anyway. His interests include mythology and fishing, in pursuit of which he has explored jungles and museums, oceans and seas all over the world.

His credentials include an undergraduate degree from the University of Miami and a master’s degree from San Diego State University, plus extensive postgraduate work in evolutionary biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he studied animals most people aren’t even aware exist and theories no one really cares about anyway.

Over his varied career, Brian’s articles have been published in academic journals and popular magazines that most normal people would never read. They can be found in The American Society of Primatologists, the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Proceedings of the American Association of Zoos and Aquariums and the like.

His more mainstream work came as an editor for Marlin and FlyFishing in Salt Waters magazines, where he published articles about fishing and fishing techniques around the world. He won a Charlie Award in 2004 from the Florida Magazine Association for Best Editorial, and several of his photographs have appeared on a number of magazine covers—almost an achievement of note, if they weren’t all fishing magazines.

Always a picky reader, Mr. Leon enjoys stories by classical masters like Homer and Jules Verne as well as modern writers like J.R.R. Tolkien, David Morrell and Jim Butcher. These books, in combination with an inordinate amount of free time, inspired him to come up with tales of his own.
Brian currently resides in San Diego, California.

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