God of Fire – Helen Steadman
Cast out of heaven at the hands of Hera and raised beneath the sea, this is the epic story of Hephaestus, god of fire.
In the palace of Zeus, a son is born to the greatest goddess, Hera. Withered and ugly, the newborn Hephaestus is hurled from the heavens by his repulsed mother. The unforgiving sea offers no soft landing, and the broken godlet sinks to the depths, where his little flame falters. But as darkness looms, he is saved by the sea witch, Thetis, who raises the outcast as her own.
The only Olympian whose injuries never heal, the god of fire endures eternal pain from his wounded leg, making him perhaps the most human member of the pantheon. As if his physical pain were not enough, Zeus punishes Hephaestus further by sentencing him to life with Aphrodite. Unhappily married to the adulterous goddess of love, he is fated to repeat his childhood pattern of rejection, stoically shouldering emotional agony as part of his everlasting burden.
With his foster-mother’s help, Hephaestus lays claim to his legacy and finds his saving grace: the ability to harness fire and create magical metal artefacts. Of course, the other gods waste no time taking advantage of his inventions. A silver mouse for Apollo. A girdle for Aphrodite. Armour for Athena. A bow and arrow for Eros. Winged sandals for Hermes. A throne for Hera. A golden mastiff for Zeus.
But the god of fire is nobody’s fool. The magic of Hephaestus has a shadow side, as gods and mortals learn to their cost when Zeus orders him to create Pandora and her infamous receptacle…
My thanks to Anne Cater at Random Things Blog Tours for the oppotunity to join the God of Fire blog tour. I received a review copy from the publisher to allow me to participate in the tour.
Sometimes I hit a point in my reading when I think I have gone too heavy on the back to back crime stories. When that happens I remind myself that I wanted to try to find books I may not normally have sought out, particularly if it takes in themes or concepts I know I haven’t had much previous exposure to. This was where my head was at when I received an invitation to join the blog tour for God of Fire – a retelling of Greek myths with a focus on Hephaestus. Perfect!
And the good news is that it was the right book at the right time for me. It took more concentration than a crime thriller, more on that in a second, and I realised that I knew less about the Greek Gods than I had initially realised (though that really should not have been a surprise). But this was a fun read which challenged me too, mainly because of how I read.
The book first. Hephaetus is the God of Fire, son of Hera but it seems he has no father. Hera discarded her son after his birth and he fell to earth where he was rescued by Sea Witches who kept him alive and raised him as if he was their own. Hephaetus was, to a degree, shunned by other Gods as he had a badly damaged leg. Any weakness in a God is fodder for ridicule and dismissive attitudes from their peers and it was fascinating to have the focus of our introduction to Hephaetus all about his perceived weakness, his abandonment by his mother and the sheer force of will he set himself to build his standing among the other Gods.
As he grew his adoptive mothers took Hephaetus to the three cyclops who helped him by giving him the ability to forge anything he set his mind to. Hephaetus’s ability to make any item for the other Gods soon gave him the ideal vehicle to win favour amongst the Gods and to prove himself a valuable ally. Though he was not adverse to using these gifts to get his own way as Hera would find out when presented with her first gift.
I had a passing awareness of the Gods that feature in the story. Many names were familiar to me and I possibly could have told you one single thing I knew about these Gods. However, there were many more characters who were new to me and that I knew nothing about before reading God of Fire and it was here my concentration had to be at its max. I skim read and normally I can quickly zoom through stories and keep track of events without too much effort. But the detail covered in God of Fire was such that I had to slow my pace right down, unfamiliar names, my lack of prior knowledge of relationships and status of the characters also meant I had to be giving my full focus to events as they unfolded.
While that may sound like a critisism it really isn’t (unless it is me self-critisising my reading). I wanted a book to take me out my comfort zone, one which would give me exposure to a very different read and, in the case of God of Fire, one to help me understand more about Greek Mythology – something I love the idea of knowing but have never actually made time to learn about. God of Fire opened my eyes to the alliances, the players and the plotting which many, many readers before me have enjoyed.
As I struggled keeping track of the character names and their roles in the story I did find it slightly frustrating when characters used nicknames when in conversation. Prometheus becomes Prom, Heph for Hephaetus. Again it keeps within the story narrative and the conversational tone that Helen Steadman has used when the Gods are chatting. From my personal (skim reader) experience I use character recognition to help form the words so when I am looking for Prometheus but see Prom it forces me to slow down as I miss the crux of a paragraph as I don’t see the name I had expected to see. These seemingly small issues impact upon how I read a book but it meant I spent more time in this book than I do with many others and when I finished reading I always felt I had enjoyed the time I spent with Hephaetus. There was a lot more to discover than I had anticipated and I really had my eyes opened to an entirely new (to me) history of amazing stories/myths…I wish there was time to roll back the clock and get my younger self reading about these fantastical stories far sooner.
Rewarding, challenging and most definately informative. I wasn’t sure how God of Fire and I would get on but it is safe to say Hephaetus won in the end, I made all the adjustments and concessions so I could enjoy his story. So glad I read this.
God of Fire is published by Bell Jar Books and is available in paperback, digital and audiobook format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09QZ8LSDK/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2