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Author’s Notes for Rise of the Olympians:
This story was the trickiest out of all of them. I hoped I pulled it off.
From the dialogue to the characters to the environment needed to be on point, and I am sure I will edit this to improve the dialogue, but until then, I genuinely hope I nailed this. If you’re curious, I will tell you about the more modern literature that helped inspire some of the characteristics and dialogue for certain characters.
While I wrote their lines to be original and make the personality unique to me, I did not want to ignore the fact that others have their own interpretations that have helped fuel some of my writing.
Hestia was inspired by Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan as well as the love of Andrew Sarran’s The Mythology Guy. (Hestia is Bestia after all)
Demeter was inspired by the television show Sarah Wilson’s portrayal in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe, Percy Jackson, and Laila Berzins’ portrayal in Hades and Hades II made by Supergiant Games.
Artemis was inspired by the Olympus Bound series by Jordanna Max Brodsky, Jamie Landrum’s portrayal in Hades and Hades II, and Lore Olympus.
Apollo was inspired by Scott Michaelson’s portrayal in Hercules: the Legendary Journeys, Hades II, Lore Olympus, and Olympus Bound.
Aphrodite was inspired by Record of Ragnarök by Shinya Umemura and Takumi Fukui, Alexandra Huntingdon Tydings’ portrayal in Hercules: the Legendary Journeys, Courtney Vineys’ portrayal in Hades & Hades II, and April Stewart’s portrayal in God of War III by Santa Monica Studios.
Poseidon was inspired by Logan Cunningham’s portrayal in Hades & Hades II, Record of Ragnarök, Toby Stephens’ portrayal of Poseidon in Percy Jackson and the Olympians and Captain James Flint in Black Sails, Gideon Emery’s portrayal in God of War III, and some motifs from Disney’s Hercules.
Ares was inspired by Kevin Smith’s portrayal on Hercules: the Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess, Cyrus Nemati’s portrayal in Hades, a little by Adam ‘Edge’ Copeland in Percy Jackson and the Olympians but more by his wrestling career, and Olympus Bound.
Athena was inspired by Jorge Rivera-Herrans' Epic: The Musical (both the musical and many animatics on YouTube), Marin M. Miller’s portrayal in Hades & Hades II, Percy Jackson, Erin Torpey’s performance in the God of War series, and Disney’s Hercules.
Hermes was inspired by Paul Shaffer and David Letterman, Paul Shaffer’s portrayal in Disney’s Hercules, Andrew Marks’ portrayal in Hades & Hades II, Neon Gods by Katee Roberts, and God of War III. The announcement of the Olympians was very much helped along by Paul Bettany’s Geoffrey Chaucer in A Knight’s Tale as well as wrestling commentators like Jim Ross, Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura, and Michael Cole with a special thanks to wrestling ring announcer Tony Chimel.
Hephaestus was inspired by Olympus Bound and Dave B. Mitchell’s portrayal in Hades II.
Zeus was inspired by Jeff Goldblum’s portrayal in Kaos, Peter Canavese’s portrayal in Hades & Hades II, Lore Olympus, almost every Zeus from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (specifically Anthony Quinn, Charles Keating, and Roy Dotrice), Rip Torn from Disney’s Hercules, Richard Newman from GoodTimes: Hercules, Sean Bean from 2011’s Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, Lance Riddick (RiP) from Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Jason O'Mara’s portrayal in Blood of Zeus, Luke Evans from 2011’s Immortals, and Liam Neeson from Clash of the Titans (2010) and Wrath of the Titans (2012).
Hera was inspired by Glyn Iliffe’s Heracles Trilogy, Hera: A Novel by Jennifer Saint, Kathleen Barr’s portrayal in GoodTimes: Hercules was especially helpful when coming up for her design and voice, Claudia Christian’s portrayal in Blood of Zeus and design was helpful, some key passages from Stephen Fry’s Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold, a little from Hades II, including Josette Eales’ performance, and Adrienne Barbeau’s portrayal in God of War III.
Prometheus was helped along by Stephen Dillane’s portrayal in Kaos as well as Ben Starr’s portrayal in Hades II.
With all that said, a lot of this story has its foundation in the material of Hesiod’s Theogony and Apollodorus’ The Library that I mention in my usual disclaimer. However, especially after about eighty thousand words of just this story, I wanted to make sure those who came before me get the flowers they are due since they all either wrote wonderful stories in their own right, acted the hell out of some characters, or (in the case of The Mythology Guy and See U in History/Mythology) made myths accessible for the everyday person.
I cranked this sucker out for NaNoWri 2024, so I hope it is not especially derivative. The next story in the series will be The Coup. I hope to have not only feedback (both positive and negative), but your continued support.
Thank you a hundred times over for reading. While these stories are inspired by those stories and my imagination, I would not continue writing if I did not have an audience to write for, so thank you a hundred, thousand, a million times over.
Happy Ides of March, and I hope everyone has enjoyed Rise of the Olympians.
The next story is The Coup as I have intimated before. However, before we go there, I want to warn everyone that my editor and I are almost done with the rewrite of Reign of Cronos or RoC as I call it. I BELIEVE the posted version was somewhere in the 28~29K word count, but the finished version will probably be closer to the 50K mark.
Sorry about that. Sometimes, in editing, we cut, and sometimes, we add. I hope I add to the story, making it better while still digestible.
Like I have said MANY times before, these stories are meant to be digestible, my interpretation of the mythology, but also faithful in their own way. I truly hope I captured that.
After the edits are done, I will get back to work on The Coup, but I ask that you be patient with me as I do also have a day job, a work load, travel, family, and so one to get to just like everyone else.
Thankfully, The Coup is halfway done. The outline was done a while back, but I think you guys can see the cast list is quite long, and I have to prepare myself for the first Age of Man story while also working on another Miscellaneous Myth story.
Thank you guys for reading, and feel free to leave a comment on any of the stories you liked or didn't like. I can only improve the narratives with feedback.
Have a wonderful spring and Happy Ides of March.
I hope everyone is having a wonderful January. I know I am. Miscellaneous Myth: Cronos has finished and next up is Rise of the Olympians.
As most of you know, I take a small break from my stories after my last one finishes. This one is no different. You will not have to wait that long as the Prologue, titled The Twelve Seats should be dropping on the 3rd of February.
I am hard at work on Book 5 in The Time of Zeus series. However, this story is coming to be longer than most of my other tales (Chapter 1 is nearly 10K words), and it is proving tricky to write as it will serve as the finale to The Time of Zeus series.
Thank you for every single one of you that has been reading these stories of mine. It really does mean a lot.
I may post an Author's Note section in my next blog for Rise of the Olympians as it will have some fun facts that I think most of you might enjoy.
Thank you again for the support and your wonderful feedback.
As for now, I am going to have a restful weekend and work on drafting up more for the Tales of Olympus.
Hi Everyone,
I am back! The next story being posted will be Miscellaneous Myth: Cronos on the 1st of 2025. It will take place between The Wedding and Rise of the Olympians.
The title Miscellaneous Myth is an homage to the YouTube channel Overly Sarcastic Productions and their series Miscellaneous Myth, where they discuss random tellings of mythologies. Well, it is that and the fact that I could not think of another 'M' word that went with Myth. Sorry about that.
I should have regular updates all the way through the month of March.
For any Manga fans, I plan to be like Eiichiro Oda-like in that I will make sure you have chapters weekly. So feel free to jump on and off and your leisure. I will be updating regularly. I am already hard at work on the last story in The Time of Zeus series called The Coup.
Every In the Beginning story is currently being edited at the moment.
From here on out, there will likely be Author's Notes on every story giving some explanation for some story quirks, deviations from the mainline myths, my personal thoughts, and inspirations.
I hope you enjoy these stories as much as I enjoy researching and writing them.
Thanks again.
Thank you everyone for reading my works, most recently The Wedding. I hope to condense all of my stories into a single Universe next year. As I said before, there will be edits, but I am looking forward to posting better versions of the stories.
I want to genuinely thank everyone for rating. Please comment what you like, what you don't. I can only improve with feedback.
I am wishing everyone a Happy Holidays from Halloween to New Years. Since I have a day to day, I won't be posting again until early next year, but I will be back with Cronos' Adventure.
This year has been very fun, getting my start on here. Thanks to the 51 followers I have gained since March. Your support means a lot. I plan I will post more than 6 stories next year. I hope to grow this community of readers, and that my stories can garner more feedback. I have a lot more to tell, and I don't want to let anyone (myself included) down.
Have a great rest of your year. Thanks again!
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