Lore Olympus

"This is absolutely wonderful. I started reading it when it was a web comic . I think all writers probably do this: when you do have an idea and you get really stuck on it, you look to see if anyone else has already done it, because you need to know. I saw someone had made this modern retelling of the Hades and Persephone myth – oh no! – but then I started reading, and it was fine, because it’s very different to mine. Oh my god, it’s amazing. It’s very horny – it is one of the sexy retellings. But it’s so deep and so full of agency, and it touches on some really dark themes as well. Here Hades is a corporation, but it’s very different to Hadestown . People that work there are generally having a good time. The souls all get stuff to do, and there are nightclubs, and it’s fun. Hades meets Persephone at a party. She’s snuck out of her mum’s place and gone to a party with Artemis and Hestia, and she gets super drunk. All the boys are saying: ‘Who is she? She’s beautiful.’ She gets drunk and passes out, and Hades takes her home and just cares for her. They form this really long friendship where he will do anything for her, but she has to go on this journey of self discovery first. She has really gross encounters with Apollo, and then he gets called out. It tackles heavy issues like sexual assault and broken marriages, in a really modern and accessible way. And it’s addictive to read. Not at all. He absolutely worships her, he couldn’t even give her a hard look. He does have real issues – big daddy issues because of Cronus, and issues with the way he’s treated by the other gods. That’s interesting to me, because I did the same thing in Her Dark Wings before I’d read this – exploring what it would be like to be ostracised because of the role you play. In Ancient Greece, people wouldn’t say ‘Hades’. They would use epithets for his name instead, because they wouldn’t want to draw his attention. Imagine what a psychological number that would do on you, if you are so reviled just for doing your goddamn job – which, by the way, you didn’t choose. You picked a straw, and then suddenly everyone realised that your job is amazing; that you have so much power, and every person in the world is going to end up coming to you. And, technically, you would have a massive army of the dead should you choose to unleash it, so maybe everyone should just be a little bit nicer to you? The Hades in Lore Olympus would never. He would never. He is a good man. Yes. Death is scary and death is forever. It’s interesting how with Christianity, we moved on from this neutral idea of the place you go when you die to the idea that there’s two places: one is very good, one is very bad. And the guy who’s in charge of the bad place, oh, he’s terrible – which again, for Hades, just really adds to the propaganda. A whole religion where he’s the worst possible thing you can imagine."