Category Archives: Top Tens

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Books (Honourable Mention: Classical Mythology)

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Botticelli’s Birth of Venus

 

 

TOP 10 MYTHOLOGY BOOKS (HONORABLE MENTION: CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY)

 

That’s right – I don’t just have a top ten mythology books, or my usual twenty special mentions. I also have honorable mentions.

My usual rule is that I have no cap on the number of individual entries I can list as honorable mention for any given top ten if there are enough entries beyond my top ten or special mentions – and I tend to just list them in chronological or date order, usually date of publication for books.

However, for mythology books, I have some different rules, except the lack of any cap or numerical limit on honorable mention.

My primary rule is that I have honorable mentions for books in selected subjects of mythology, where there are enough entries for that subject (potentially racking them up for a top ten in that subject) – as here, with the subject of classical mythology.

And where I have honorable mentions for particular subjects, I quickly recap the entries on that subject from my top ten or special mentions first before moving on to my further honorable mentions, in tier rankings and numerical sequence albeit with some degree of chronological or date order.

 

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

TO RECAP CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY ENTRIES FROM MY TOP 10 MYTHOLOGY BOOKS (INCLUDING THE PRIMARY SOURCE OF THE ILIAD & ODYSSEY)

 

 

Homer Simpson as Odysseus from “D’oh, Brother Where Art Thou?” in “Tales from the Public Domain” (episode 283 – S13 E14) – aptly enough given his namesake and still one of the best televised adaptations of the Odyssey

 

 

(1) HOMER – ILIAD & ODYSSEY

 

“Sing, Muse, of the wrath of Achilles”.

“Tell me, Muse, of the cunning man who traveled far and wide after he had sacked the famed city of Troy”

Obviously the primary source and rosy-fingered dawn for classical mythology, as well as second top spot in my Top 10 Mythology Books with classical mythology also in second top spot in my Top 10 Mythologies. Those entries go into more depth and detail.

“The Greeks held Homer in something like reverence, viewing his works as the foundation of their society, in much the same way as modern Europeans view the Bible”.

Indeed, the Iliad is my Old Testament and the Odyssey is my New Testament. Aptly enough, given the Bronze Age battle hymns of Iliad and Old Testament, or the hero’s return from death in Odyssey and New Testament.

And while we’re on such comparisons, there’s my quip that the Second World War is the American Iliad and the Cold War the American Odyssey.

maritime magical mystery tour – or dare I say it, Poseidon adventure, as the Greek hero Odysseus just tries to return to his kingdom Ithaca after the Trojan War, barely escaping death as he is tossed from flotsam to jetsam in one shipwreck after another from Poseidon’s wrath. I mean, seriously, he could have walked home faster from Turkey to Greece, although Poseidon probably still would have got him somehow. And he loses all his ships and men en route, returning home as lone survivor – and stranger, as even then he has to remain disguised as a beggar to infiltrate his own household and outwit his wife’s persistent suitors partying it up there. And let me tell you, every dog has its day. Literally and heartbreakingly, as he is recognized by his faithful dog Argos who has awaited his return for twenty years (only to finally pass away with that last effort). But also figuratively and with undeniable satisfaction as he outwits and defeats the suitors.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

 

 

 

 

(2) BARBARA WALKER – WOMEN’S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MYTHS & SECRETS (1983)

 

She is the goddess and this is her body!

And this book is also third place entry in my Top 10 Mythology Books, where you can read more detail about it there.

While the book is essentially comparative mythology to variations on the theme of goddesses or the goddess, it has a substantial number of its encyclopedia on Biblical subjects or broader subjects within Jewish or Christian folklore.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD TIER – OR IS THAT GODDESS-TIER?)

 

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

TO RECAP CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY ENTRIES FROM MY TOP 10 MYTHOLOGY BOOKS (SPECIAL MENTION)

 

 

 

Botticelli’s Birth of Venus

 

(3) THOMAS BULFINCH –

BULFINCH’S MYTHOLOGY (1867)

 

I believe in all the gods –
especially the goddesses.

Bulfinch’s Mythology still remains a classic reference (and handily in the public domain) – as indeed it was for me as my introduction as a child to the world of classical mythology. Well, technically that was the first volume – the Age of Fable – or rather the overwhelming majority of that volume as it also featured a briefer recitation of Nordic mythology.

Looking back to it now, it’s somewhat dated and has its flaws as a reference, but it remains one of the most accessible single-volume references to classical mythology for the general reader – as Bulfinch wrote in his preface:

“Our work is not for the learned, nor for the theologian, nor for the philosopher, but for the reader of English literature, of either sex, who wishes to comprehend the allusions so frequently made by public speakers, lecturers, essayists, and poets, and those which occur in polite conversation.”

 

RATING:
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

 

(4) ROBERT GRAVES –

THE GREEK MYTHS (1955)

 

My other favorite single volume study of Greek mythology, which essentially comes in two parts.

The first part is a conventional compendium of Greek mythology – literary retellings of the various myths from their sources – and it is this part that is the basis for the book as my favorite single volume study of Greek mythology, albeit somewhat dense in its prose style.

The second part – his interpretative notes or commentary – is where things get more wild, although Graves would say they get poetic. This is where Graves ‘decodes’ or reconstructs Greek mythology to his monomyth of the Goddess or prehistoric matriarchal religion.

 

RATING:
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

Wiley-Blackwell, 1st edition

 

(5) WALTER BURKERT –
GREEK RELIGION (1985)

 

If Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy and Robert Graves’ The Greek Myths are my Old Testament of classical mythology, Burkert’s Greek Religion is my New Testament. Alternatively, the three are my holy trinity of classical mythology (which I suppose would make Nietzsche the Father, Graves the Son and Burkert the Holy Spirit of classical mythology).

His section headings say it all about his comprehensive survey of Greek religion – Prehistory and the Minoan-Mycenaean Age; Ritual and Sanctuary; The Gods (the Olympian dirty dozen and the balance of the pantheon); The Dead, Heroes and Chthonic Gods; Polis and Polytheism; Mysteries and Asceticism; and Philosophical Religion.

 

 

RATING:
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

HONORABLE MENTION: A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

Pentheus being torn apart – Attic red-figure vase painting

 

(6) CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY:

EURIPIDES & APULEIUS – BACCHAE & GOLDEN ASS

 

It’s not all Homer. Honorable mention has to go to my next favorite primary sources of classical mythology, both by writers in the classical period itself, Greek and Roman respectively – the Greek dramatist Euripides and Roman writer Apuleius, with their works The Bacchae and The Golden Ass respectively.

I mean, that right there – just the phrasing of Bacchae and Golden Ass – encapsulates my personal  philosophy, my mythos if you will, of classical mythology. Indeed, the phrase Golden Ass encapsulates my personal philosophy of everything – my life has been a quest not for the grail, but the golden ass.

 

“Appear, appear whatsoever thy name or shape!

O mountain bill, snake of the hundred heads,

Lion of the burning flame

O god, beast, mystery, come!”

 

Firstly, The Bacchae by Euripides – literal Dionysian deus ex machina in the original folk horror story and clash of church against state  or cult against throne.

The greatest Greek tragedy – indeed one that has been argued to be one of the greatest ever written – in the usual style of Greek tragedies, which is the gods will screw you over and there’s nothing much you can do about it, even with that weird chorus telling you what’s happening, and even if they liked to call it nemesis for your hubris.

Yes, I know Dionysus personally appears, albeit in mortal disguise, to give Pentheus a repenting chance, but he doesn’t exactly go all out in the attempt because it’s much more demonstrative – and fun – setting up Pentheus for the Wicker Man to his Lord Summerisle. Except that the Bacchae makes the Wicker Man look like a picnic.

Anyway, the play by Euripides is based on the myth of Pentheus, king of Thebes, who is opposed to the new god Dionysus and his cult, despite being, you know, actually related to him. No, seriously, Pentheus is the cousin of Dionysus, because that’s how it was in those days, particularly with Zeus. Worse, Pentheus – and much of Thebes denies the divinity of Dionysus. And you can’t be disrespecting Dionysus.

So Dionysus does what any Greek god would do:
Step 1 – disguise yourself as a mortal priest of yourself and be captured only to respond cryptically to questions
Step 2 – drive your female worshippers or Maenads mad and trick Pentheus into spying on them in disguise as one of them
Step 3 – !!!
Step 4 – profit!

And by step 3, I mean sit back as your Maenads, including Pentheus’ own mother Agave, literally tear Pentheus apart with their bare hands in a crazed frenzy, believing Pentheus to be a wild beast.

That leads to a moment of classic horror as Agave proudly bears the head, still under divine delusion that it is the head of a mountain lion, to her own father Cadmus, only to see it for what it really is when Cadmus recoils and calls upon her to look more closely.

From a modern perspective, it’s hard not to identify or sympathize with King Pentheus cracking down on a strange new cult spreading through his city – particularly one with literal crazed worshippers like the Maenads, up there with the followers of Jim Jones or Charles Manson.

The Bacchae resonates on so many levels. I’ve already compared it to The Wicker Man, which replays many of its story beats for horror – and it’s easy to adapt the Bacchae for horror, from folk horror to cosmic horror – Dionysus as Yog Sothoth, perhaps?

More substantially, others have argued the parallels between it and the Gospels, with Jerusalem for Thebes and Jesus for Dionysus (and the Jewish leaders and Pontius Pilate for Pentheus), except of course Jesus is far more morally palatable in his divine coup de grace than Dionysus.

And there’s the Nietzschean interpretations, most famously with his dichotomy of the Apollonian and Dionysian in The Birth of Tragedy – and it is tempting to see Pentheus as a good Apollonian, attempting to hold the line of order against Dionysian chaos. Or the Freudian interpretations with Pentheus as ego trying to hold back the wild ecstasy of the id…

 

“Queen of Heaven, whether you are known as bountiful Ceres, the primal harvest mother, who, delighted at finding your daughter Proserpine again, abolished our primitive woodland diet, showed us sweet nourishment, and now dwell at Eleusis; or heavenly Venus, who at the founding of the world joined the sexes by creating Love, propagating the human race in endless generation, and worshipped now in the sea-girt sanctuary of Paphos; or Diana, Apollo’s sister, you who relieve the pangs of countless childbirths with your soothing remedies, venerated now at Ephesus; or dread Proserpine herself, she of the night-cries, who triple-faced combats the assault of spirits shutting them from earth above, who wanders the many sacred groves, propitiated by a host of rites; oh, light of woman, illuminating every city, nourishing the glad seed with your misty radiance, shedding that light whose power varies with the passage of the sun; in whatever aspect, by whatever name, with whatever ceremony we should invoke you”

And then there’s The Golden Ass by Apuleius – she is the goddess and this is her body!

As a (bawdy) comic prose novel – “the only ancient Roman novel in Latin to survive in entirety” – it lacks the tragic grandeur of The Bacchae, but what it lacks in grandeur, it makes up in, well, golden ass. The titular ass is what the writer is magically transformed into for a series of picaresque adventures, as well as snippets of classical mythology such as the myth of Cupid (or Eros) and Psyche.

He is restored to human form by the goddess – ironically perhaps given its keynote status as one of my top books of classical mythology, the Egyptian goddess Isis, who initiates Apuleius into her mysteries. O yes!

Isis was of course a popular goddess among the Romans, who took to her despite her Egyptian origin. However, in The Golden Ass, Isis is revealed to be not just a goddess, but effectively the Goddess – made manifest and known as other goddesses, including those in classical mythology.

 

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

*

(7) BARRY STRAUSS –

THE TROJAN WAR: A NEW HISTORY (2006)

 

Yes – it’s where mythology meets history.

“In The Trojan War historian and classicist Barry Strauss explores the myth and the reality behind the war, from Homer’s accounts in The Iliad and The Odyssey to Heinrich Schliemann’s discovery of ancient Troy in the late nineteenth century to more recent excavations that have yielded intriguing clues to the story behind the fabled city.”

Essentially, Strauss is able to reconstruct the Trojan War from the Iliad, even if it did not happen quite as Homer described it, although Homer got more right than people give him credit – hence the reconstruction. (I’d love to see someone argue that all the mythological gods stuff was true, but the historical war stuff is false).

And Hector? Thou art avenged! I like how history matches mythology as showing the Trojans as the civilized society, originating from the Hittites, besieged by the rowdy Greeks as the sea-roving barbarians, or dare I say it, the Sea Peoples – the Vikings of the Aegean.

 

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

HONORABLE MENTION: B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

 

 

(8) BETTANY HUGHES –

HELEN OF TROY / VENUS & APHRODITE (2005 / 2019)

 

A thematic duo of books for my top two favorite female figures from mythology – Aphrodite Venus and Helen of Troy (which I understand to be adapted from or for TV series written and presented by Hughes).

And for those who think it a cheat to include two books within the one entry, I’d rank her Helen of Troy over her Aphrodite & Venus (despite ranking Aphrodite over Helen for my top female figure from mythology). Firstly because it was, well, first of the two (including in my reading order of them) and secondly because it seemed to me the more developed in depth. Don’t get me wrong – her Aphrodite book is an interesting presentation of the goddess in her many aspects, written in Hughes’ characteristic engaging style, but I just would have preferred it to be a little longer to consider its subject a little deeper.

“As soon as men began to write, they made Helen of Troy their subject; for nearly three thousand years she has been both the embodiment of absolute female beauty and a reminder of the terrible power that beauty can wield”. And that’s literally as soon as men began to write, as she was enshrined within the Iliad, Homer’s epic poem that is the foundation of Western literary culture.

The subtitle of the book sums up her aspects in myth and history – goddess, princess, whore. I was aware of her divine mythic aspect from other sources – including one referenced in this book that saw Helen as a semi-divine figure in a blissful life, ironically with Achilles, but aptly enough coupling the world’s most beautiful women with its greatest warrior. And of course her divine origin as a daughter of Zeus in the form of a swan with Leda, with Helen hatched from an egg.

However, I was intrigued by Helen of Sparta, “the focus of a cult which conflated Helen the heroine with a pre-Greek fertility goddess”. For that matter, I often tend to overlook that Helen was from Sparta (SPARTA!) – and Hughes is evocative in fleshing her out as a Spartan princess or Mycenaean aristocrat, as well as fleshing out Paris as delegate from Troy as Hittite satellite, doing the Bronze Age equivalent of sliding into her dms.

It reminded me of other reading – that while we moderns tend to query a casus belli as retrieving a stolen wife, substituting other theories for the Trojan War, when one looks at ancient or tribal war, that wars fought over women or a woman may not be so strange after all.

And that of course brings me to that other aspect of Helen – “the home-wrecker of the Iliad” and “bitch-whore of Greek tragedy”. It’s an aspect that evokes the original sin of Eve on a geopolitical scale, “held responsible for both the Trojan War and enduring enmity between East and West”. There’s even an apple in Helen’s myth!

As for Aphrodite & Venus, it’s summed up by its subtitle – history of a goddess. And what a goddess! It starts – aptly enough – with her mythic birth (or one of its versions at least), reminding us of something that Botticelli’s famous birth of Venus often charms us to forget, that Aphrodite wasn’t just born from the bubbles of sea foam, but the bloody foam formed by or around the severed genitals of a deposed divine ruler.

It evokes images of the Anatolian goddess Cybele imported into Greece and Rome, some of whose frenzied male devotees were reputed to have castrated themselves at the height of her ecstatic festivals – which I suspect at least of few them regretted in the distinctly, ah, un-ecstatic light of the next day.

I don’t know of any association or connection between Aphrodite and Cybele – the Greeks associated Cybele with mother goddess Rhea – but Aphrodite was certainly associated with ancient near Eastern goddesses of love and war like Ishtar, aptly enough for Aphrodite’s’ blood-foamed birth. Hughes explores this association, seemingly conflated with her origin in Cyprus, as demonstrative of a divine figure far more complex in all her aspects than the mere classical pinup or party girl to which she is often reduced.

One such aspect is as goddess of the Roman Empire itself – evoked in Hughes’ chapter Venus and Empire – as Romans traced their empire to legendary Trojan founder, Aeneas. Aeneas – leader of exiles from the Trojan War, heir to the Trojan royal lineage of Priam, Paris and Hector, and above all, son of Aphrodite. The Romans also looked more favorably on her consorting with the god of war, as while the Greek god of war represented the brutish violence of war (with Athena representing the art of war), the Romans saw their counterpart Mars as representing more martial virtue and honor.

 

RATING:
B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

Reaktion Books 2021

 

(9) PAUL ROBICHAUD –

PAN: THE GREAT GOD’S MODERN RETURN (2021)

 

Io Pan! Io Pan Pan!

Pan, the original horny god with the groin of a goat or as Bill Hicks styled him, randy Pan the Goat Boy. God of nature, mountains, shepherds and sexuality – also the source of our word panic, for the divine mad fear he could inspire in people, including as savior of Athens, the invading Persian army at Marathon.

As a Capricorn goat boy myself, I’ve long been a Pan fan. And so too is Paul Robichaud, a devotee of Pan. Well perhaps not the Capricorn part, but he has written a whole book as a paean to Pan.

Ironically, the only classical Greek god reported as dead – in a historical legend by Plutarch, with a sailor during the reign of Tiberius reporting a divine proclamation from an island that “the great god Pan is dead” – but reports of his death, to paraphrase Mark Twain, were greatly exaggerated. Pan was the one god that endured more than all the others, even to the extent of embodying in horned and hooved form all classical paganism as a whole in modern romanticism and neo-paganism. Perhaps aptly enough, given the pun on Pan – as the word for “all” in Greek also being Pan.

Robichaud comes from a background as an English professor – it shows in his fluent prose style, but also a focus on literature as he explores how Pan has been imagined in mythology, art, literature, music, spirituality, and popular culture through the centuries. The chapter titles best demonstrate this odyssey of Pan from mythic Pan – through medieval and early modern Pan, Pan’s romantic rebirth, Pan in the twentieth century (and his Edwardian height of popularity) and Pan’s occult power – to contemporary Pan.

All the usual suspects are here as cultural or literary devotees of Pan, but most notably those from Edwardian children’s literature of all places – prompting Bill Hick’s joke about his Goat Boy being available for children’s parties (“Mommy, I want Goat Boy to come play at our house”). Kenneth Grahame’s Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Peter Pan’s namesake, as well as much of his persona – with the Lost Boys as his satyrs.

Sadly, no C.S. Lewis’ Narnia, despite its deliciously Dionysian portrayal, maenads and all. Pan did often pal around with Dionysus after all, but generally not so much the other gods – not to mention all those fauns in Narnia. Wait a minute…Mr Tumnus is Pan! Spread the word.

Of course, there are bound to be omissions – Bill Hicks’ Goat Boy for one, Rhys Darby’s fleeting Pan-like figure in Flight of The Conchords’ Prince of Parties song for another. There’s just too much Pan – or is that too many Pans? – out there.

Also sadly, Rochibaud does suggest one of my favorite historical legends of how Christianity embodied Pan as its devil – as being just that, a legend dating back only to the nineteenth century (following the hypothesis of Ronald Hutton to that effect).

I still prefer the legend. In one of my story ideas, a somewhat lost and forlorn Satan muses to the protagonist (with whom he has occasional chats) of his origin from Pan (as one of his multiple-choice origin stories). The protagonist calls him out on his conflicting origin stories, to which Satan replies “Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I am legion, I contain multitudes”. But then he becomes sadly wistful “I would give anything just to dance in the moonlight again, when I was not evil but only wild and free”.

 

RATING:
B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

 

 

(10) NATALIE HAYNES –

DIVINE MIGHT: GODDESSES IN GREEK MYTH (2023)

 

When it comes to classical mythology, I’m in it for the nymphs.

So naturally I’m up for the goddesses in this book by English classicist Natalie Haynes.

Where her previous book Pandora’s Jar celebrated the women of classical mythology, Divine Might playfully worships the goddesses, not surprisingly given the title (and subtitle) – “focusing on the goddesses whose prowess, passions, jealousies, and desires rival those of their male kin”.

As one might expect, the six Olympian goddesses – Hera, Aphrodite, Artemis, Demeter, Hestia and Athene – take center stage. Through the lens of these goddesses, it does detour into other female figures or more minor goddesses, notably (and again not surprisingly) the chapter on Demeter detours into Persephone and Hecate. I hope for a sequel or companion volume extending that detour through the many minor goddesses or demi-goddesses in classical mythology.

The book also reminded me of the odd fact that fully half of the Olympian goddesses – Artemis, Hestia, and Athene – were virgins, which Haynes notes is strikingly at odds with the usual status of women at that time as one in which marriage and children would be expected. But then, the divine make their own rules and break them anyway.

Speaking of virgin goddesses, her chapter gave me a new appreciation of Hestia, a goddess that all too often is told to stay in the hearth, when she is not forgotten or overlooked altogether for the more glamorous Olympian figures. One might extend that by way of alliteration from Hestia to Hera – as the latter’s chapter also gave me a new appreciation of a figure often seen, conveniently for Zeus, as something of a shrew (and bunny boiler).

Aptly enough, both for symmetry and as representative of divine female figures in classical mythology, the book started with the Muses and ended with the Furies – dare I quip, not unlike my ex-wife.

My only complaint? It needed more nymphs! One can only hope for a book of nymphs – perhaps even a dictionary of nymphs…

 

RATING:
B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Fantasy & SF Films: (3) SF: Mad Max

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(3) SF: MAD MAX

(1979-2024: MAD MAX 1-5 – yeah, I’m counting Furiosa as a fifth Mad Max film)

 

And now for some classic Australian post-apocalyptic cinema – let’s face it, Mad Max defined the post-apocalypse or at least post-apocalyptic chic, the apunkalypse or biker leather with a bit of BDSM kink thrown into the mix. (Hmmm…maybe a LOT of BDSM kink).

The only issue is which Mad Max film to choose? The correct answer is, of course, all of them – yes, the whole franchise. Even Thunderdome. Even Furiosa as “a Mad Max saga”. They all have something to offer the post-apocalyptic genre, particularly as the apocalypse shifts somewhat in each one.

Although overshadowed by its immediate sequel (so much so that the American audience was generally unaware that there was prior movie and the movie was instead titled The Road Warrior), the first Mad Max is arguably the purest of the films. Part of the latter is that it was shot on a shoestring budget – so much so that director George Miller paid extras in beer.

However, it is not purely a post-apocalyptic film – it also combines elements of ‘buddy cop’ movies and revenge movies, falling squarely within the so-called Ozploitation subgenre of contemporary films at that time (the Australian or ‘Oz’ version of exploitation films). Indeed, these elements predominate in the film – Max Rockatansky or Max is mad because a biker gang, led by Toecutter, burnt his cop buddy ‘Goose’ as well as running down his wife and infant child.

Oh the apocalypse is there somewhere in the background, but it has happened offscreen. Something has caused central governmental authority to decline, but it is still present in Max’s police highway patrol. What’s more – life and society are still relatively intact in the Australian country towns, and there’s even commercial traffic on the roads. This apocalypse reminds me of the proverbial decline and fall of the Roman Empire – too few legions and too many barbarians, the latter represented by the biker gangs emerging in the towns. Indeed, the parallel to the Roman Empire is even closer – just as the legions themselves were increasingly comprised by barbarian Germans, the police force in Mad Max resembles the leather-clad biker gangs. When the highway patrol arrests one of the bikers, the biker even has the mainstay of cop movies, a sleazy defense lawyer, show up and get him out. I mean, come on – what self-respecting post-apocalyptic world has lawyers?! Man, lawyers – they’re hardier than cockroaches! I might have to revise my post-apocalyptic job criteria…

It’s in the second film with the higher budget that the post-apocalyptic scene really gets into gear. And how – the opening narration speaks of oil running out and global (presumably nuclear) war. Long gone is the highway patrol – Max is now a lone survivor, albeit still in his iconic police super-charged V8 Pursuit Special. The plot revolves around an island of semi-barbarized civilization in the form of an oil refinery in an armed compound, besieged by the barbarian marauders. And what intriguing marauders in their leather bondage gear – led by the masked Lord Humungus (“the warrior of the wasteland, the ayatollah of rock-and-rollah” as he is announced) and his lieutenant Wez in those ass-less chaps.

The third film sees the last semblance of former civilization replaced by the barbarian Bartertown and its Thunderdome, ruled by an uneasy diumvirate of Aunty Entity and Master Blaster (although the latter is actually two people).

Personally, however, I can’t go past the visual splendor of the fourth film, Mad Max: Fury Road, which resets the apocalyptic story back to somewhere about the time of the second movie. Indeed, it probably works best as a retelling of the second film, but ramped up to eleven – the fourth film makes the apocalypse in the second film look positively cosy, while Immortan Joe and his War Boys makes the Lord Humungus and his retinue look like a polite picnic party. The plot, characterization and dialogue are all pared down, but who needs them when the film is this visually spectacular? John Keats basically wrote the plot in His Ode on a Grecian Urn:

 

“What men or gods are these? What maidens loath?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

What pipes & timbrels? What wild ecstasy?”

 

Basically, that is, if Keats were to replace pipes and timbrels with flame-throwing electric guitar – and wild ecstasy with balls to the wall insanity. As I’m sure he would if he saw Mad Max Fury Road. Ode on a Fury Road, perhaps?

Furiosa is Miller’s belated return to the world of Fury Road with the prequel story of Imperator Furiosa, which sadly underperformed at the box office – despite Chris Hemsworth’s memorable addition to the Mad Max rogues gallery with the warlord Dementus.

 

FANTASY OR SF?

 

SF obviously – and the cinematic trope codifier for that SF subgenre we’ve all come to know and love, post-apocalyptic SF. Although it would be intriguing to see more post-apocalyptic fantasy – I’ve read books that are arguably literary post-apocalyptic fantasy but you just don’t see it in film (or at least, very little of it).

 

HORROR

 

Mad Max is not horror as such, although it arguably has elements of slasher and survival horror, not to mention the sheer existential horror of a post-apocalyptic world and the occasional body horror of the ravages of the wasteland on its warlords. As such, it wouldn’t take too much to switch it up for horror.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

Top Tens – History (WW2): Top 10 Second World Wars (Special Mention) (17) India & Pakistan – Independence & Partition

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Map of the partition of India in 1947 for Wikipedia “Partition of India” under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

 

 

(17) INDIA & PAKISTAN – INPEPENDENCE & PARTITION

(1942-1947)

Moving closer to the focus of my wild-tier special mentions for conflicts or wars fought in Asia after the Second World War but which took definitive shape during that war – in this case, in south Asia or the Indian subcontinent.

India may have been fortunate in it did not have to fight a war of independence and Britain effectively ceded independence to it in 1947, but that independence was on the basis of partition into two independent states along religious lines – Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan (the latter as west and east Pakistan, with the latter subsequently seceding as Bangladesh).

Independence may have been relatively bloodless but partition brought with it displacement and violence on a large scale – with the former estimated as 12-20 million people displaced or as refugees, and the latter estimated as anywhere between 200,000 and two million people killed by sectarian violence, with the most common estimate as a million.

Both independence and the idea of Hindu-Muslim partition originated well before the Second World War. Indian independence movements arguably originated from resistance or revolts at the very outset of British imperialism in India by the British East India Company. However, the First World War “would prove to be the watershed of the imperial relationship between Britain and India” – as Indian independence movements hoped India’s contribution to that war would be repaid by British political concessions. Indian independence movements took even more definitive shape in the Second World War and India’s contribution to it – particularly with the Quit India Movement in 1942, hence my choice of 1942 as the starting date for this special mention.

My choice of 1947 as the end date for this special mention of course derives from the year of independence for the two new nations of India and Pakistan – with all the displacement and sectarian violence that this partition involved. The former persisted until at least 1951 and while the latter may have largely subsided by 1948, it laid the foundations for hostility and subsequent wars between Indian and Pakistan as well as the 1971 secession of the former east Pakistan as Bangladesh.

While the independence and partition of British India were probably inevitable, at least from the First World War onwards, it became inevitable on an almost immediate basis from the end of the Second World War due to Britain’s inability and unwillingness to maintain its former imperial or global commitments.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – TV: Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV: (4) SF: The Strain

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(4) SF: THE STRAIN
(2014-2017: SEASONS 1-4)

It’s a vampire apocalypse in a box!

A vampire horror series that portrays vampires as the blood-sucking parasitic abominations they are. (Yes – I have fantastic racism against vampires. Stake them all in the sun, I say. Except hot vampire girls, of course. And there’s none of those in this series). In this case, vampirism is spread by the worm-like parasites that crawl from their bodies, one of which was depicted burrowing into an eye in an infamous promotional poster. (It’s reminiscent of the Lovecraftian vampire parasite things in the pulpy Necroscope book series by Brian Lumley).

It’s a welcome relief from the sexy (or worse, sparkly) vampires of True Blood (or worse, Twilight) and most vampires in popular culture these days – the vampires in The Strain are distinctly unsexy vile abominations of extreme body horror. It’s hard to be sexy when your (male) genitalia have atrophied and dropped off, while your excretory organs have fused together into a cloaca. Eww!

The series is the brainchild of Guillermo de Toro (yes, THAT Guillermo de Toro) and Chuck Hogan, based on their novel trilogy of the same name (albeit one originally conceived as a story line for a television series). The series opens with CDC medical staff called to an airliner in which everyone appears to have succumbed to a mysterious viral infection or disease. Or at least, so the authorities surmise – instead, it is worse. Much worse.

Soon, New York finds itself battling for its very existence against an ancient enemy with humanity itself at stake (heh).

 

FANTASY OR SF?

 

I actually hesitated over the genre classification of this one between fantasy or SF – let’s face it, it’s primarily horror and rivals The Haunting of Hill House as the most distinctively horror series in my top ten.

While it evokes the supernatural dark fantasy or horror of the Dracula novel in a number of points, notably in its opening scene and mystery basically as a modern version of Dracula coming to England, its depiction of vampires and vampirism is essentially more the SF trope of the Virus akin to the zombie apocalypse. It’s not just vampirism as viral infection of course – it’s also Lovecraftian parasitic infection to boot.

 

HORROR

 

Well, obviously.

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Top Tens – History (WW2): Top 10 Second World Wars (Special Mention) (16) Palestine – Insurgency, Civil War & Arab-Israeli War

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UN General Assembly Resolution 181 – UN Special Committee on Palestine (3 September 1947) and UN Ad Hoc Committee (25 November 1947) partition plans. The UN Ad Hoc Committee proposal was voted on in the resolution and adopted 29 November 1947 (map – public domain image)

 

 

(16) PALESTINE – INSURGENCY, CIVIL WAR & ARAB-ISRAELI WAR

(1939 / 1944-1948)

 

And now we come to my wild-tier special mentions for conflicts or wars fought after the Second World War, but which took definitive shape during that war – above all in Asia.

Historian Ronald Spector, author of The Eagle Against the Sun, encapsulated this in the titles of his books, The Ruins of Empire and A Continent Erupts, reflecting their subject. In western Europe, the end of the war may have “marked the beginning of decades of unprecedented cooperation and prosperity…labelled the long peace”, but “east and southeast Asia quickly became the most turbulent regions of the globe”.

However, one region of western Asia soon vied as contender for the most turbulent region of the globe – the British mandate of Palestine or Mandatory Palestine, which Britain had administered since the end of the First World War as territory taken from the former Ottoman Empire.

The nascent conflict in Palestine, between Arabs and Jews, originated in the First World War – arguably in 1916-1917, with the Arab Revolt, Sykes-Picot Agreement, and Balfour Agreement in those years, although Palestine as the focus of Zionism or Jewish settlement and a Jewish “national home” originated earlier than that.

During the Mandate, there was further Jewish immigration and the rise of nationalist movements in both Jewish and Arab communities, culminating in the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt in Palestine. Britain ultimately suppressed the Arab Revolt, but in part by means of the 1939 White Paper, severely restricting Jewish immigration and land purchases – hence my choice of 1939 as starting date for this special mention.

The combination of Arab Revolt and White Paper led to the formation of Jewish underground militias, primarily the Haganah which was to become the core of the Israeli Defence Force – as well as increasing Jewish sentiment that they could not achieve their aims in cooperation with the British, particularly after the war. It also contributed to the idea of partition as solution, as it became clear that Arab and Jewish communities in Palestine could not be resolved.

The Second World War saw some suspension of this conflict, as Palestine even came under Axis air attack and within potential reach of Axis armed forces with Rommel’s victories in 1942. That saw British training of forces within the Haganah, as well as the subsequent creation of the Jewish Brigade within British armed forces.

However, the Second World War had not even ended when the Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine began in 1944 and persisted through to 1948, albeit in fairness the tide of war had passed well away from Palestine when it began. The primary insurgents were the more radical Jewish militias or underground groups – Lehi (or the Stern Gang) and Irgun. Even the Haganah sought to suppress them in cooperation with Britain or at least avoiding direct confrontation with British armed forces, instead mainly supporting immigration spurred by Jewish refugees from or after the Second World War.

From there, the conflict spiralled out of British control or even its ability to do so, and like many or most of Britain’s commitments elsewhere, Britain could not (or did not want to) maintain it and instead handed it over to someone else – in this case, the newly founded United Nations, which formulated a partition plan.

The 1947 UN Partition Plan – proposing the division of Palestine between Arab and Jewish states – prompted the 1947-1948 civil war between Arabs and Jews in Palestine. In turn, the conflict escalated into the 1948 Arab-Israeli War as five Arab states – Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq – declared war (and lost) against the new state of Israel that Jewish leadership declared when Britain ended the Mandate and withdrew its forces.

Arab-Israeli wars, and even more so Palestinian-Israeli wars have defined the region ever since. While Jewish immigration to and settlement in Palestine predated the Second World War, it gained new impetus from the war – albeit more before and after the war than during the war itself – and it is difficult to see that the formation of the state of Israel would have had the same force or support without the events of the war, one event in particular above all, perhaps to the extent that it may not have been formed at all in Palestine.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Fantasy & SF Films (4) SF: The Thing

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(4) SF: THE THING

(1982)

 

My fourth place entry is The Thing – not the original 1951 The Thing from Another World or the 2011 prequel but John Carpenter’s classic 1982 film. Once again, we’re back to Wells’ Martians and Morlocks, with some Lovecraftian Mythos a la At the Mountains of Madness thrown in for extra horror, because The Thing is at its core a horror film. Of course, in this case, we’re dealing with a Martian – not literally Martian but alien. And holy crap – every other alien in cinematic science fiction (including those of another entry on this list) are positively cuddly compared to the alien…thing in The Thing. That…thing doesn’t just invade our bodies – it assimilates them. Violently. The Thing is a shapeshifter, absorbing its victim’s body into itself, yet able to retain the appearance of (and mimic) that victim, seemingly extending to any lifeform.

Fortunately The Thing is confined to an American Antarctic research base, but then so are its targets subject to the body horror of the thing itself – it takes the hostile environment and inescapable isolation of the setting and raises it with a full house of paranoia, as the Americans desperately try to figure out which of them have been assimilated (against the background of the grim calculation that if the Thing should escape the isolation of Antarctica, then all of humanity will be consumed), an uncertainty that continues to the ending itself.

Apparently, it’s an annual tradition for viewing by the winter crew at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station during the first evening of winter.

 

FANTASY OR SF?

 

SF obviously, from the very opening sequence of an alien spacecraft crashing to Earth – although arguably like the Lovecraftian or Cthulhu Mythos it resembles, it borders on fantasy, albeit not as much as beings like Cthulhu or other elements of the Mythos. I sometimes muse how it could work as supernatural rather than SF horror – with the Thing as something akin to a vampire or the demons in the Evil Dead films, except with shapechanging assimilation abilities.

 

HORROR

 

One of my three top ten entries which are also my holy trinity of SF horror – perhaps the most classic SF horror entry in my top ten, which has inspired or been referenced by films and other works of popular culture ever since. Like all good classic horror, it is essentially haunted house horror, substituting an alien for the ghost, and neatly solving the so-called haunted house problem – why don’t the characters just leave the house? – by virtue of its Antarctic setting effectively confining their characters to their base and isolating them from the outside world, the latter being something the more astute characters realize they have to maintain to protect the world from the Thing.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – TV: Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV Series (5) Fantasy: The Haunting of Hill House

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(5) FANTASY: THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE

(2018: SEASON 1. Yes – I’m only counting the first season. It’s an anthology series anyway)

As the title indicates, it is an adaptation based loosely on the book of the same name by Shirley Jackson.

It is psychological and supernatural horror, working effectively as both. The supernatural horror – the ghosts of the titular haunting and house itself – are certainly chilling, particularly as the director placed ghostly figures in the margins or peripheral angles of scenes (notably involving the stairs). You often didn’t see them, at least directly, but they were still there, squirming in your subconscious mind to unnerve or disturb you. The ghosts that you do see are unnerving enough, from the titular ghost in the very first episode, “Steven Sees a Ghost” – and from there on in, it’s a white-knuckled ride of suspense and creeping fear. And then there’s the psychological horror of a broken family of broken people, not to mention the occasional existential horror of life itself (such as that speech – you know the one, thank you Theo).

The plot revolves around the Crain family – Hugh and Olivia with their five children – moving into Hill House twenty-six years previously, with the parents intending to renovate it for sale, but the House – and its, ah, family – have their own hungry plans. And to paraphrase my poetic musings elsewhere – the Crain family came back from the black abyss, but they did not come all the way back (or all come back), and worse, they brought it back with them (and left part of themselves or their family behind). The story flips between the past and the present, as the family struggles with the aftermath – and that the House is still hungry for those who escaped it.

And then there’s that red room…

The only flaw for me was the ending, which was somewhat divisive for audiences in its tonal shift – although some have speculated a much darker twist in it.

And yes – I’m only counting the first season. It had a second season, retooled into an anthology series with the second season as an adaptation of The Turn of the Screw (and other works by Henry James). It arguably had a third season, an adaptation by creator Mike Flanagan of the Fall of the House of Usher (and other works by Edgar Allen Poe). However, they just haven’t had the same magic for me as this first season.

 

FANTASY OR SF?

 

Dark fantasy – like all good ghost stories.

 

HORROR

 

Well, obviously – indeed, the entry in my Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV Series that is the most readily characterized as horror.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Fantasy & SF Films (5) SF: The Matrix (1999)

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(5) SF: THE MATRIX

(1999. There are no sequels).

 

The Matrix is perhaps the next most definitive cinematic Robot War after another entry on this list, and like that entry, it works best by combining the Robot War with another trope, in this case that of virtual reality. As such, it is the direct descendant of H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine, consistent with my pet theory that the heart of science fiction is still all Martians and Morlocks.

We’ll be looking at Martians later, but the Machines and their software Agents in the Matrix are Morlocks, except that it’s cyberspace travel rather than time travel. The original Morlocks were one of two evolutionary descendants of humanity, evolved from the working class – maintaining the advanced technology of the future for the Eloi, the other descendants of humanity evolved from its leisured upper class.

The dark twist of Wells’ novel is that the Morlocks eat the Eloi, “farming” them like livestock. This theme of evolution endures in the Matrix, albeit transformed from Wells’ unrealistic biological evolution (without genetic engineering or mutation) to cybernetic evolution – involving artificial intelligence and robots as machine Morlocks that rise up against their human Eloi, particularly as the machine Morlocks do actually farm us for their food or energy.

Ultimately however, this makes no sense – humans don’t produce more energy than they consume. The Machines would obviously use more energy keeping us alive than they would ever extract from us – and that’s aside from programming and maintaining the Matrix itself. My theory is that the human resistance have no idea what the Matrix is for and the Machines actually use the Matrix for entertainment, like television (or the internet) – “Let’s see what the humans are doing on the Matrix tonight!”

And for a Robot War against humanity, the Machines are actually quite nice to us, whatever the purpose of the Matrix. Morpheus lets slip that humans fought a genocidal war with the Machines, in which we nuked the sun (NUKED the SUN!) to deprive the Machines of their solar energy (and you know, hopefully wipe them out). It didn’t work and we lost the Robot War, but instead of the Machines exterminating us like cockroaches, they keep us in our own cozy virtual dream world. Indeed, Agent Smith (who, unlike Morpheus, tells it straight) says that the Machines even tried to make it a perfect utopia for us, but human psychology wouldn’t accept it.

As I see it, the Machines’ only mistake was not advertising the Matrix to sign people up for it as your own programmable (and not necessarily permanent) reality (like, say, the Playboy Mansion or World of Warcraft) – I should be so lucky to lose a Robot War! “Seriously, you feed me and take care of me in a pod while I live it up in any number of dream worlds of my own design and all you want is my body heat? Sign me up!”

 

FANTASY OR SF?

 

Yeah – the virtual reality world maintained by the Machines to farm humanity for energy after a Robot War? It’s obviously SF. Or is it? Well, yes, it is – but it does have substantial elements of fantasy, what with its mystical trappings of the Oracle and Neo as the (chosen or messianic) One.

And yes – I know there are no sequels, but if there had been a second film it at least might have the interesting spin on fantasy with fantasy creatures such as vampires and so on as leftover programs or perhaps glitches from previous versions of the Matrix.

 

HORROR

 

One can’t really rank it as horror but it has elements of SF horror and could well have been written more in that direction.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – History (WW2): Top 10 Second World Wars (Special Mention) (15) Philippines – War of Occupation & Resistance

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US propaganda poster 1942-1943, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum / US National Archives & Records Administration – public domain image

 

 

(15) PHILIPPINES – WAR OF OCCUPATION & RESISTANCE

(1941-1945)

 

The fighting Filipinos!

The role of the Philippines in the Pacific War has always struck me as similar to that of Poland in Europe. While not playing the same role as casus belli – which is more properly assigned to Pearl Harbor – it was effectively the front line or ground zero for commencement of the war, and then a center of resistance behind the lines of occupation in that war.

Indeed, the parallel with Poland continues in that, similar to the Anglo-French planning that effectively foresaw writing off Poland to liberate it after German defeat, so too did American planning effectively to write off the Philippines.

As I understand it, particularly from my reading of Ronald Spector’s The Eagle Against the Sun, while War Plan Orange – the original American plan for war against Japan which was largely followed in the actual war – did not explicitly plan to abandon American and Filipino forces in the Philippines, its hope for those forces to hold out on their own until relieved by the American naval counter-offensive was unrealistic.

As it turned out, whatever hope there was of the forces in the Philippines holding out on their own, it was dashed first by the naval losses at Pearl Harbor and then, through bad luck and timing, the loss of US aircraft at Clark Field from Japanese attack in the Philippines itself. The loss of air cover forced the retreat of the American Asiatic Fleet from the Philippines, so that American forces were effectively left stranded without air or naval support except for the limited use of American submarines.

The doomed American campaign from 8 December 1941 to 8 May 1942 to defend the Philippines from the Japanese invasion, with its famous landmarks of Bataan (with the infamous Bataan Death March of American prisoners by Japan that followed) and Corregidor, may be the stuff of heroism but is more properly considered as part of the Pacific War.

Equally, the victorious American campaign from 20 October 1944 to 15 August 1945 to return to and liberate the Philippines is also more properly considered part of the Pacific War.

However, in the two and a half years between those two campaigns was the war of resistance in the Philippines. Indeed, the war of resistance in the Philippines overlapped with both. Significant parts of the resistance came from American or Filipino forces that escaped or did not surrender in the 1941-1942 campaign and instead led or fought as guerillas against Japanese occupation.

Among other American commanders, General MacArthur, who had been ordered to leave his command in the Philippines by submarine, maintained a keen interest in the maintaining or supplying the resistance there, consistent with his declaration that he would return – and indeed, the resistance would also play its part in preparing the ground by sabotage and other means for the 1944-1945 campaign.

The resistance in the Philippines was of no more small scale or effect. “Postwar studies estimate that around 260,000 people were organized under guerilla groups, and that members of anti-Japanese underground organizations were more numerous”. Also, such was their effectiveness that Japan only controlled the key or major islands in their occupation, with their control of the countryside or smaller towns often tenuous at best – “of the 48 provinces, only 12 were in firm control of the Japanese”.

Ironically, some Japanese soldiers took a leaf from the Filipino resistance, with the notorious Japanese holdouts on more remote islands throughout former occupied territory after the Japanese surrender. Many of them, as individuals or in groups, were in the Philippines. Only in Indonesia did one confirmed Japanese soldier endure longer – holding out to 1974! – but unconfirmed reports persisted after that in the Philippines, with  the last report taken seriously by Japanese officials in 2005.

As for the Philippines, while their resistance received mixed or belated recognition from the US government, it at least bore fruit with the US honoring its commitment from 1935 for the independence of the Philippines in 1946.

 

RATINGS: 4 STARS****

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Top Tens – TV: Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV (6) SF: Black Mirror

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(6) SF: BLACK MIRROR
(2011 – PRESENT: SEASONS 1-6)

*

Black Mirror – the cyberpunk Twilight Zone of the twenty-first century!

Okay, that cyberpunk label may be overstating it, but it certainly is a series of dark and satirical twists in the tale of the unanticipated or unintended consequences of technology and social media in modern society – or, in the words of series creator Charlie Brooker, “the way we might be living in 10 minutes’ time if we’re clumsy.”

It is an anthology series with no continuity between episodes – each episode has a different cast, a different setting or even a different reality, so you don’t have to watch them in order. Personally, I’d recommend starting with the later seasons and working your way backwards – particularly as the very first episode doesn’t extrapolate so much on technology or social media and can be a little confronting (although unforgettable – let’s just say you won’t feel about pork the same way again).

As for the premise and title of the series, it’s back to Charlie Brooker:

“If technology is a drug – and it does feel like a drug – then what, precisely, are the side effects? This area – between delight and discomfort – is where Black Mirror, my new drama series, is set. The ‘black mirror’ of the title is the one you’ll find on every wall, on every desk, in the palm of every hand: the cold, shiny screen of a TV, a monitor, a smartphone.”

 

FANTASY OR SF?

 

SF, as per its title premise – among the least fantasy of my Top 10 Fantasy & SF TV Series.

 

HORROR

 

As is typical for dystopian SF, it has a few borderline horror elements.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
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