The Arms of Hercules

Book excerpt: Volume III Book of the Gods A Splendid New Fantasy by the Author of Ariadne’s Web “One of the best writers in the business.”—Stephen R. Donaldson Fred Saberhagen, New York Times bestselling author of the Berzerker Series, continues to puts his own twist on Greek mythology, continuing the series that kicked off with The Face of Apollo and Ariadne’s Web with Book III, The Arms of Hercules. Hercules is the son of the nearly omnipotent Zeus, King of the Gods, and of a human mother whose beauty sparked lust in the great god. The arms of Hercules look no more muscular than those of many other men—but his father was the greatest god in the entire world. Hercules, the son of Zeus, has crushed monsters, giants and legendary warriors in combat. Until one challenge remains: The harrowing underworld, the one place where strength does not matter. Pitted against the greatest monsters that classical literature and Saberhagen’s vivid imagination could create, Hercules’s struggle comes to life in his fight to the death, against Death itself.