The Fall of the Gods
‘The Fall of the Gods’ is a compilation of four stories that were originally published separately, all of them powerful adaptations of myths and classical tales. Michael De Cock and Gerda Dendooven succeed magnificently in trimming down the sometimes longwinded originals and polishing them to create captivating gems. ‘The Long Way Home’ tells the story of Odysseus and his attempts to return home after a long war. In ‘Flying to the Sky’, Daedalus builds a labyrinth for the Minotaur and Theseus tries to kill the beast. ‘Deep in the Forest’ brings together well-known and less familiar stories from Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ and, finally, in ‘Battle for a Heart’, we see the Trojan War through the eyes of Helen, the most beautiful woman in Greece.
It has taken courage, passion and skill to compose this intense story as a digestible whole and then send it out into the modern worldBoekenleeuw jury
De Cock’s retellings leave room for the imagination and reconstruct these ancient stories in a contemporary and accessible way. Dendooven’s dazzling illustrations, inspired by Greek images, have a playfulness that strikes a balance between childlike and artistic, and are at once distant and full of emotion.
Michael De Cock employs stunning imagery to describe both the fires of love and the chaos of the battlefieldCutting Edge
