Enkyklios, Food of the Gods!
Written: Apr 30 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Well written, easy to understand, nice layout, 1000 beautiful images.
Cons: Text is way too small.
The Bottom Line: Like all Encyclopedias they become outdated almost immediately after purchase. Still a nice encyclopedia for anyone interested in Mythology.
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| MagickCat's Full Review: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology Books |
Door-to-Door Encyclopedia Salesmen The once proud messengers of Americana, Funk & Wagnalls and other deities of the Enkyklios Pantheon. These door-to-door heralds were slain by the beast called Interngand. Thought to have moved on to the other world NOJOBBA, their ghosts can still be seen peeking over the shoulders of developing school children when the DSL is down. (See also cold day in hell)
Ah if only the salesmen had been armed with the likes of The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology, they might have stood a chance.
The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology by Arthur Cotterell and Rachel Storm is a upgrade to Arthur Cotterell's The Encyclopedia of Mythology. They don't tell you that on the back. I received The Encyclopedia of Mythology as a rather expensive Christmas gift a few years ago after much begging and it was a beautiful book. This month I was looking around The Bay, and was horrified to find my prized possession not only modified and mutilated but also marked down to a ridiculously low price. I had to see what in the name of Valhalla they had done and now I am left with a few Thor points.
Now appearing this Sunday, Sunday, ssssSunday, the ULITMATE Encyclopedia of Mythology!
The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology largely covers Classical (Greek and Roman), Norse, Celtic, Egyptian and Asian mythology. A better title would have been the Improved Encyclopedia of Mythology, as this encyclopedia is completely missing any mention of Central American and North American mythology. To me that automatically excludes this from being the ultimate encyclopedia of mythology.
I wouldn't have been very annoyed had the title not used the word ultimate to describe its contents.
This encyclopedia does improve on The Encyclopedia of Mythology which only covered Classical, Norse and Celtic mythology. The inclusion of the Egyptian and Asian mythologies adds a lot of fascinating information but the inclusion of the word ultimate, ultimately irks me.
Organization and Features
This encyclopedia is organized into 6 sections:
The Myths of Greece and Rome
The Myths of the Celtic World
The Myths of the Nordic Lands
The Myths of Egypt and West Asia
The Myths of South and Central Asia
The Myths of East Asia
Now The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology follows the format established in The Encyclopedia of Mythology. The wording is easy to follow and I like how each section not only includes the encyclopedia material but also an introduction and map. Brief cultural or mythological high lights are also included within this encyclopedia.
For example in myths of the Nordic Lands you would come across a page entitled "Rings of Power" which explains the symbolism of the various rings in Norse mythology. In myths of Egypt you might find a page about sacred animals. These are basically rehashes of information you would already know had you read the encyclopedia front to back.
Though not in-depth these sections serve to keep The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology from becoming monotonous.
A new feature in The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology not found in The Encyclopedia of Mythology are family trees. Keeping tract of godly relations can be a little confusing at times. I find it very helpful to have a chart to flip to and see who is whose second cousin twice removed. Cletus-Asclepius wur's yer sister Clytemnestra?
As with the The Encyclopedia of Mythology, The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology uses broad titles to house together various Mythologies. Take for example the section called "Myths of the Nordic Lands", this part of the encyclopedia is not is exclusively about Norse mythology as you might expect.
You will also find descriptions of Slavic and Russian gods like Veles and Triglav along side the likes of Thor and Odin.
Every section is like that; you have Babylonian beside Egyptian and Greek beside Roman and Irish beside Welsh and so on.
This worked in The Encyclopedia of Mythology because it was half the size of The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology and only covered Norse, Classical and Celtic.
With 260 additional pages, jumbling all of these mythologies under broad terms can become distracting. Hebrew, Hittite, Sumerian, Islamic, Pre-Islamic, Hurrian, Iranian, Canaanite... all under the title of Myths of Egypt and Western Asia. If you have specific terms to look up The Encyclopedia of Mythology is great, but if you misuse encyclopedias as reading material like I do the additional sections can be overwhelming.
One Achilles Heel
The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology is beautifully illustrated. Most any deity, or hero you look up will have a graphically graphic representation. The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology makes use of paintings (many famous), frescos, sketches and even photographs of statues to breathe new life into ancient Mythology.
Artwork by Rackham, Penrose, Draper, Gerard and many other artists grace the pages of The Encyclopedia of Mythology, even if you aren't interested in mythology this would make a nice art book. I find the Celtic and Norse portions of the encyclopedia to be particularly well done.
The layout used is attractive and would have been very easy to read, had this encyclopedia not been sized down and mutilated. The font used is readable but barely. To give you an idea of how small it is check out Times New Roman size nine, readable right? But now imagine 512 pages of Times New Roman sized nine...
What on Mount Olympus were they thinking?
The Encyclopedia of Mythology was a much nicer encyclopedia to use because the font was larger and less tiring on the eyes. For the first three sections both encyclopedias are word for word, picture to picture, exactly the same the only thing different is the size of the pages and consequently text.
The difference the font makes is one bottle of extra strength Advil and a magnifying glass.
Epics of Micro-text
Of course this is an encyclopedia, not a fairy-tale book. It reads like an encyclopedia, it quacks like an encyclopedia. If you want to look up Vishnu or Apollo, you'll get a description of Vishnu or Apollo plus a version of their origin story (which you may or may not agree with), a description of their godly functions and perhaps a few words of how they interacted with other deities and a whole lot of nice artwork.
I couldn't help but thinking this would make a nice book for kids doing social studies assignments, of course there are a lot of pictures of nekkid gods but we're all much more mature then that.
Aren't we?
All in all a very nice encyclopedia, as many less mentioned gods and religions are covered. If you are considering an encyclopedia of mythology, The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Mythology is definitely a step up from its predecessor The Encyclopedia of Mythology.
Recommended:
Yes
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MagickCat
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Location: Canada
Reviews written: 44
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