Corydon & The Island of Monsters -- Tobias Druitt

Corydon & The Island of Monsters is the story of (big surprise coming up) Corydon the shepherd-boy.  Because of his deformity -- one of his legs is a goat-leg -- he is driven out of his village during a drought and subsequently captured by a freak-show.  When he escapes, he sets the other freaks free:  the Medusa, the Nemean Lion, the Minotaur, the Sphinx, a Harpy, etc. 

Not long afterward, Perseus gathers an army of heroes together to go and destroy the "monsters".

There were a lot of things I really liked about the book -- Perseus was a totally obnoxious pansy, and Jason didn't fare much better.  Zeus was portrayed as the CEO of a huge trading conglomerate, and I also found Athene's brief cameo hugely entertaining.  Hermes' sandals reminded me of Calcifer's stint as a flying carpet in The Castle in the Air.  The Nemean Lion was adorable, I ended up with a crush on the Minotaur, and Lady Nagaina was just cool.

But.

For some reason, the book was just S-L-O-O-O-O-W.  I don't understand it.  There was loads and loads of action, but the book still dragged.

Tobias Druitt isn't a real person.  Or, rather, he is two.  Tobias Druitt is the pen name used by Diane Purkiss and Michael Dowling, a mother-and-son writing team.  Usually, I avoid dual-author books because they tend to feel disjointed and uneven.  This one didn't.  It just lagged.  But it lagged very evenly, so that's something, right?

Comments

[Michele Fry]

I've just read this one, finally, and found it slow going also... I decided I prefered Rick Riordan's take on the Greek Myths, although I am now dutifully reading "Corydon and the Fall of Atlantis" !