Book Updates: Good News This Time!

10/23/2013

I have three short book announcements I want to share with everyone, and for a change it’s good news!

First and most importantly: Atomic Overmind Press informed me yesterday that they plan to have the eBook version of Cthulhu in World Mythology available for purchase next week, just in time for Halloween! I’ll post a link as soon as it’s available. The print version will follow a few weeks later and will be available for holiday season gift purchases.

Second, McFarland has accepted my all of my drawings for Jason and the Argonauts and has begun work preparing the manuscript for print.

Third, I am pleased to announce the release of my long-delayed reprint edition of Fred W. Lucas’s classic 1898 debunking of the Zeno Narrative and the myth that Henry Sinclair sailed to America in the late 1300s. I have retitled the book The Zeno Voyage: Anatomy of a Hoax, and my edition reprints the original text along with a selection of critical reviews and the rarely seen “Notes on the Zeno Narrative and Chart” (1900) by Miller Christy, which concurs with Lucas but offers additional perspective on complications in our understanding of the Zeno map’s sources. Now you, too, can have your own copy to wave around when criticizing Henry Sinclair true believers for their near-complete ignorance of the only supposedly original document of the imaginary Sinclair voyage. Plus, I think my cover art came out nice this time.

Note: Due to the complexity of the interior layout, with footnotes, end notes, tables, and multiple languages with special characters, this one will have to stay a print book since it's a bit beyond my eBook skills to translate coherently.

15 Comments

Thane

10/23/2013 12:57:07 pm

Congratulations! you were long overdue for good news on the publishing front!

charlie

10/23/2013 02:14:41 pm

Very good news. Thanks for the update.

CFC

10/23/2013 02:20:56 pm

Yes!!! So happy for this good news Jason.

Cathleen Anderson

10/23/2013 02:55:26 pm

congrats.

Shane Sullivan

10/23/2013 06:40:37 pm

Congratulations.

Brent

10/24/2013 01:47:33 am

Congratumications! Seriously though, glad to hear!

And for Zeno Voyage: DO WANT. Particularly for aforementioned copy-waving.

Gunn

10/24/2013 05:26:42 am

Great looking cover!

Just out of curiosity, was it at all difficult to determine which parts were somewhat accurate and which parts were pure myth? Was there an identifiable blending of truth and false, percentage-wise? Mostly false and some true, or the opposite? Sometimes the most difficult myths to overcome are the ones rooted within a pot of mostly truth....

I'm not sure about this case, so it would be good for me to read the book.

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." - Admiral Zeno & Sir Henry Sinclair.

(Just kidding.)

Jason Colavito link

10/24/2013 06:04:08 am

Lucas concluded that it was all fake, assembled from various Renaissance texts that the author, Nicolo Zeno the younger, had access to. His friend Miller Christy, whose work I've also included in the volume, disagreed and thought that while the Narrative and the Map were certainly fakes assembled in the 1500s, Zeno probably started with a record of an actual voyage by the Zeno Brothers to Iceland and possibly Greenland, to which he grafted imaginary islands and much fantasy.

Gunn

10/24/2013 07:11:13 am

Thanks for the added info.

I was just thinking that maybe Zeno started with a record of an actual voyage (like to Greenland), to base his falsehood on, but perhaps also with some degree of knowledge about the actual place of Vinland just beyond.

In spite of the conclusions about Henry Sinclair's voyage being a myth, isn't Vinland still recognized as a very real place? (I mean, besides it being mentioned on the KRS.)

All I'm suggesting is that maybe Zeno had more information available to concoct his stories than first meets the eye.

(Still looking for that "grain of truth.")

Only Me

10/24/2013 12:35:11 pm

To the Vikings, Vinland was very real. Records of actual voyages to Iceland and Greenland were probably readily available, since most expeditions followed the established routes the Vikings charted first. The Corte-Reals, of Portugal, followed those routes, for example.

The idea that a Scottish(?) nobleman would leave his post, so to speak, to go on a voyage/expedition lasting several years, without no one finding it odd enough to record it, is what lends the tale its fantastical gloss. Especially when Sinclair is claimed to have stayed behind after reaching North America.

Gunn

10/24/2013 01:39:37 pm

I'm suggesting that perhaps Zeno was well aware of the very real site of Vinland when he wrote the narratives, making his story more believable because of the expanded attention to detail, geographically speaking.

I'm not saying this proves anything...only that Zeno may have had more, geographically, to draw his imaginings upon than we may have thought. It seems like Zeno may have known about the Newport Tower, and maybe even about the Scandinavian ventures into the continent's heartland, if he was acquainted with Scandinavians who may have passed on some knowledge...mapping info, bragging rights, etc.

Seeing Vinland as a very real place helps place the KRS, in my opinion. We don't know the identities of the men referred to on the KRS, but it seems to boil down to a mostly Swedish endeavor. I think Henry Sinclair had Scandinavian connections, correct?

Maybe Henry Sinclair is buried on the hill next to Runestone Hill...the hill just a stone's-throw west of Runestone Hill, the one with no less than three aged, triangulated stonehole rocks adorning it. Mooring stones...ha!

Only Me

10/24/2013 09:14:44 pm

No argument about Zeno using known lands/locations/previous voyages as the basis for his narrative. The best stories have known places, people or things to draw the reader in, since there are enough references to give the story realism.

Speculation can be fun, but one has to be careful not to cross over into Wolter territory while doing it. The sword on the Westford Knight is undeniable, but someone would have to have an agenda to suggest it represents Henry Sinclair's companion, Sir James Gunn. To also speculate that Sinclair himself is buried near Runestone Hill...I believe that would be a much more momentous reason to leave a memorial stone. As you said, we don't even know the identities of the men alluded to on the KRS.

Besides, Sinclair is already mired in a mystery....precisely when he died, not where.

Gunn Sinclair link

10/25/2013 11:06:12 am

Have you seen the "expanded" version of the Westford Knight? Apparently--or supposedly, much more of the knight was discernible in the past. I saw pictures somewhere in the past showing more of the knight, including a shield with even the family crest or coat-of-arms. I guess it was because of this that I took it that Sir Gunn's sidekick, Hank, had accompanied the hapless, elderly Gunn to his gravesite. I had supposed there was a relationship, an abiding friendship between Sir Gunn and Sir Henry, so that the "evidence" of the knight (Sir Gunn) also pointed to the long past presence of Sir Henry. This is a major part of the story, I think, for once Henry is placed south of Vinland, in the proximity of the Newport Tower, the story--or myth, or the myth with a grain of truth to it, becomes more imaginable.

It seems that Zeno's account has been pretty well proven false, yet is one able to say his whole account is false? That's part of the problem here, just the same as with the stories told by Native Americans in regards to the stories, and myths. Is everything the Native Americans are saying false? I'm wondering what might possibly be true in either accounting. Is there, as Steve says, a grain of truth to the myths. Let's see if we can take a closer look at the oldest attainable image of that knight, to see if there is indeed a Scottish connection. I'm quite curious about this, as I borrowed the name Gunn a year or so ago. I would suppose that maybe the remains of this knight might be found not far from the carved image, if the broken sword does indicate a dead man, and I don't know if it does. If not, what is the reason for the break in the sword blade, as seen in the image?.

Only Me

10/25/2013 03:52:19 pm

I guess I haven't found a good photo yet. The "break", in the photos I have seen, looks the same as the other glacial striations left in the stone. Maybe it was a natural feature the carver didn't take into account when the carving was made.

Dejan

10/24/2013 10:31:24 pm

Congrats, Jason!

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