Odyssey: Discover the epic Greek tale before the film event of 2026 (Stephen Fry’s Greek Myths)
Stephen Fry brings his celebrated Greek myths series to a close with Odyssey, the fourth and final book in a sequence that began with the hugely popular Mythos. It's a fitting send-off, and quite possibly the most gripping instalment yet. The story picks up with Odysseus, King of Ithaca, fresh from a decade of savage war at Troy. Victory won, his thoughts turn to the family he left behind: his wife Penelope, steadfast and waiting, and his son Telemachus, growing up without him. Getting home, you'd think, should be the easy part. It isn't. Poseidon, god of the ocean, takes a dim view of Odysseus and condemns him to ten more years of wandering the seas. What follows is a procession of genuinely hair-raising encounters: cyclops, sea monsters, whirlpools large enough to swallow fleets, sirens whose singing curdles reason, and goddesses with very particular ideas about hospitality. Odysseus survives through cunning rather than brute strength, which makes him a more interesting hero than most. Fry's prose moves at a satisfying clip. He keeps the ancient bones of the story intact while giving the whole thing a warmth and wit that feels distinctly his own. The Observer called the series 'outstandingly entertaining', noting how Fry draws out the contemporary relevance lurking inside these old myths, and that assessment holds true here. The Times praised his storytelling at its peak; the Guardian described earlier volumes as 'a head-spinning marathon of legends'. Odyssey earns those comparisons. At its heart, this is a story about longing: for home, for the people you love, for a life interrupted and not yet resumed. Fry handles that emotional core with care, never letting the monsters and mayhem crowd out the very human ache driving Odysseus forward. A rich, rollicking conclusion to a series that has brought ancient Greece to a vast modern audience.
- Author: Stephen Fry
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
- Genre: Historical Fiction
- ISBN: 1405948426
- Pages: 448 pages