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In The Gate Thief, OSC refers to some books in the Library of Congress that tell the story of Bel, Loki and how Gates were "swallowed" and "created." What is the book(s) that these myths came from? I'd like to read the originals.
This may be impossible to tell. There may be some particular rare book OSC has in mind, but given that the Library of Congress is supposed to receive pretty much everything published in English, it's a great way for an author to 1, invent a super rare book that has the exact passage the character needs, 2. and also have a place where the sheltered main character would think to look AND immediately find it and have this scenario seem plausible to most readers. For instance, most Universities have rare books, but their collections are small, and their contents are probably not especially notorious among the general population.
Embarrassingly, my first exposure to Norse mythology was from this book (haven't seen the Thor movies, but I know there's also a Loki there), so I can't tell you how much the gate part was shoe-horned into the existing mythology-- gods from other traditions are also mentioned, IIRC.
I read the book around the time when it came out (this is the first one, right? In the Lost Gate, Danny actually goes there), so I don't remember the details of the scene very well, but some authors will mention particular works they consulted in the acknowledgments section, especially if they think their readers might enjoy them.
It's a question for OSC or Kristine. Both are registered on the boards and Kristine will usually answer publication-related queries as kacard. OSC hasn't participated in any discussion in a better part of a decade.
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posted
I am familiar with the basics of Norse mythology. The parts where he is talking about "Gates" seems to be from Egyptian mythology (which I am only barely familiar with. I read a book or two, but just the popular myths and they weren't trying to be close in their translations.) or some other old, obscure religion.
I don't even need the name of the specific book: I just want to know the source of the myths where Bal and the Gates are talked about within the quotations from The Gate Thief book. It may be that the quotes are from a fictitious book, but they certainly come from a real source. I knew that as soon as I read them, I just cannot for the life of me remember where those myths come from.
posted
What would be funny is if, when you typed a question into Google, you got a link to Hatrack telling you to do your own research first.
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