Sharp dressed man

[marycrawford]

I do so love Michael Hurst and his improbable celebrity star turns - over here, he's only known (if at all) as the blond who played Iolaus in Hercules, over in New Zealand he's the kind of celebrity actor/director who is asked to host television shows, open festivals and present things like hairdressing award galas.

What does one wear to a hairdressing award gala, besides pretty hair?

If you're Michael Hurst, the answer is red velvet and thigh-high red platform boots. Or plasterer's stilts. I love this picture most of all - the pose, the pleased look on his face. Heeee.

In other HtLJ related news, masteralida, writing as Sierra, has put her Hercules stories back on the web.

In non-related news, I picked up Mary Renault's The Charioteer and am reading it for the first time. I've read all her Greek novels, but not the modern ones, and so far it's fascinating and a little sad. Someone please tell me, does this one have a happy ending? Illogically, I don't want to go hunt spoilers or look at the back of the book, but I still want to know.

ETA: Dorinda nobly told me just as much as I wanted to know (i.e., she didn't tell me who ends up with whom. Hee). Yay!

Comments

[marycrawford.livejournal.com]

Too well? And he isn't even in drag. *g*

Recs. Guh. I absolutely love her Greek novels, and I kind of want to flail and point you at all of them at once. They're all impeccably researched, and while the books are full of action, it's her characters that make the books so intense. She's masterful at letting the reader know more than the character does, and creating subtle yet hardhitting character moments.

I do have favorites, though. The Alexander trilogy - Fire From Heaven, The Persian Boy, and Funeral Games - is magnificent; each book stands alone, but I'd recommend starting from the beginning nonetheless. It's the story of Alexander the Great, told from the point of the people who are closest to him: his childhood friend and then lover Hephaistion, and Bagoas, the Persian Boy in the title. I read these first when I was fourteen or so and was utterly spellbound, and they hold up for me now.

The King Must Die trilogy, about Theseus, is also very good and very atmospheric, but I could never like the main character as much as the guys above. (Okay, I thought he was a selfish prat. *g* But this may just be me!)

The Last of the Wine and The Mask of Apollo are two other favorites; the first features Socrates and Phaedo as side characters, the latter is set in the Greek theatre.

I hope you can find some of these and enjoy them. :-)