(2019-06-20) Sloan The Truth About The East Wind

Robin Sloan: The Truth About the East Wind. This a short story about curiosity, obsession, and one of the greatest cover-ups of all time. Also, Greek gods

So then came the cover-up. Zeus had loved Athena, but he was embarrassed by this whole chain of events. At his command, Hermes invented a new Athena and talked her up all around the Mediterranean. Athena the goddess of war. Athena the patron of the Greeks. There was no reason not to believe him, because the real Athena—curious Athena—was gone.

Athena never seemed like much of a warrior to me. Then, at a reception for scholarship winners at Cornell, I met her.

She is called Professor Emily van Mire, and she has a girlfriend and a small house and a dog named Titan, but it is her, unmistakably. It’s her curiosity, her intellect, her pale dancing eyes.