Whoever Henry Treece is, he clearly has some issues to deal with.

Recently I came up with the idea of writing a novel about Jason and the Argonauts, and so I thought i’d better read up on the subject. I found “Jason” by Henry Treece for $1 at a library sale and bought it thinking it would be just the ticket. It wasn’t. I thought that historical revisionism only started in the 70s with “Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee” but good ol’ Henry proves that it was alive and well in 1962. His “Jason” is a gritty, down to earth depiction of the old Greek myth with all of the mythology taken out. There are no gods, Jason is just a prince, and Hercules (or Heracles) is just some big fat guy.

It doesn’t work. Medusa (or Medea) is just some woman, The Golden Fleece is just an old sheepskin with bits of alluvial gold stuck in it and the biggest mystery of all is why I even finished this crap. I wanted a tale of gods and heroes and I got Days Of Our Lives.

With one difference. Henry Treece appears to have a bit of a problem with women. Every female in his novel is evil. Jason was concieved by his mother with a hermit out of spite for her husband, the King. Jason’s life is spent not in fear of ‘the mother’ Hera, but of the wicked priestesses who do her bidding, and Medea is scheming and spiteful. This depiction of women starts off innocently enough but by the middle of the book I had realised that I was dealing with real, actual hatred. Possibly Mrs Treece had just divorced him. Who knows? I would have.

Avoid this book.