A few years back, I was rocking to sleep my nearly one year old son and going through a reading list of the best science fiction and fantasy, as determined buy the readers of NPR (a list which I have long since abandoned.) I was reading a book I will leave unnamed, one you would certainly recognize, a classic sword and sandal adventure. I finished the book thinking I wish I could have my son have the fun of reading such an imaginative tale, minus the absolutely abhorrent racism and sexism that was so ingrained in every story.

It was only days later that I wrote the first few paragraphs of the tale of Éo of Andevale, often called Éo Ironblood, the divine hero of many a childhood story and venerated by millions across the world. Those paragraphs survive, more or less, in the chapter below.