Ladies: Retold Tales Of Goddesses And Heroines by Boris Vallejo and Doris Vallejo (book review).
If you think you’ve got all of the Boris Vallejo books, then you might have missed this one from 1999, ‘Ladies: Retold Tales of Goddesses and Heroines’, with his then wife, Doris. Penguin, I believe, originally released it in 1991. The book primarily consists of ten chapters featuring Greek women, with occasional references to the minotaur. You would have to be familiar with Greek mythology to recognize all the names. I hadn’t heard or paid attention to Coronis or Deianira before. The others, like Medusa, Medea, Persephone, Circe, Arachne, and Pandora, were a lot more familiar. Doris Vallejo’s text is more about the romance of the time period than the mythology, so don’t expect as much history as you would get in the standard mythology books.
Of course, the real selling point is Boris Vallejo’s art, a combination of his full paintings and illustrations, the latter given as much detailing as the former. Although Boris was clearly flirting with nudity, he completed the artwork in the early 1990s to comply with the publishers’ demands. For the ladies wanting beefcake, there is obviously less of a restriction. There are also various mythological beasties there, and about only one painting I’ve seen elsewhere, so there is probably a lot of new art for those Vallejo fans who haven’t gotten this book.
Goddesses need love, too.
GF Willmetts
August 2024
(pub: Paper Tiger, 1999. 186 page illustrated softcover. Price: varies but its still out there. ISBN: 1-85585-736-7)
