The Mighty Sons of Hercules, Volume I

overall a pretty good anthology of sword & sandal and sword & sorcery tales. "the son of herku against the beast of gnak-gor", "mighty umaeo and the tyrant's test", and "melkart unchained" were my favorites, with the latter being the longest and probably best story in the anthology. there's a good mix of settings too, with "umaeo" and "melkart" being pseudo-historical, "maxus and the lake of blood" and "ever the blood endures" being post-apocalyptic, and the rest in imaginary fantasy settings, with "summer of the stranger" notably taking place in a jewish cultural milieu.

"maciste in the land of snakes", though, is an utter doozy. besides being probably the worst-written story in the anthology with one of the least likable heroes, it also (and i could be wrong! i'd like to be!) reads like a terminally online race war fever dream about how democracy is only worthwhile if you already know your side is going to win, and if you lose, democracy must be replaced with vows of personal allegiance to a literal strongman leader until your "freedoms" are secure ("i can lead you to victory, but you have to give up this collectivist voting thing, and each make personal pledges to follow me unquestioningly" p. 130, "now that the voters who opposed your freedom have all joined the right side or been killed, you can resume the ancient and noble tradition of casting a ballot, with assurance that the election will go in favor of your interests." p. 132). i mean obviously people can write stories that don't reflect their real life values and characters that say and do things they don't agree with but based on the vibe of this story i'm glad j. manfred weichsel isn't coming to my family thanksgiving that's all i'm saying