The Mask of Circe by Henry Kuttner book review

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I am Jason of Argo.

I feel her keel vibrating in the sea.

The slap of water against her prow.

Our connection is surreal.

My memory of you is undeniable.

You were a light warrior. I was your lover.

Now I find you here.

Strange, wonderful, electrifying.

I know I’m jumping timelines. But what the hell, It’s YOU!

Three thousand years of COSMIC MEMORY.

Eons of time defeated.

Your call is answered.

Jason and Circe together again.

The Mask of Circe by Henry Kuttner book review.

My highlights and annotations:

The Mask of Circe by Henry Kuttner

Book last read: 2024-10-21 16:02:44
Percentage read: 100%

Chapter 3: Enchanted Seas
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Chapter progress: 4.67%
Highlight: My mind was sick.
Notes: Lovesick.

Chapter 3: Enchanted Seas
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Chapter progress: 8.41%
Highlight: I knew what it was I had done—or had seemed to do—and I knew this was either a dream, or madness.
Notes: Madly in love w you.

Chapter 4: Mystic Ship
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Chapter progress: 10.28%
Highlight: I said, “Orpheus—Orpheus?” in an uncertain voice,

Chapter 4: Mystic Ship
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Chapter progress: 11.21%
Highlight: Sunlight struck down upon the water and turned it to a dark and dazzling blue. A long row of blinding white breakers dashed themselves high against the marble walls of—an island? A castled island, fortified down to the very brink of the sea, and lifting white towers against a sky as blue as the water. All white and deep dark blue was that scene unveiled before me.
Notes: on the island.

Chapter 4: Mystic Ship
Annotation
Chapter progress: 12.15%
Highlight: Aeaea, Island of the Enchantress.”
Notes: I see you in my dreams.

Chapter 5: Temple in the Grove
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Chapter progress: 14.02%
Highlight: I was alone on the pale sands of Aeaea, which was the Enchantress’ Isle.

Notes: I see you in the sun on pale sand.

Chapter 5: Temple in the Grove
Annotation
Chapter progress: 14.02%
Highlight: , I followed the calling voice through fog and forest.
Notes: Your call.

Chapter 5: Temple in the Grove
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Chapter progress: 14.02%
Highlight: Jason, my lover—enter! Come to me, Jason, my beloved.
Notes: It’s you.

Chapter 5: Temple in the Grove
Annotation
Chapter progress: 15.89%
Highlight: hair unbound, how it fell in a shining black river over her shoulders as smoothly curved as the alabaster of her face, and each separate hair of it burning the flesh like a blue-hot wire when he brushed it with his hand.

Notes: OMG! It’s YOU!

Chapter 5: Temple in the Grove
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Chapter progress: 15.89%
Highlight: Hecate.

Goddess of the dark of the moon,

Chapter 5: Temple in the Grove
Annotation
Chapter progress: 17.76%
Highlight: Kronos watched the sands trickling through his eternal fingers?

Notes: Kronos is time god.

Chapter 5: Temple in the Grove
Annotation
Chapter progress: 18.69%
Highlight: Man bows always to the thralldom of enchantment, in his superstitious soul. Especially the man of long ago—of now—whose daily life was peopled with the gods and demons of his own
Notes: Indeed.

Chapter 5: Temple in the Grove
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Chapter progress: 19.63%
Highlight: There are no fears in any man’s life which cowering can solve.

Notes: Well said.

Chapter 6: Trust Not a Faun
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Chapter progress: 20.56%
Highlight: Would you fly in terror from a young dryad, too?
Notes: Nymph in the woods.

Chapter 6: Trust Not a Faun
Annotation
Chapter progress: 23.36%
Highlight: The truth is that she’ll never rest until she reaches him again through—through me?
Notes: I am here for you.

Chapter 6: Trust Not a Faun
Annotation
Chapter progress: 24.3%
Highlight: There’s one thing to remember—unless you find the young Circe, you’ll know no peace.
Notes: I found you.

Chapter 7: Priests of Apollo
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Chapter progress: 27.1%
Highlight: Helios, burning with beauty, bright as the ardor of the sun-god himself.

Chapter 7: Priests of Apollo
Annotation
Chapter progress: 27.1%
Highlight: Anger was rising in me, perhaps the beginnings of rebellion,
Notes: Indubitably.

Chapter 7: Priests of Apollo
Annotation
Chapter progress: 27.1%
Highlight: They want me to run. Well, we’ll see what they do if I won’t run.
Notes: Roman Feds.

Chapter 7: Priests of Apollo
Annotation
Chapter progress: 28.04%
Highlight: Then a girl’s voice murmured, “Will my lord please to follow me?”

Notes: I will follow you.

Chapter 7: Priests of Apollo
Annotation
Chapter progress: 28.04%
Highlight: Helot
Notes: Middle class.

Chapter 7: Priests of Apollo
Highlight
Chapter progress: 28.97%
Highlight: her feet were bare and ankleted with silver bells.

Chapter 7: Priests of Apollo
Annotation
Chapter progress: 31.78%
Highlight: cosmic stream of time.
Notes: I found you.

Chapter 8: Echoes of the Past
Annotation
Chapter progress: 33.64%
Highlight: There was a prophecy that when Jason came again, he would be as a sword against Apollo in Hecate’s hand.
Notes: Return of the Sword

Chapter 8: Echoes of the Past
Annotation
Chapter progress: 34.58%
Highlight: I don’t know who the devil the young Circe is.
Notes: I know her.

Chapter 8: Echoes of the Past
Annotation
Chapter progress: 37.38%
Highlight: Jason—Jason of Iolcus—beloved, do you hear me?
Notes: I hear you.

Chapter 8: Echoes of the Past
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Chapter progress: 37.38%
Highlight: Jason, come back to me,” the sweet, far-away voice was calling through my brain. “Jason, beloved, you must not betray me.”

Notes: I will never betray you.

Chapter 8: Echoes of the Past
Annotation
Chapter progress: 37.38%
Highlight: radiant with impossible beauty. The eyes were green fire, green embers smoldering beneath the shadow of her lashes. I remembered from long ago.

Notes: I love you.

Chapter 8: Echoes of the Past
Annotation
Chapter progress: 38.32%
Highlight: But some inexorable bond linked us over the hundreds of generations,
Notes: I found you.

Chapter 8: Echoes of the Past
Annotation
Chapter progress: 39.25%
Highlight: Could it be possible that the enchantress of three thousand years past had looked through Jason’s eyes as through a lens, and met mine and—No! It sounded incredible to say, “She loved me.
Notes: She loves me!

Chapter 9: Slave-Girl’s Plea
Annotation
Chapter progress: 42.99%
Highlight: Tell me one thing more,” I said. “Who am I?”

Notes: Good question.

Chapter 9: Slave-Girl’s Plea
Highlight
Chapter progress: 43.93%
Highlight: This girl knew more than I about too many things.

Chapter 10: Hecate Speaks
Annotation
Chapter progress: 46.73%
Highlight: I hated that subtle, plausible brain intruding itself upon mine.
Notes: Ego loop.

Chapter 10: Hecate Speaks
Annotation
Chapter progress: 51.4%
Highlight: And legend told of many times before now when a goddess stooped to bestow her favor on a mortal.
Notes: Please bestow your favor on me.

Chapter 10: Hecate Speaks
Annotation
Chapter progress: 51.4%
Highlight: Well, I cannot control love. But I wish she might have been born three thousand years from now.
Notes: I found you.

Chapter 11: Radiance of Death
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Chapter progress: 54.21%
Highlight: She was strange beyond telling, she was far more than human,
Notes: She is the sun.

Chapter 11: Radiance of Death
Highlight
Chapter progress: 54.21%
Highlight: The shining light bathed me.

Chapter 11: Radiance of Death
Highlight
Chapter progress: 55.14%
Highlight: Jason! Waken or die!

Chapter 11: Radiance of Death
Highlight
Chapter progress: 55.14%
Highlight: I was blinded by the golden light.

Chapter 11: Radiance of Death
Highlight
Chapter progress: 56.07%
Highlight: Do you know now which side you fight on?

Chapter 11: Radiance of Death
Highlight
Chapter progress: 57.94%
Highlight: I think, at such a time, a man reaches out blindly for human love.

Chapter 11: Radiance of Death
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Chapter progress: 58.88%
Highlight: I no longer walked blind in shadows.

Chapter 12: High Priest’s Bargain
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Chapter progress: 64.49%
Highlight: Trust and faith aren’t words to be bandied lightly.

Chapter 12: High Priest’s Bargain
Highlight
Chapter progress: 64.49%
Highlight: It may be that I am using you and others as well, to shape a world you will never know.

Chapter 12: High Priest’s Bargain
Highlight
Chapter progress: 65.42%
Highlight: There is a garden where roses of white fire blaze among leaves of flame, dripping droplets of molten sunlight upon a floor of fire. In the center of that garden stands a tree.

Chapter 13: Aid From Hecate
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Chapter progress: 67.29%
Highlight: I entered the cypress woods alone.

Chapter 13: Aid From Hecate
Highlight
Chapter progress: 68.22%
Highlight: There was a hiss of seething water from somewhere nearby, where the oreads of the fountains lashed themselves into a mounting frenzy as the whole sacred isle of the goddess rose in its anger

Chapter 13: Aid From Hecate
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Chapter progress: 69.16%
Highlight: I knew she could see me, and perhaps see my mind and thoughts as well.

Chapter 15: Power Unleashed
Highlight
Chapter progress: 78.5%
Highlight: the darkness still seemed to be deepening over everything.

Chapter 15: Power Unleashed
Highlight
Chapter progress: 78.5%
Highlight: like serpents in a nightmare.

Chapter 15: Power Unleashed
Highlight
Chapter progress: 79.44%
Highlight: the potion was—blood.

Chapter 15: Power Unleashed
Highlight
Chapter progress: 79.44%
Highlight: Slowly it seemed to fall into a drowsy ecstasy of vampirism as its half-reptilian roots sucked up the liquor we spilled from our living bodies.

Chapter 15: Power Unleashed
Highlight
Chapter progress: 80.37%
Highlight: A shimmering ripple of glory flowed across the Fleece as it shook in my hands, vibrant, alive, incredible.

Chapter 15: Power Unleashed
Highlight
Chapter progress: 80.37%
Highlight: the flowers at my feet withered and crisped to burned embers as I walked

Chapter 15: Power Unleashed
Highlight
Chapter progress: 80.37%
Highlight: No man has lived at all, I thought, who has not worn the Fleece!

Chapter 15: Power Unleashed
Highlight
Chapter progress: 81.31%
Highlight: I think we left peace behind us everywhere,

Chapter 15: Power Unleashed
Highlight
Chapter progress: 82.24%
Highlight: I stepped across the threshold.

Chapter 15: Power Unleashed
Highlight
Chapter progress: 83.18%
Highlight: the command of my miraculously augmented will.

Chapter 16: End of a God
Highlight
Chapter progress: 84.11%
Highlight: Only Circe and I remained

Chapter 16: End of a God
Highlight
Chapter progress: 85.05%
Highlight: Circe moved to my side, walking smoothly, surely, haloed in green light. I heard her voice, very sweet,

Chapter 16: End of a God
Annotation
Chapter progress: 86.92%
Highlight: The mightiest science that ever existed, I thought, had gone down into the eternal silence of oblivion.

Notes: Victory!!

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