Gunmetal Olympus / Hades Calculus

Official home of Gunmetal Olympus, a series of lesbian books set in a futuristic world of mecha and cyberpunk cities, inspired by Greek mythology, by Maria Ying.

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  • The Hades Calculus

    Decadent cyberpunk cities. Greek mythology and giant mechs. Hades and Persephone as never seen before.

    For generations, colossi have besieged the gates of Elysium. Each day, the city’s fall looms closer.

    As one of Elysium’s rulers, Hades has long sought to break this stalemate. In Persephone, a cyborg tailor-made to kill, she finds the key to victory and the perfect pilot for her war machine. She will acquire Persephone at any cost.

    Born to wield violence and with the bloodthirst to match, Persephone chafes under her mother’s control. At the first opportunity, she brutally breaks free and seeks sanctuary with the unlikeliest of patrons: the Lord of the Machine Dead, the Master of the Underworld.

    All Hades and Persephone have to do to realize their goals is to navigate the city’s treacherous politics—and survive the coming war.

    Shortlisted for the Transfeminine Review award for Best Transfeminine Fiction of 2024.

    Reviews

    The Hades Calculus is invigorating, cathartic, and joyous, and it handles its potentially overpowering themes and subjects with a grace and craftsmanship that makes it something truly special – Ara Reviews

    A primal, feral hunger runs through the entire ordeal, animating the pages with a verve that brings to mind Monique Wittig’s The Lesbian Body. The love between lesbians is ferocious, untamed, and much more than skin-deep, penetrating to the entrails, gripping with a madness that is only comprehensible to those who have wanted to devour as they are devoured. Hades Calculus is a truly lesbian book in text and theme, in every plot beat and minor motif, and is all the more brilliant for it – Talia Bhatt

    Readers looking for an imaginative, sexy, action-packed saga blending mythology and cyberpunk will be utterly transfixed by this dazzling and subversive work. While it clearly sets up future installments, The Hades Calculus stands powerfully on its own as a singular piece of speculative fiction magic – Hidden Sci-fi

    Buy links

    Itch

    Amazon

    Non-Amazon storefronts

    The Persephone Effect

    Zeus has been struck down, and Elysium stands on the cusp of destruction.

    In this tumult, Persephone is wounded but not yet defeated. A presence grows within her that should not be. She has a chance at the goal she’s strived toward all along: godhood itself. But just as likely, she could lose everything. Now she must adapt—or drown.

    Hades, head heavy with her sister’s crown, labors to bring the gods to order and keep them united as a killer haunts the city, capable of dispatching mortals and gods alike. Twin gods Artemis and Apollo grow increasingly erratic, hinting at a scheme that may no longer align them with the survival of Elysium.

    In the battle for Olympus, the gods must unearth the secrets left behind by their makers—who may not, after all, be entirely gone…

    Buy links

    Itch

    Amazon

    Non-Amazon storefronts

  • Roadmap

    1. The Hades Calculus
    2. Memory of Olympus (short story collection)
    3. The Persephone Effect
    4. Weapons of Olympus (short story collection)
    5. Last book to conclude the “Persephone trilogy”
    6. Possibly one more short story collection to wrap up the fates of some of the secondary characters, among other subjects
    7. Standalones of varying lengths and interconnections

    A lot of readers have asked how many books will be in the series, and the current answer is that it’s very flexible. The “Persephone trilogy” is set in stone: three full-length novels, plus three collections with side stories, taking place at various periods in the timeline and usually about characters with fewer/smaller roles in the novels.

    The standalones will be a bit of a wild west in that we don’t have anything planned yet other than that they’ll take place quite a while after Persephone’s story is wrapped up. We imagine them as interconnected in that, while each book will be able to stand alone, characters in one may appear in others with varying levels of significance.

  • Introducing IN HER IMAGE, a work of Alternate Olympus

    In Her Image is a story I’m writing with Cirice Gray, functioning as an “alternate universe” to the main Gunmetal Olympus books. It started off as a bit of an in-joke and quickly grew into an actual story: what if Persephone and her attendant Madalithea have a whole toxic yuri thing going on, while managing a parasocial audience?

    A sadistic mecha pilot with mind control pheromones. The innocent nun she wants to possess. A plot to rule the world…

    Madalithea, acolyte to Hades, is summoned one day by Persephone, pilot and champion to Lord Hades. As she enters Persephone’s service as a handmaiden, she’s drawn into managing Persephone’s stream and the parasocial crowd that follows the champion… but she also soon realizes that the lady may just be more than a capable eidolon pilot. For Persephone is compelling, intoxicating, so much so that to be near her is to forget all else.

    And one of Persephone’s subscribers, meantime, has grown obsessed with both Persephone’s new gacha game and her new stream moderator slash handmaiden. What lengths will this woman go through to see Madalithea removed and supplanted—and where will she stop to make her gacha account the most powerful in all the land?

    To get the most out of it, you should first read The Maw of Spring, a story where Persephone invites women to become dolls that look exactly like Persephone. In the same vein and continuing right in the same continuity, In Her Image is a story that’s one part shitpost (Persephone is a streamer! she launches a gacha game! there’s a trans woman NEET who’s way too into her stream!) and one part psychological horror (mind control pheromones, dollification, mindbreaking). Madalithea’s slow corruption will really appeal to you if you want something like Perfect Blue set in Gunmetal Olympus.

    It can be read exclusively on Cirice’s patreon, but we’ll collect it into a book at a later date and put that up on preorder soon, so stay tuned for that! While reading the main books will give you a lot of context, if the story’s premise interests you (and the specific themes it deals with), you can more or less read this on its own.

  • House of the Underworld Preview: Thymos

    House of the Underworld Preview: Thymos

    Madalithea

    The cold is liturgical. It enters through the soles of my feet and ascends; through ankle and shin and the thin shield of my vestments it climbs, patient as worship. The throne hall of the Lord of the Machine Dead has no discernible walls. Its boundaries are absence—a void so complete the eye invents boundaries where none exist, the mind sketching architecture from desperation because the alternative is vertigo without end.

    I have been standing for two hours. My lungs lodge their familiar complaint, a tightness beneath the sternum I manage with shallow sips of air. Beside me, Lydia logs a crate of persimmons into the network tablet, dark hair drawn back in the severe style she’s adopted since we arrived. She has not spoken to me beyond what duty requires. Her efficiency is flawless. It cuts more cleanly than anger would.

    (more…)

  • Reading Guide

    This is a reading guide to help you choose from both the “main” Gunmetal Olympus books by Maria Ying and the “expanded universe” by other writers.

    What is Gunmetal Olympus? A shared-world setting where each author and artist who participates is able to get paid fully and independently, with no cuts taken by the “IP holder” (in this case, the Maria Ying team). The setting is a Greek myth-inspired, futuristic world where a glittering cyberpunk city must hold its place on a barren planet against hostile megafauna called the colossi. The gods, demigods, and otherwise majority of characters are lesbians.

    Main books

    These are the titles by Maria Ying. They contextualize most of the Gunmetal Olympus body of work, and concern the Twelve, the gods who rule over Olympus, as well the demigod champions who pilot their giant war-machines in their eternal combat against the colossi. Cannibalism, toxic desire, and intergenerational trauma.

    1. The Hades Calculus (novel)
    2. Memory of Olympus (collection of side- and back-stories)
    3. The Persephone Effect (novel)
    4. Weapons of Olympus (collection of side- and back-stories)

    Companion books

    • The Zeus Constant by Callisto Khan (novel; to be read with The Hades Calculus; mostly canonical, from the point of view of Zeus)
    • Flower of the Underworld by Cirice Gray (novel; to be read with The Hades Calculus; canonical, concerning the mortal priestess Madalithea and her travails after drawing divine attention)
    • House of the Underworld by Cirice Gray (novel; to be read with The Persephone Effect; canonical)

    Standalones

    These can be read completely independent from the rest, including Maria Ying books.

    Alternate universes/what-if

    Upcoming

    • In Her Image by Cirice Gray and Maria Ying
    • Rat in a Corner by Amber Jane
    • Grindstone’s Affection by Saffron Drake
    • Madness in Her Art by R. Mango and Victoria Cardew
    • The Prometheus Contingency by H.D. Thorn
    • The Nee Nee Effect by Bailey Saxon
    • The Orpheus Defiance by Morgan Knight
    • A Doe Before Lions by Ara Viatrix
    • Elysian Insider by Laika Starpup
    • An Ember under the Shadow of the Gods by Dorothea Raven
    • Iconoclast by Jamie Jane

    Other fanfic not yet compiled/published as books can be found on AO3.

    Artbooks

  • Gunmetal Olympus Fanart Gallery

    Hades by Anemone. Various artbooks available here.

    (more…)

  • The Persephone Effect Preview – Hephaestus and Aphrodite

    Released as a reader reward for a pre-order goal. The Persephone Effect can be pre-ordered on Amazon, Itch, and other storefronts. It is part of the Gunmetal Olympus series, a futuristic sci-fi set on an inhospitable world populated by hostile megafauna that the gods must fight back with giant mecha and the pilots sworn to them.

    “What we had is long gone. I made sure of that the moment I entered Hades’s bed without telling you. I am so sorry.”

    The apology is so late that it ceases to have meaning. But there is something here that has laid zer bare. Ze stands before her vulnerable, the armor of a century cast aside. It makes zer harsh beauty suddenly impossible to ignore.

    “Come here,” she says, and when Beauty commands, all must follow. Hephaestus approaches, and as ze does, Aphrodite points down to her feet and legs, wrapped in an elaborate spiral of leather twisting up from a pair of sandals, well-worn. She’s played around with human wear from time to time—it has a smell and heft that her light constructs did not. “Decades gone between us, and now you don’t even keep xenia with me? My hands and feet are unwashed.”

    (more…)

  • Khrysothemis

    A Mark Two.

    Appearance: Blonde hair, green eyes, umber skin.

    Height: 180cm.

    Relationships:

  • Adrastus

    A Mark Three.

    Appearance: Red-brown hair, green-flecked brown eyes

    Height:

    Titles:

    Relationships:

  • Poseidon

    Pronouns: She/her

    Title: Lord of the Sea

    Epithets:

    Eidolon: Corinth

    Current Pilot: Kymopoleia

    Relationships:

    • Rhea (creator)
    • Hades (sister)
    • Zeus (sister)