I really liked this story. I actually wished it was longer. I wanted to know more about Calypso. I also wanted to know more about the “others”. It was interesting to kind of glimpse how a future society could come to be or look.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

So generous with the reader! Such a subtle reference to the Odyssey! Such a light touch the author had here.

I requested this because I was wondering what Greer's take on a more speculative/fantasy theme would be like. Not surprisingly, given his strength as a writer in general, it was fine as far as such retellings go, although not to my mind a standout in what's become a very crowded subgenre these days. Enjoyable and worth reading if you're in the mood for a short Calypso/Odysseus story.

This was an interesting short story. Set as a sci-fi retelling of Odysseus's visit to Calypso, it is a retelling that lovers of Greek mythology will enjoy.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an ARC of this book.

Greer is known for his book Less and Less is Lost. Calypso's Guest is a far cry from those books. It is a novella that the publisher says is based on the Odyssey. It is a retelling of seven years of the Odyssey: Calypso and Odyseus. Within the boundaries of a short story, Greer manages to invoke the sadness of betrayal and its consequences, the joy of having company after years of robots as his only companions, and the moral dilemma of telling his beloved that he knows how his beloved can depart leaving him alone again.

This is Sci-Fi that was interesting for me as someone who loves the Greek tales. Greer writes beautifully but I was left with a feeling of "this didn't quite do it." A difficult place when the story is so interesting, the writing so beautiful but the overall impact left me wanting. It is probably the Sci-Fi as I don't read much of it.

Published by Amazon Original Stories on August 22, 2023

The narrator of “Calypso’s Guest” betrayed the other humans on his planet by doing a deal with the godlike Others. The deal included the promise of immortality. Having discovered the betrayal, the narrator’s people banished him to the unoccupied colony world of Calypso, where he lives as a prisoner. Robots serve the narrator’s needs but they will not build a ship to help him escape. Even if he had a ship, the robots would not let him leave.

After the narrator was banished, the humans on his planet were killed by the Others. No other colonists joined the narrator on his new world.

One day a spaceship crashes and the narrator is joined by its surviving occupant. The narrator believes his guest was sent to him as part of the bargain he made with the Others. The guest gets along with the narrator, even joining him in his hut on some nights, but the guest is disappointed that there is no way to leave the planet.

The guest has stories to tell — the sort of stories that Odysseus told, complete with one-eyed monsters. The guest is adventurous — like Odysseus — while the narrator is more of a homebody. The guest wants to build a ship to explore their world. He seems to have little interest in having the narrator accompany him on that journey.

Homer wrote that Calypso held Odysseus on the island of Ogygia for seven years. The guest has been on Calypso for seven years when the narrator discovers a newly arrived spaceship. Its occupant is dead but the ship is intact. The story’s moral dilemma involves the narrator’s possession of that secret. Should he share it with his guest? If he does, will the man he loves leave the narrator alone on the prison planet?

I suppose every serious writer needs to write a story that is inspired by the Odyssey. This one is almost moving. It certainly tries to be moving. Perhaps it tries too desperately. The sentiment seems forced, too obvious to be genuine. Still, a short story can be entertaining without being substantial. I’m not sure I would spend money to purchase a short story that will likely appear in an anthology at some point — I like to get more words for my buck — but “Calypso’s Guest” is a better story than most that appear in annual anthologies.

RECOMMENDED

This is an excellent retelling of Calypso and Odysseus story. I love the aci fi setting and even if you think you know this story, Sean Greer's work will surprise you. Highly recommend getting this.

It’s interesting to see what a Pulitzer Prize winner does with a bit of Homer. Calypso’s Guest is a short story by award-winning, best-selling American author, Andrew Sean Greer. His protagonist is exiled on a planet that is remade by robots to look like his own, for his traitorous acts with The Others. Cursed with immortality, after some 200 years he has been granted a visitor, someone whose ship crashes into the planet and cannot be fixed. The exile revels in the company, but all the guest wants it to leave. He’s stuck there for seven years before he can build a ship and go back to his own planet, Ithaca, his patiently-waiting wife, Penelope, his son. You get the picture. Beautifully written.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Amazon Original Stories.

ASG did an amazing job of evoking beauty, loneliness, and heartbreak in such a short amount of time. I am just dipping my toes into mythological retellings and not sure if I would’ve benefited more with a basic understanding of who calypso is/was in ancient mythology? Idk. This story seemed to bounce around a lot and made it hard for me to keep up with the time frame we were in. And also, maybe it’s just a limitation on my part, but I just couldn’t get a good visual for anything that was described in the story. But it’s definitely one I will revisit and try y again on another day. And for fans of mythology and their retellings, I will recommend this one.

Un racconto breve e densissimo, ti sorprendente ricchezza e bellezza. Il retelling del mito è una scusa per parlare con finezza di rapporti amorosi, dipendenza, lontananza, nostalgia.
Una lettura da fare.

really short read which makes it hard to really give this a star rating, but Greer's prose is beautiful and poetic as always, which definitely makes this a worthy short story if you're looking for a quick 15 minute read.

Calypso's Guest is a sci-fi retelling of The Odyssey with all the pining and intrigue of the original text. A man cast alone on a secluded planet for many years with only robots to keep him company, when one day a ship crashes bringing a visitor to his planet. I knew Calypso's myth before going into this so I knew what was going to happen. That being said Greer's writing is fantastic and sucks you in to the point that it doesn't matter if you know what happens.

Read on NetGalley from the Read Now section.
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"You saved him. Surely you should not have been the one to send him."

a futuristic and melancholic but beautifully written retelling of Homer's Odyssey. I was a bit unsure of the futuristic aspect of the novella considering when I first chose to read it, I expected a short story about Greek mythology only to have robots mentioned, but halfway through, I did not mind it. This is a great short read, which I recommend to anyone looking for a modernized retelling.

Thank you to both NetGalley and Amazon Original Stories for allowing me a copy of this E-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was such an interesting take and homage of Homer’s The Odyssey! We all know of Odysseus’ final destination before he is returned to his family but Calypso’s Guest provides a fresh perspective of a planet he is stranded on.

This becomes a far more understanding reason for abandoning both his wife and child however, as a lover of Greek myth but more importantly women, I can never condone Odysseus’ actions even now (just kidding, kind of).

Greer writes a beautiful short story about self-destructive loneliness as well as us being the authors of our own doomed fate. An excellent job is done of illustrating such a short-lived but tender and almost fleshed out companionship. And with choice words and imagery we know of our main character’s doomed end before we even know of his traitorous wish.

A bittersweet little pocket of a story within a story, gorgeously depicting a star-crossed fated doomed from the beginning (pun intended).

For these reason I rated this story 4.5 stars out 5!

Here is an unexpectedly wonderful and poignant sci-fi retelling of parts of the Odyssey – 20 pages of beautiful writing. An ageless exile who lives alone on a prison planet. A survivor of a spaceship disaster who fell down from the sky. There is love; longing; sadness. They tell each other stories.

“A reprieve from solitude, at last. What are we to one another if we cannot be this?”

When you ask god-like beings for your heart’s desire, there is always a catch. Odysseus always leaves Calypso’s island.

If Andrew Sean Greer writes more retellings like this one, I’ll be happy to read them :)

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the free e-book!

Calypso’s Guest is a modern retelling of a portion of Homer’s “the Odyssey”. In this modern adaptation of the Greek classic Calypso is a man who has been banished by is people to a machine-made planet, condemned to be forever without human companionship. The hero is a wandering voyager who arrives by spaceship. What makes this short story special is the author’s unique phrasing. He paints word pictures to describe the scenery with colorful metaphors. The first several pages are breathtaking. This is a tender story of deep friendship and unrequited love. This Amazon Original Story provides an entertaining diversion.

I would like to thank Amazon and NetGalley for a copy of this story in exchange for an unbiased review.

4★
He was the first man I had seen in two hundred years.”

I didn’t know the story of Odysseus and Calypso from Homer's The Odyssey, so I read and enjoyed this as a kind of fable. It reminded me of some of the bittersweet stories from the old Twilight Zone television series, when sometimes the future wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Our narrator has been exiled to a planet populated by all-knowing robots who are happy to plant and harvest crops and do whatever is necessary to provide him with a comfortable life. He has been given immortality so that his solitary exile will last forever. He has had no human contact in all that time.

But now, a ship has crashed at some distance from where he lives, and the robots have brought the injured, confused traveller back and patched him up. Our narrator is so happy to have the company that he instructs the robots to hide the broken space craft so his visitor won’t be able to repair it and leave.

“ ‘You should have died,’ I told him as I tucked the blankets around his shoulders. Those blue eyes shot up at me. ‘You would have, if you had landed anywhere else. Not that there’s a planet within years of here. Probably you would have floated forever. It was one in a million you hit our little speck.’

A worker corrected me: the probability was one in ten million. ‘So you see.’ ”

Note the reference to the worker (robot). They know everything, but they have been programmed not to allow the man to escape. As the traveller recovers, he seems to make himself at home for a while, and the two become close. But the visitor has a family at home.

“He was forever restless—it is in the nature of such men to be restless—and would not let his body go to fat; he spent hours running along the trails, or lifting bundles of wood, or throwing heavy stones, or leaping in ways that perplexed me. It was, surely, some military training from his home world.”

It’s a wonderful story of exile, frustration, and the love that can grow in the most unlikely places. I now know the original story from Homer, and I think Greer’s version is excellent. I still think it would make a great Twilight Zone episode or even a mini-series.

Thanks to NetGalley and Amazon Original Stories for the copy for review.

Who knew a retelling of Homer's Odyssey would be so beautiful - sad but still beautiful. Of course making the setting in space instead of a Greek island was a bit different, as was having the Odysseus like character arrive in a spaceship instead of a boat. Nevertheless, the story and its ending were very true to the original.

I loved this author's book Less and would have read this story regardless of its content. However, I was happy to find this to be a short, sweet, but sad tale. The premise is that when you make a deal with the gods be careful what you wish for. I went back to read Calypso's original request and found a tiny change in it would have made a colossal difference.

Totally worth reading and now I must look out for more of this author's work.

If you’re anything like me, your reading list has been completely saturated with mythological retellings, usually with some kind of feminist and/or queer interpretation. It’s gotten to the point where, honestly, I’m starting to feel a little exhausted by the genre as a whole. That being said... Trust me when I say that Greer’s Calypso’s Island is worth your time and energy. (Bonus: it’s a short and very readable story, so it doesn’t require much of either.)

Calypso’s Island is a retelling of a fragment of the Odyssey, of the seven-year period when Odysseus stays at her (or, in this version, his) island. The setting is futuristic, where characters engage in interplanetary travel in spaceships. But what really made this piece stand out to me was the stunningly lyrical, poignant writing. There is a desolation to this island, which is frequently described as a prison, but there is also a deep, aching tenderness between the two characters. The story reminded me, at times, of scenes from The Little Prince of the titular character, alone on his planet with his rose; of the 2016 movie, Passengers (or at least what it aspired to be); and, in its darkest moments, The Island of Doctor Moreau—the claustrophobia of captivity, the hunger for power and control, and the question of who you can truly trust. Ultimately, this story grapples with the difficult question of what it really means to love somebody.

Greer has created a melancholic and haunting rendering of a familiar story, and I would recommend this piece to any readers of fantasy and speculative fiction. 5 out of 5 stars.

(Thank you to NetGalley and Amazon Original Stories for a digital copy of this text.)