Gunmetal Olympus / Hades Calculus

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)

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.

• Pink Diamond and Keeping the Peace by Tris Husband (novella and novel, both starring the same protagonist, cyberpunk noir about a butch trans woman detective)
• A Drone’s Domain by Luna Selvin (short story)
• The Fundamental Order of Elysium by Sadhbh Frost (short story)
• The Little Owl Flower Shop by Autumn Wolff (short story; concerns a trans woman who, stuck in a body that can’t transition, seeks a radical alternative that lands her in an exploitative bargain with the god Athena)

Alternate universes/what-if

• In Her Garden by Abigail Gloom (collection of short stories, bad end)
• The Grafting of Persephone by Autumn Wolff (short story, bad end)
• Reap and Sow by SpecterOC (novella, very evil AU)
• Cosysick by Jemma Topaz (collection of short stories, various types of AU)
• The Dee Dee Calculus by Bailey Saxon (collection of short stories, AU both funny and evil)

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