His first novel has just won a prestigious Nebula Award; now John Wiswell puts his humorous and humanist spin on the labours ...

Wearing the Lion John Wiswell. DAW, $29 (384p) ISBN 978-0-7564-1954-7. ... In no mood for more violence, however, Heracles ends up befriending the hydra, the Nemean lion, ...

I promised to share new books as the months roll in, and here are my June picks. Wearing the Lion by John Wiswell (June 17) ...

The other side depicts Herakles wearing the skin of the Nemean lion he defeated as his first labor. Herakles plays a double flute while a naked satyr dances and seems to reel in front of him.

Yet Herakles, often called by his Roman name, Hercules, is known for everything else: slaying the man-eating birds of the Stymphalian marsh, the multiheaded Lernaean Hydra, and the Nemean lion ...