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THE CASSANDRA PEEL SERIES BY J. ROBERT MAZE Acclaimed New Adolescent Fantasy Fiction Series
Tales from Ancient Greek mythology unfold in modern New South Wales and cyberspace in
J. Robert Maze’s adolescent fantasy fiction series. Cassandra Peel is the female heroine of
the young adult fiction novels of Maze’s cheerfully irreverent fantasy/sci fi series. When she
is swept away into cyberspace, she finds that Aphrodite (aka Venus) is not as sweet and
modest as she is painted. All the ancient characters are there in real time, interfering in
human affairs for their own amusement and profit. In Cassandra Peel and the Wild Gods
of Cyberspace, Ares, Aphrodite’s boyfriend and evil god of war, plans World War III, and
Cassandra must defeat his deadly intentions.
 Past meets present as J. Robert Maze combines the timeless importance of ancient Greek myths with modern-day events, in order to entertainingly opine on family life, adolescence, and sex. What makes Maze’s novels so different? He illustrates how the passions of Greek deities translate to human life—in particular, the lives of a spunky group of girls. It takes the memory of an old poem to decode Parvati's desperate message from the pleasure dome in Cassandra Peel and the Slave Girls of Xanadu, the elaborate setting for a fake paradise for potential suicide bombers.
Cassandra Peel uncovers the psychology and the dark secrets of her family when she finds
herself captured and terrorized by Apollo, in Cassandra Peel and the Curse of the Black
Swan’s Daughter. In the latest, third, novel in the series, feisty Cassandra cybertravels to
Apollo’s shrine to convince him to give her her namesake’s gift of premonition, so that she
can solve the mystery of her mother’s death. But when she rebuffs Apollo’s sexual advances, he takes her prisoner and bombards her with his frightening philosophy about family and sex. Can her friends, traveling in an Argo replica helmed by Jason, come to her rescue?
One dominant theme of Cassandra Peel and the Whispers from Underground, soon to be released, deals with the threat of censorship to civil liberty and to international relations. Cassandra Peel is horrified when her favourite teacher Sarah Beecham is falsely accused of subversive activity by CIA spies incited by Dionysus. Cassandra is kidnapped to Hades Hall by the disguised Dionysus and given into Ares’s hands. He demands she discredit Sarah Beecham, whose influence he fears, by accusing her of many kinds of corruption, or Sarah will be renditioned. Ares is seeking to instigate a Doomsday war by spreading cheap nuclear technology to poor nations. The intelligence agencies’ fear of making mistakes makes them vulnerable to ‘top-secret’ hoax messages .
Part adventure, part parable of contemporary society, and part psychological exploration,
Maze’s fantasy mixes ancient tales with current dilemmas. Hilarious, girl-powered and
inventive, these wonderful books will delight readers even as they get them thinking.
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AN AUSTRALIAN SISTER OF HARRY POTTER
"Cassandra Peel has something for everyone . . . It is like a
Harry Potter or John Marsden . . . where the future and the
past come together in cyberspace, and World War III is
averted by enterprising teenagers with mythological support."
Garry Rosser, Senior school literature teacher, Campbelltown
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