Cory O’Brien Books In Order

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Cory O’Brien
Cory O’Brien is a technojester and word-wizard of the first degree. He writes and reads mythology, computer code, and science fiction. He has juggled for food, driven across the country in a car that was powered by vegetable oil, and camped with gypsies.

He graduated with an MFA in writing from the School of Art Institute of Chicago. His dream is to some day travel to Mars, or at least own a jacket that is made entirely out of pockets.

The most important influence on his style from early on was Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. Reading Douglas Adams (along with “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses” by Mark Twain) truly taught him the power of a carefully constructed sentence, and he has never looked at language the same way since.

This one night, he noticed that one of his friends had the name of one of his favorite mythological characters (Tiresias) as her gtalk status. She did not know the origin of this name, it was just a nickname that somebody had given her, so Cory got very excited and began telling her all about Tiresias. It reminded him of another myth, then another, and by the time he got to his third or fourth she had wanted him to quit harassing her so she told him to start a blog instead. This is how BetterMyths.com came into existence. He cannot recall if booze was involved or not, which means there probably was.

When it comes to retelling a myth, he typically just rereads the myth he’s about to retell, while absolutely refusing to suspend his disbelief at all. It helps him see just how ridiculous these things are, which is his whole schtick.

His research process is just being alive essentially. We are constantly surrounded by all of these hidden references to mythology, so a bunch of what he does is just keeping his ears open and pouncing on anyone that references a story he has not heard yet. Cory’s dad is a professional storyteller, and he majored in English in college himself, so he got a good background in the Greeks from this. Probably his best source these days are the people reading his blog. He loves getting emails about these myths that he has never heard before. It is a lot like the internet is doing his research for him.

Anyone that writes about mythology is influenced by Joseph Campbell, since he’s like the Thomas Edison of writing about mythology. Cory didn’t start reading the guy’s stuff until he was writing “Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes”. Once he did, he had already read so much mythology that he knew Joseph was on to something, that the pattern had been there the whole time.

He has also written for video games like “Max Gentlemen: Sexy Business” and “Monster Prom”, and helped design a spooky robot interrogation game called “Inhuman Conditions”.

He helped work in video games by accident. Julian Quijano, creative director for “Monster Prom”, slid into Cory’s DMs on twitter because he liked Cory’s first myth book, and he was just so flattered and agreed to work on the game. From there, things just kinda snowballed. At the same time he became friends with Tommy Maranges, who introduced Cory to a bunch of folks in the Chicago games scene, and the next thing that he knew, he was living the dream and going to cons.

“Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes: A No Bullshit Guide to World Mythology” is a non-fiction book that was released in 2013. All of our lives, we have been fed PC and watered down versions of the classic myths. In reality, mythology is so much more screwed up than a schizophrenic shaman doing hits of unidentified. Hang on. All of it makes sense now. In this book, Cory (creator of “Myths RETOLD!”) sets the stories straight. These are all crude, rude, totally sacred texts told the way that they were meant to be told: loudly, and with a bunch of four letter words. Still skeptical? Here are just a few gems to consider:

• The Hindu universe is ran by this married couple that just stop murdering so that they can throw these sweet dance parties. On the corpses of their enemies.
• The Norse goddess Freyja once agreed to a four dwarf gang bang in exchange for this one shiny necklace.
• The whole Egyptian universe got saved because Sekhmet just got way too hammered to continue killing everybody.
• Zeus once stuffed this unborn fetus inside his thigh in order to save its life after he exploded its mom by being way too good in bed.

And there is even more dysfunctional goodness where this came from.

“George Washington Is Cash Money: A No Bullshit Guide to the United Myths of America” is a non-fiction book that was released in 2015. Get ready to get beaked by the majestic eagle of history.

Many of us are already familiar with the legendary heroes and greatest hits of US history. In “George Washington Is Cash Money”, Cory does away with all of the circumstance and pomp and calls America’s history what it truly is: one long and violent soap opera. In his own signature crude, clever, and cuss-ridden style, he reminds us of something things.

• Billy the Kid was defeated finally by the smell of fresh bacon.
• Teddy Roosevelt stopped bullets by using his manly chest.
• Harriet Tubman avoided any danger by having prophetic seizures.
• Joseph Smith invented Mormonism by staring into this hat filled with rocks.

And there is plenty more Star Spangled stupidity where that came from.

“Two Truths and a Lie” is the first stand alone novel. Cory O’Brien (author of “Zeus Grants Stupid Wishes” and “George Washington is Cash Money”) delivers a literary science fiction mystery novel that is set in a half-drowned future Los Angeles where knowledge is literal currency.

The novel follows this aging combat veteran who gets dragged into investigating this murder which brings his former boyfriend back into his life many decades after they originally parted ways. It’s a humorous and heartfelt blend of cyberpunk and noir.