"I am impressed at the amount effort which can be expended in ... something so profoundly awful"

Further follow-up: I never did provide a Ninja Replacement Score for my Iceland reading, despite asking if you wanted it. There's three reasons for this:

1. What I took was Ovid's Metamorphoses, which isn't readily analyzed for ninja replacement, what with there being 150-odd stories told or summarized. Not to mention, gods do kinda trump ninjas.
   
2. I only got through book 13 while on the trip, and didn't actually finish until a couple months after.
   
3. I am made of fail.

That said, I do remember some stories that could have been improved by replacing someone with a ninja. Daphne comes to mind. Persephone. Arethusa. Hermaphroditus. Cornix. Any mortal who gets raped by a god, pretty much* -- and Ovid's got a metric trireme-ful of 'em. These aren't the only possible replacements, but the most striking ones. So total NRS is indeterminate but on the high side.

Which just goes to show the method's weakness. 'Cause, dude, Metamorphoses? Totally NOT the sucky.

Now to figure out what long poem to rate over the holidays.


* The exception being Caeneus, who does turn into a ninja. Well, into a man with invulnerable skin, which is close enough in awesome narrative value.

---L.