Reck's verse is short-lined and unrhymed, mostly around ten syllables, with a quick, conversational tempo. The diction is firmly modern and often colloquial: Ares becomes "that crook, that lunatic, that renegade," and Athena calls Diomedes "my dear man." Reck cuts freely. The opening invocation runs seven lines against Homer's fourteen, and the famous leaves simile in Book 6 drops Glaucus's preamble entirely, going straight to "Men are like the generations of leaves." He keeps Greek epithets when they suit him ("silverfoot Thetis," "green-eyed Athena") but discards the formulaic scaffolding that slows other translations. The Achilles-Lycaon speech becomes blunt and almost casual: "why whimper?" Suits readers who want speed and bite over grandeur, and who do not mind losing Homeric repetition.
Sing, Goddess, Achilles' maniac rage:
ruinous thing! it roused a thousand sorrows
and hurled many souls of mighty warriors
to Hades, made their bodies food for dogs
and carrion birds—as Zeus's will foredoomed—
from the time relentless strife came between
Atreus' son, a king, and brave Achilles.