I would strongly advice everyone
not to read this book! It's got to be the worst piece of trash I've ever read. (I'll apologise to all the members of this forum in advance. This is going to be a rant. You are warned.)
As a plus point, this book does deal with military history. It's mostly brawls, though. If you're into loads of poorly motivated, cheesy, gritty but somewhat immersive action scenes, this book may provide some light entertainment.
But do not, please, by all that's right and holy, think for one moment that anything in this book is even remotely accurate. It's nonsense. Start to finish. Conn Iggulden played cut and paste with the facts, and added a cartload of his personal nonsense to the mix. He made up nearly everything about Caesar's life in the books, and hideously distorted the rest of the period's history.
To illustrate, I'll describe the one of the worse offences Iggulden commits. You all know about Marcus Brutus, right? One of Caesar's chief assassins. Well, first of all the author turned him into a foster brother of Caesar, whilst in reality he was young enough to be his son. Iggulden turns him into some kind of kick-ass fighter, too. Secondly, he then tries to hide his identity throughout the entire book by only referring to him as "Marcus" only to reveal his full name in the last sentence of the first book.
Which brings me to another incredibly stupid aspect of the book. Iggulden doesn't have the slightest idea on how Roman names work. He haphazardly refers to some character by their first name, some by their family name and some by their nickname. (cognomen.) Caius Julius Ceasar, for example, is called Julius throughout the book. Marcus Iunius Brutus is called Marcus. Really distracting, and really stupid if you know how it's supposed to be done, but possibly not a problem for readers who are unfamiliar with Roman history.
So far the historical offenses. (This is just the tip of the iceberg. You'll love his treatment of Marius and Sulla...
) If one regards the book as an alternate history or fantasy novel, it doesn't become much better.
Characters are cardboard flat clichés. Caesar is the brilliant young warrior hero who appears to spend most of his time fighting with his neighbours. No insight into his motivations is given. Brutus is the kick-ass warrior with no further motivation. Next we have the beautiful slave girl who is desired by both protagonists for no apparent reason. Then there is the kick-ass gladiator who reads like a bad parody of a U.S. marine sergeant and drills the boys in combat, nearly killing them both in the process. (Yes, of course Roman nobles made their sons tough by having a gladiator run them through with a sword... :rolleyes)
The story itself is equally poor. Everything is used as a pretext for yet another cheesy action sequence. Caesar is at home? The neighbour tries to kill him for trespassing. Caesar has a girlfriend in the city? Her father and servants try to kill him in a rooftop chase. Brutus is sailing to join the army in Greece? He gets into a fight with a shipmate, and then has to prove himself by replacing said mate. I kid you not, the ship captain places this untried boy in a position of authority just because he injured the previous occupant. Of course, he nearly gets killed during this on several occasions only to save the day at the last instant. Etc, etc.
Politics do feature in the novel, once or twice, but they are hideously simplistic and completely unbelievable, nothing more than a framework for the next combat scene.
As may be gathered from this post, I hate this book with a passion. It's the only book I've ever read that I actually cursed and hurled across the room. I'm not normally inclined to writing rants like this, and no other book could've made me spend time on this. I must also add I didn't read the second part. Maybe it's not as bad as the first. Maybe.
Either as a historical novel, or just as a work of fiction, this book stinks. Read it at your peril.
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