Anthology: Tales of Ancient Rome by S. J. A. Turney

Tales of Ancient Rome by S. J. A. Turney(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)

A collection of bite-size stories of varying styles all based in the world of ancient Rome. 12 tales of the ancient world, plus a bonus tale to finish.

The second edition contains two new tales not told in the 1st. Laugh, cry and shudder at:

Hold The Wall – Hadrian’s wall in the last days of the western empire
Vigil – A comedic tale of firefighting in Rome
*NEW* Rudis – A champion gladiator fights his last fight
*NEW* The Discovery – A Roman trader makes a surprising find in distant China
The man who bought an Empire – The lowest point of Imperial succession
Trackside seats – A slave helps his blind master at the circus
How to run a latifundium – A cautionary tale of estate management
A Reading – What does the future hold in Judea?
Exploratores – Trajan’s scouts on the trail of Dacian warriors
With a pinch of salt – A comedic tale of food in Claudius’ Rome
The Palmyrene Prince – Rome’s eastern border tells grim tales
Temple Trouble – A tale of the early days of Fronto (of the Marius’ Mules series)
Bonus tale: Aftermath in the Ludus – A fun finish.

As you guys probably know from my reviews I don’t actually read all that many anthologies. They’re just usually not my thing unless they’re from a writer I really love.  Still, I decided to download Tales of Ancient Rome for free on Amazon one day because I figured I had nothing to lose and at least something to gain.  I mean, I love ancient Rome.

So overall, how was the anthology?  Pretty good, actually.  Turney managed to span quite a few different periods of time in the Roman Empire, from the reign of Claudius to the last days of the empire as it was being torn apart by invaders and civil wars.  I always like a little variety in an anthology and this one certainly delivered in that respect.

Most of the stories were pretty solid.  They’re quite short but they’re nice little slices of Roman life.  We have everything from the viewpoints of foreign princes to slaves and each character has a distinct outlook on life.  Some stories are more humourous than others but pretty much all of them are interesting.  One of my favourites was Rudis, the tale of the gladiator in his very last fight before his freedom because the ending was so unexpected.  He was a fascinating character, even though he didn’t get much page time.  Temple Trouble was laugh out loud hilarious and it actually makes me want to read the full length series in which that character features.  He would certainly get into some interesting situations!  There were some weak stories like Ludus but most stories were pretty good.

As for historical accuracy, I was quite impressed.  Turney knows his stuff and all of the little details he puts into his writing makes it better.  He has a good grasp of the wide span of Roman history and although it would be a little hard to orient yourself if you’re not familiar with Roman history, I quite enjoyed the stories because I picked out little clues as to the time period.  If you know sort of a general outline of Roman history you should be fine with Tales of Ancient Rome but if you’re a newcomer I wouldn’t recommend the anthology.

Basically, Tales of Ancient Rome (Volume 1) was a solid anthology.  It wasn’t the best I’ve ever read and there were some weaker aspects to it but overall I was quite impressed.  I certainly got more than my money’s worth out of it and I’d recommend it to my fellow Roman history enthusiasts.  Best of all, it’s free as a Kindle or Nook ebook.

I give this anthology 4.5/5 stars.

Amazon     Barnes and Noble     Goodreads

Carrier by Vanessa Garden

Carrier by Vanessa Garden(Cover picture courtesy of A Reader of Fictions.)

For fans of The Walking Dead and The Hunger Games comes a YA novel about freedom, choice and family — and the terrifying disease that makes them mutually exclusive.

From the day she was born, Lena has viewed the world through the jagged window of a razor-wired fence. The hundred-acre property she shares with her mother in the Australian outback may keep her safe from the Y-Carrier disease, but it is no longer enough to hold Lena’s interest, and her mother’s increasingly tight grip on her free will is stifling.

Just as her curiosity blooms and her courage rises, she meets a boy through the fence — the first boy she has ever laid eyes on. His name is Patrick and he comes with a dangerous yet irresistible invitation of adventure beyond the fence, an invitation to which Lena cannot say no.

But Lena’s newfound freedom is short-lived and she soon discovers that the Y-Carrier disease is not the only enemy she faces on the outside. Her new enemies want something Lena has, and they are willing to do anything to get it…

[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]

If you’re thinking this is a zombie book, I’ve got news for you: it’s not.  You never, ever see a zombie.  No, instead this is something a lot more interesting, something that hasn’t really been done before.

We have Lena, a seventeen-year-old girl who has lived only with her mother and cousin, fearing what lurks beyond the fence that keeps the family safe.  Now that her cousin Alice is dead it’s just Lena and her mother and the two, like quite a few teenage daughters and mothers can’t stand each other.  Lena wants to get out and explore the world.  It’s been a while since she’s seen a Carrier (only males carry the disease but they live; females die from the disease) and she wants to go out and explore.  She knows how to hunt from killing rabbits inside the fence but her mother refuses to let her go.  So when she sees a boy she decides to make her move.

Now I know all of this sounds pretty cliché but I can assure you that there are quite a few plot twists along the way.  The plot is incredibly fast-paced and just when you think you know what’s going to happen, Vanessa Garden changes everything on you.  At the same time, the plot twists actually make sense within the context of the story.  They’re not totally out in left field, I promise.

The characters are by far the best part of the novel, especially Lena.  She’s strong and determined but not afraid to admit she’s out of her element when she meets Patrick.  He’s the first boy she’s ever seen (aside from her magazine crush) and you can guess how much awkwardness ensues.  And the thing is that the awkwardness is believable.  They’re two teenagers that have had exactly zero experience with the opposite sex.  What do you expect to happen, really?

Overall, Carrier was a pretty good novel.  It didn’t have the ‘wow’ factor that Vanessa Garden’s first book Captivate did but it’s a good standalone novel.  It doesn’t release until March 1, but if you’re at all intrigued by the blurb or my review I think this is the book for you.  It’s certainly worth a try.

I give this book 4/5 stars.

Amazon     Barnes and Noble     Goodreads

Stolen Songbird by Danielle L. Jensen

Stolen Songbird by Danielle L. Jensen(Cover picture courtesy of Strange Chemistry Books.)

For five centuries, a witch’s curse has bound the trolls to their city beneath the ruins of Forsaken Mountain. Time enough for their dark and nefarious magic to fade from human memory and into myth. But a prophesy has been spoken of a union with the power to set the trolls free, and when Cécile de Troyes is kidnapped and taken beneath the mountain, she learns there is far more to the myth of the trolls than she could have imagined.

Cécile has only one thing on her mind after she is brought to Trollus: escape. Only the trolls are clever, fast, and inhumanly strong. She will have to bide her time, wait for the perfect opportunity.

But something unexpected happens while she’s waiting – she begins to fall for the enigmatic troll prince to whom she has been bonded and married. She begins to make friends. And she begins to see that she may be the only hope for the half-bloods – part troll, part human creatures who are slaves to the full-blooded trolls. There is a rebellion brewing. And her prince, Tristan, the future king, is its secret leader.

As Cécile becomes involved in the intricate political games of Trollus, she becomes more than a farmer’s daughter. She becomes a princess, the hope of a people, and a witch with magic powerful enough to change Trollus forever.

[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]

If you’re a regular reader of my reviews here you’re probably wondering why I picked up a book like Stolen Songbird not so long after picking up Captivate by Vanessa Garden, a book with a very similar premise.  Well, the truth is that I’m kind of a sucker for these types of stories and saw that Danielle L. Jensen’s book had a lot of potential to be good.  If it was done right, that is.  The question is: was it done right?

Of course!  I got so much more than I bargained for when I took a chance on Stolen Songbird.  First off, the main character Cécile is an opera singer, so I’m automatically predisposed to like her as I love opera.  But what makes her stand out so much from other protagonists is that even though she’s the ‘Chosen One’ figure in Trollus, she doesn’t succeed in meeting their expectations.  She’s imperfect

Unlike a lot of protagonists in her situation, she makes an honest attempt at an escape; she doesn’t fall for Tristan right away.  She feels conflicted when she does start growing feelings for him and her choice at the end is shocking and more than a little satisfying.  As for Tristan himself I love how he developed as he let his guard down around Cécile.  We got to see things from his point of view and it was interesting seeing how they each perceived the other as well as the events and politics going on in Trollus at the time.

She may not be the saviour they’re waiting for.  It might not even be a good thing if Trollus was freed from the witches’ curse!  It’s all so wonderfully ambiguous; absolutely nothing is clear-cut in this book and that’s one of the main reasons I love it.  Danielle L. Jensen doesn’t deal in the black and white, good and evil that is the hallmark of your typical YA fantasy novel.  No, there’s good trolls, bad trolls and trolls in-between, just like how she portrays the humans in the novel.

One of the many amazing things about this book is the world-building, which is only enhanced by the beautiful writing style.  We slowly learn the backstory of Trollus and how it came to be under a mountain and why the trolls can’t leave.  Just when you think you know the whole story, you learn something new about the origins of the city and its inhabitants.  There are two sides to the history of trolls and Cécile must decide which one is right or if the truth is somewhere in between the two extremes.  The world of Trollus would be fascinating even with mediocre writing, but it is the vivid imagery Danielle L. Jensen uses that puts Stolen Songbird into the ‘great book’ category.  Her descriptions of the tunnels, the sluags, the city itself, the palace gardens, the countryside, etc. all make Cécile’s world come alive.  The little details are important and I always had a good picture of what the setting looked like in my head, unlike in a lot of other books that sacrifice description for pacing.

In short, Stolen Songbird is a must-read.  It doesn’t come out until April 1, but you had better pre-order a copy right now if you find this book even remotely interesting.  Just like me you’ll also want the rest of The Malediction Trilogy to come out this instant as well.  I can’t wait for book two!

I give this book 5/5 stars.

Amazon     Barnes and Noble     Goodreads

My Favourite Book Beginnings: Part Two

In my last post on book beginnings I gave you excerpts from a couple different books but I have some more favourite beginnings that I’d like to share.

“Like a school of jewel-toned tropical fish on the reef, the crowd in the marketplace suddenly veered away as QuiTai stepped off the veranda of the sunset-pink building into the town square.”  –The Devil’s Concubine, Jill Braden

This is one that really piqued my interest because it was so foreign, so different.  There’s talk of tropical fish and colourful buildings and the main character has an unusual name.  That’s not really what you expect to see in fantasy.  I’ve come to expect stereotypical Medieval European-esque fantasy worlds, not ones based on a tropical culture like The Devil’s Concubine is.

“I.  Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus This-that-and-the-other (for I shall not trouble you yet with all my titles) who was once, and not so long ago either, known to my friends and relatives and associates as “Claudius the Idiot”, or “That Claudius”, or “Claudius the Stammerer”, or “Clau-Clau-Claudius” or at best as “Poor Uncle Claudius”, am now about to write this strange history of my life; starting from my earliest childhood and continuing year by year until I reach the fateful point of change where, some eight years ago, at the age of fifty-one, I suddenly found myself caught in what I may call the “golden predicament” from which I have never since become disentangled.”  –I, Claudius, Robert Graves

This is quite a long beginning but it’s an important introduction to our supposedly stammering, bumbling, idiotic protagonist who’s really quite clever.  Even if you know nothing about Roman history you can tell that Claudius is likely to find himself in a position of power after being mocked his whole life for his stammering and bumbling ways.  So if he’s the idiot everyone seems to think he is, how is his writing so intelligent and articulate?  That’s a mystery revealed slowly over the narrative and it’s quite fascinating.  But really, it was the beginning that caught my attention initially.

“They came from Memphis, Thebes, and Heliopolis to see the Savior born.” –Lily of the Nile, Stephanie Dray

This one’s short and sweet compared to my previous examples but it too packs a punch.  Obviously from the names you can tell that this is ancient Egypt if the cover had not already given that way.  But who is this Savior?  Will he/she actually grow up to be a savior or is this hope in vain? 

“I bear a deep red stain that runs from my left shoulder down to my right hip, a trail left by the herbwitch’s poison that my mother used to try to expel me from her womb.” –Grave Mercy, Robin LaFevers

I’ll admit that the beautiful cover had attracted my attention to this book at first, but it was the opening line that made me buy it.  Who is our mysterious scarred protagonist?  Why did her mother try to abort her as a fetus?  How on earth did she survive?  And what is life like for her now?  It’s a mystery and it’s sort of refreshing to see a protagonist who has an actual, disfiguring mark on her body and not just a tiny scar on the back of her hand or something.

These are all great beginnings to great books.  What I want to know now is this: what are you favourite book beginnings?  Do you see any here that you like/make you want to read the book?

Discussion: Your Favourite Zombie Version

This one is a little bit of an unusually specific discussion for me, but I think we’ve pretty much all been exposed to zombies in popular culture, including through fiction.  I was personally terrified of zombies until I actually began reading zombie fiction and while they still have that ‘uck’ factor I don’t have nightmares any longer.  There is no standard type of zombie, though.  The portrayals vary from author to author and when you read a lot of zombie fiction it’s interesting to see the sheer variety.

Mira Grant’s zombies, for example, are similar to the slow-moving ones of popular culture.  They have one important aspect, though: they have a hive mind.  One or two zombies aren’t a danger to any physically fit human, but as Shaun and Georgia find out a pack of zombies can display hunting tactics from ambushes to cutting off all available routes of escape.  This is in contrast to humans, who seem to utterly lose all common sense when in large crowds.  (Yes, I know, I’ve studied way too much psychology.)

Another fascinating zombie type for me are the ones in V. M. Zito’s The Return Man.  Marco, the main character, lives in the Evacuated States and hunts zombies for a living.  People pay him to put down their relatives so they know they’re not suffering as a zombie.  How the heck do you find one zombie in an area that makes up most of the US?  Well, emotional geography is how you do it.  Zombies in Zito’s world have some trickle down from the neocortex into the reptilian brain that controls them and this trickle down mainly consists of powerful memories.  Zombies will go to where they spent a lot of time in their lives such as at work or at home.  Maybe they’ll hang around the restaurant where they met their beloved wife or the hospital where their first child was born.  But either way, if you know enough about a person you can be sure to find their corpse wandering around somewhere.

These are my favourite zombie versions.  What I want to know now is this: What’s your favourite version of zombies?  Do you like the traditional George Romero style ones or the fast-moving zombies?  Does a particular author portray zombies in a way you like?  (Please, no major spoilers if the truth about the zombies is main plot point, as in the case of The Scourge by A. G. Henley.)