Tagged: ancient greece
The Hittite by Ben Bova
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
This is the tale of Lukka, the Hittite soldier who traveled across Greece in search of the vicious slave traders who kidnapped his wife and sons. He tracks them all the way to war-torn Troy. There he proves himself a warrior to rank with noble Hector and swift Achilles. Lukka is the man who built the Trojan horse for crafty Odysseus, who toppled the walls of Jericho for the Isrealites, who stole beautiful Helen–the legendary face that launched a thousand ships–from her husband Menaleus after the fall of Troy and fought his way across half the known world to bring her safely to Egypt.
I wasn’t really sure what I expected of The Hittite, but it certainly wasn’t what I got. The opening scene takes place amidst the chaos of the sack of Hattusas where Lukka is desperately trying to keep discipline in the garrison while finding his family. The once mighty Hittite empire has been thrown into chaos by a bloody civil war and once Lukka learns that his wife and sons are bound for Troy as slaves, there’s only one place he can go. Except when he gets there, not all is as it seems.
The thing I like most about The Hittite is how Ben Bova portrayed all of the famous characters from the proud (and vain) Achilles to Helen. I love how Achilles is the proud fool he was in the original legend while Helen is an independent woman desperate to survive in a world where women are, for the most part, chattel. The most heartbreaking part of the whole novel is when we hear Helen’s tale from Apet her nursemaid and see just how much she really did suffer in Sparta. It’s a much more realistic portrayal of Spartan life than I’ve ever seen and had I been in Helen’s place I would have done the exact same thing: use Paris to escape to Troy.
The other thing I liked was that Ben Bova’s writing style has the perfect balance for historical fiction. He is able to describe everything so that I felt like I was there, but he never really gets into the long-winded descriptions that some authors of historical fiction do. I liked how he explained the implausible things from the Trojan myth (Achilles’ weakness, the Trojan horse) in a way that makes you believe it really could have happened that way and the story could have just grown into something more.
Overall, I absolutely loved The Hittite. I wasn’t going to pick it up at first, but it was in the bargain bin at my local bookstore so I figured I had nothing to lose. Trust me, you’re pretty much guaranteed to fall in love with The Hittite once you start reading it. It’s well worth the cover price.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
Short Story: A Goddess’ Curse by Luciana Cavallaro
(Cover picture courtesy of Smashwords.)
Hera, Queen of the Gods, is the most powerful goddess on Mount Olympos. Beautiful, sensual, and merciless, she is a goddess renowned for her jealous rages and for inflicting horrors on hapless victims. She’s the protector of women, virtue, family and marriage yet her husband, Zeus, has had countless affairs. She puts up with it. Why? Is she really malicious or a product of circumstance?
For the first time ever in a candid interview, Hera shares what it’s like to be a goddess and wife to Zeus, the King of the Gods.
Drake Dabbler, chat show host, sees his exclusive interview with Queen Hera as a sure road to a Daytime Emmy… He should have been more thorough in his research.
[Full disclosure: Luciana Cavallaro sent me a free ebook in exchange for an honest review.]
I definitely had my doubts about A Goddess’ Curse simply because it was focusing on Hera, who is renowned throughout Greek mythology for fitting the jealous woman stereotype. Her treatment of Zeus’ lovers was well-documented as was her part in the Trojan War. So when I started this short story I was wondering if Luciana Cavallaro would go for the Ice Queen interpretation or something a little more sympathetic.
As it turns out, she decided on a combination of the two. Learning about Hera in her own words through an interview with an over-zealous TV host is interesting, but the reactions she gives said TV host are priceless. Not only do you get to see her side of the story in her own words, you get to see flashes of her personality in her interactions with other characters. I like Luciana Cavallaro’s interpretation of Hera and I absolutely love how she stays true to the goddess’ character by revealing her actions at the end of the story. I don’t want to spoil things, but what she does is very, very similar to what happened to some of Zeus’ lovers.
There really isn’t much more to say. Both Drake and Hera were great characters who had interesting interactions, the plot was fast-paced and Luciana Cavallaro covered pretty much all of the topics of interest in the interview. I’m starting to love the way she lets famous women tell their stories because telling them in third person but having the characters do an interview is very insightful. Honestly, I wish we had a whole novel from Hera’s point of view. Yes, A Goddess’ Curse was really that good.
I give this short story 5/5 stars.
Blog Tour: Prophecy of the Most Beautiful by Diantha Jones
The Song of Troy by Colleen McCullough
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
In The Song of Troy, the bestselling author of The Thorn Birds recounts the tale of Helen and Paris, the immortal lovers who doomed two great nations to a terrible war. It is told through the eyes of its main characters: the sensuous and self-indulgent Helen; the subtle and brilliant Odysseus; the sad old man Priam, King of Troy; the tormented warrior prince, Achilles; and Agamemnon, King of Kings, who consents to the unspeakable in order to launch his thousand ships. This is an unputdownable tale of love, ambition, delusion, honour and consuming passion.
The Song of Troy is thus far my favourite book dealing with the Trojan War and I’m lucky I even found it at all because it was in the ‘Almost New’ section of my local bookstore. I almost never found it, except that the picture of Helen on the spine drew me to it. Yes, I judge books by their covers; I’m a horrible person. It’s nearly five hundred pages long but they read fast and before too long, it’s over and you’re left feeling sad. You probably know how the Trojan War ends (hint: the Greeks kick butt), but after falling in love with the characters over 500 pages, it’s hard to let go.
In any other author’s hands, each chapter being told from a different point of view would be annoying head-hopping. Yet in Colleen McCullough’s book, you don’t really get that sense. Each chapter is clearly labelled as being a new point of view and when each new person picks up the tale, they are moving the action forward, not merely recounting what happened to them up until that point. Of course characters like Helen, Odysseus, Achilles and Agamemnon get more page time than minor characters like Diomedes, Automedon and Nestor, but you get the sense that you know each character intimately.
What I like best about The Song of Troy is that we get behind-the-scenes explanations for each character’s motivations. Achilles, instead of being portrayed as a complete [expletive of your choice], we see how it was necessary to have a very public break with Agamemnon over—you guessed it—a woman. Odysseus is my favourite character in the whole book because he’s intelligent, crafty and politically savvy. He’s notorious for his irreverent, but utterly brilliant advice on how to win the war:
“You could, of course, starve them out.”
Nestor gasped in outrage. “Odysseus, Odysseus! There you go again! We’d be cursed to instant madness!”
He wriggled his red brows, unrepentant as ever. “I know, Nestor. But as far as I can see, all the rules of war seem to favour the enemy. Which is a great pity. Starvation makes sense.” (Pg 182)
This was my first Colleen McCullough novel and I’m most definitely looking forward to reading her famous series, The Masters of Rome. If The Song of Troy is any indication as to how much research she does, how well she plots novels and how sympathetically she portrays historical figures…well, let’s just say I will have stumbled onto my new favourite series.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
*Sadly, The Song of Troy is only available as a used book.
Black Ships by Jo Graham
(Cover picture courtesy of Lost in a Good Book.)
In a time of war and doubt, Gull is an oracle. Daughter of a slave taken from fallen Troy, chosen at the age of seven to be the voice of the Lady of the Dead, she is destined to counsel kings.
In the last shadowed days of the Age of Bronze, one woman dreams of the world beginning anew. This is her story.
I have to admit, I was pretty uncertain about Jo Graham’s debut novel for the first few chapters. It was (dare I say?) boring until Gull turned sixteen and became the Pythia. After that, things got interesting and I was finally able to connect the Trojan War to her situation as well as apply what I know about the history of ancient Egypt and realize just how much effort Jo Graham put into Black Ships.
Gull, as I mentioned, becomes the voice of the Lady of the Dead and is known after that as Pythia. The Lady talks to her, gives her visions, advice and premonitions that allow her to counsel the man who would become a legend: Aeneas. Aeneas himself is an interesting character, but not very much like the hero of legend that other authors paint him as. This is not necessarily a bad thing as it shows that Jo Graham is trying to paint him as a man, but as a man he seems to be lacking kingly qualities. The other characters emphasize how much Aeneas doesn’t want to be a king, yet he really does behave like one. He just doesn’t seem like much of a leader to me, but perhaps that’s from my own biased image of him.
The plot isn’t fast-paced in the traditional sense of the word, but the dialogue is witty and Jo Graham doesn’t really get bogged down in navel-gazing introspection, as is so common in historical fiction. She has brought to life a period of chaos and uncertainty that has been neglected so often in literature, so I really do give her credit for that. Black Ships, being her debut novel, isn’t nearly as good as Hand of Isis. But with that said, one must also mention that her debut novel is better than a lot of authors’ fifth or tenth novels.
I give this book 3.5/5 stars.