BOOK REVIEWS AUGUST 2006
HISTORICAL FICTION:
Emperor: Gods of War by Conn Iggulden
The Eagle in the Sand by Simon Scarrow
The Religion by Tim Willocks
The Bretheren by Robyn Young
Medicus by Ruth Downie
Late summer sees the flocking of marching legions to their standards like migratory birds to the wire. While a couple of the older campaigners lead from the front, they are joined in the fray by a talented young turk and a brace of female raw recruits.
Fresh from his successful skirmish into dangerous diversions for boys Conn Iggulden returns with a warring Julius Caesar for the fourth and final instalment of his majestic ‘Emperor’ series. Meanwhile Simon Scarrow marches on with the eighth in his ‘Eagle’ books – Centurians Macro and Cato hack and stab their way through a North African campaign two thousand years before Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe first drew his sabre. These authors have recruited an army of fans who relish both the action and the accurate detail, the battles and the smell of leather, the politicking and the treachery.
‘The Religion’ is Tim Willocks secound tour of duty, having previously taken critical acclaim by force with his debut ‘Green River Rising’. It is1565 and the clash of civilisations is focused on the mediterranean island of Malta where The Knights of St John are laid seige by the Ottoman Emperor Suleiman. Willocks is a writer of extraordinary vision and power, not for him the familiar formula of the spear and sandal saga. ‘Green River’ achieved near cult status for this talented, if nonprolific, British writer; as much for the visceral violence as for the brilliant writing. You have been warned, your defences will be breached, Willocks takes no prisoners.
East beats West in Robyn Young’s ‘The Bretheren’, another crusader epic pitching the Knights Templar against a Levantine foe. This is Young’s first foray since arming herself with a Masters degree in creative writing from Sussex University. In contrast to the intense claustrophobic atmosphere of beseiged Malta, Young paints a vast canvas on the eve of the last crusade, her colourful cast battling, plotting and romancing from London, through Paris to the sun-scorched sands of Syria.
Rookie writer Ruth Downie passed out with a BBC Prize for fiction and has capitalised on the break with this witty, wry Roman who-dunnit set in Chester as Emperor Hadrian succeeds from Trajan. ‘Medicus and the Disappearing Dancing Girls’ introduces us to Gaius Petreius Ruso, a down-but-not-out divorced army doctor. Sired by Steven Saylor out of Lyndsey Davis, Ruso is part Philip Marlow, part M.A.S.H.
