Continuing to work my way through a list of Ancient Greece in 36 Historical novels, I hit #32, Christian Cameron's 2010 novel Tyrant: Funeral Games. This was actually the first time in the entire list where I was being asked to read volume three in a series, so of course I quickly read one and two.
Tyrant Mini-Review
This 2008 novel follows a Greek mercenary called Kinneas and his interactions with the Scythian people during the reign of Alexander the Great. The book was a lot of fun, showing a little known corner of the era.
Tyrant: Storm of Arrows Mini-Review
This 2009 novel follows Greek mercenary Kinneas and his battle with a Macedonian army led by one Alexander the Great's generals. A lot of action, as well as an interesting look at Alexander himself in the latter days of his reign.
Ok, so back to Funeral Games. The novel follows the children of the leads from the first two books as they navigate the collapsing Macedonian Empire after Alexander's death. Twins Satyrus and Melitta begin the novel around age twelve and allow the reader to examine how nobles from different cultures viewed gender, roles, and responsibilities against a backdrop of action, intrigue, and adventure. I think it's fair to say that this list very nicely led me to two great authors, Mary Renault and Christian Cameron.
So yesterday I went to see the new Shane Black film The Predator with my youngest daughter and my friend Ron. The three of us kind of nicely represented a lot of the incoming audience; first, I had seen most of the franchise leading up the film (sorry AVP: Requiem) and had played the various video games, read the comics, etc., Ron came into the film having never seen any of the previous franchise films, but simply as a fan of Shane Black's work and my youngest daughter had seen the original film a few years back and thought the trailer looked fun.
The movie itself was a little bumpy; what worked really worked (fun quips, nice rag-tag team of predator-fighters, some pretty great action sequences), but I found a number of plot points were sort of left dangling (not willing to go into specifics due to spoilers) and in the end I have to say it attempts to out laugh and out violence the original and at one level succeeds, but at another simply shows that more isn't necessarily always better.
A fun film to watch in theatres, but not sure if it is one I would own (currently I only own the original 87 film).
Funeral Games, Mary Renault's final novel, and the conclusion of her Alexander trilogy follows the aftermath of the death of the Macedonian King, and how quickly everything can fall apart without any plans for succession.
The story is bloodthirsty and often heartbreaking, following both those who lust for the power left in Alexander's wake and those thrust into positions of power with little but their wits to protect them. In previous novels Renault largely focused on male protagonists, but here she has his widows, mother, sister and cousin all feature prominently and although history clearly shows how his empire worked out after his death, I couldn't help but root for many of these characters.
A fascinating look at how quickly events can turn on just about anyone, Funeral Games was well worth the read, and will have me looking for other Renault books in the future.
So yesterday my friend Mike and I went to see the latest film in the Conjuring Universe The Nun, a film that works as a prequel to the series, but certainly requires viewers have seen the previous films or they will be spoiled.
The Nun is the fifth film in the series and although I wasn't quite as excited to see it as I was Annabelle Creation (mostly because I had seen other films by the director), in for a penny in for a pound as they say.
Set in 1952 the film follows Sister Irene (Taisa Farmiga) and Father Burke ( Demián Bichir) as they investigate a recent death at a convent in Romania. As can be expected in any type of horror film, there is a spooky old building, a number of jump scares and a sinister backstory for the duo to uncover.
In the end the film was a fun watch, but stand up as well as either of the main Conjuring Films or as well as Annabelle Creation (Still haven't seen the original Annabelle - maybe someday).
So if you're a fan of the series, check it out, otherwise perhaps check out some great classic Hammer films for a similar feel.
In Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland's 2017 novel The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. mixes the speculative fiction concept of time-travel with government bureaucracy and although it was a touch long for my taste, it was, in the end, a fun examination of how bureaucracies can ruin pretty much everything.
The novel follows a Linguistics doctor named Melisande Stokes, who after having a particularly disastrous run in with her academic supervisor, runs into a mysterious government officer who offers her a job.
The majority of the novel is told from Melisande's point of view, and is written as a document she has deposited in a bank from Victoria England, where she has been trapped in the past. Other characters and story elements get focus through internal memos, newspaper clippings, personal journals, etc.
The novel focuses on exactly how a government agency might go about setting itself up with a time-travel based department, and the increasingly byzantine obligations put on it as its importance raises over time.
Although it works strongest in concepts, rather than person to person interaction, in the end I found it to be quite a fun read.
Christian Cameron's God of War: A Novel of Alexander the Great (2012) is the last on my list of historical fiction set in Ancient Greece to focus on the Macedonian King during his life. Although I've still got six more books to go (and another by Cameron), this was the last to deal Alexander as a living man, rather than the legend he became.
For me, the novel had a lot of great strengths; putting the perspective character as his general Ptolemy was an excellent way to view the character from a different perspective (much as Mary Renault did in The Persian Boy) and also to slyly write a novel about the (arguably) greatest successor of Alexander, the battle scenes (as with all of Cameron's books I've read to date) were phenomenal, and the turning points in Alexander's life, where he goes from boy to man, man to king, and king to emperor, and at significant personal cost, were really striking to see from the point of view of a good childhood friend.
My biggest problem with the book was actually the length; at just under 900 pages it was fairly massive and I thought it could have either been pared down considerably or split into two novels, either way would have been fine by me, but I think that the narrative would also have moved better in either situation.
A really fun read, but perhaps not the first book I'd recommend for someone who wanted to read more about Alexander the Great.
My fifth book by Steven Pressfield, and his fifth on the list, The Afghan Campaign (2006) takes a look at a specific era in the Macedonian King's conquest of empire during 330 BCE when he attempted to subdue the Afghan kingdoms (modern day Afghanistan). The novel focuses on a recent recruit called Matthias who begins the book by running away from home to join the military, where both his older brothers have enlisted.
Following Matthias on his journey the book begins to feel like a young man coming of age story, then a love story, and then a meditation on the costs of war. Much of the novel focuses on cultural differences between the Macedonian army and those it battles, and Matthias makes a number of clear missteps throughout the book from a place of good intentions but almost total ignorance of the people he is either liberating or conquering, depending on your point of view.
When I tell people I've spent the last few years working my way through this specific list, I'm often asked what draws me to these stories of Ancient Greece, and with certain novels, like John Gardiner's The Wreckage of Agathon or this title by Pressfield, I find the answer is that much of the issues dealt with at that time are still very close to us here are the beginning of the 21st century.
A fascinating read.
