The Empire of Darkness by Christian Jacq

The Empire of Darkness (The Queen of Freedom Trilogy)

by Christian Jacq

Set in C17th B.C., Volume One in the stunning new QUEEN OF FREEDOM trilogy, from the bestselling author of RAMSES. Egypt is a shadow of its former self. An army of barbarians, mounted on horse-drawn chariots, has swept through the Empire, destroying everything in its path. Known as the Hyksos, the 'leaders from foreign lands', they have reduced the land of the pharaohs to slavery. Only one city resists: Thebes, where the widow of the last pharaoh, Teti the Small, still reigns. But Teti knows it's only a matter of time before her men succumb to the barbarities of the cruel Hyksos. She has an 18-year-old daughter, however: Ahotep. Fierce, beautiful and courageous, Ahotep will never accept defeat. And so she decides to re-ignite the flame of Egyptian resistance. All by herself.

Reviewed by Terri M. LeBlanc on

2 of 5 stars

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I have confessed before that I love reading historical fiction about Ancient Egypt. I’m certain that repeated viewing of The Ten Commandments starring a ripped Charleton Heston and a buff Yul Brenner are the cause of this fascination. I am drawn to these types of novels over and over again and years ago I encountered The Stone of Light series by Christian Jacq. He wove wonderful stories and I actively started seeking out his novels about Ancient Egypt which are difficult to find because they are in translation.

I acquired by first copy of The Empire of Darkness years ago and recall falling in love with the story. I was determined to finish the series, but it took some time to find the other two books in the series. Once I had The War of Crowns and The Flaming Sword the set languished on my shelves. In the past, I have been reluctant to re-read and I knew in order to get through books two and three, I would need a refresher by re-reading book 1.

In July, I found out that Fantasy is More Fun and Because Reading were hosting a “Can You Read a Series in a Month?” Challenge and I thought that The Queen of Freedom Trilogy would be the perfect candidate for the Challenge. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

What is hard about reading books in translation is that it is hard to determine if the weakness you observe in the novel were in the original text or a due to poor translation to English or due, in this case, to a part of history where little is known about the cast of characters.

The entire time I read The Empire of Darkness I felt as though I was just skimming the surface. The characters were one-dimensional caricatures. The tropes in this novel are strong.

I did make it through book 1 and in an effort to try and participate in the challenge, I dived right into book 2, The War of Crowns. I didn’t even make it through 50 pages before I started to suspect that perhaps this book was subject to a poor translation instead of being just poorly written in its native language.

You see in book one, Sequen (the poor boy) has a faithful pet sidekick, his donkey Long Ears. (Yeah, I know the characters are not well named. One of the rebels known solely as Mustache because well, he has a mustache.). And then on page 12 of The War of the Crowns, the donkey’s name is Way-Finder. There were also some plot elements that didn’t seem to quite match up between book one two. As a result, I dropped book 2 like a hot potato and marked it and book 3 as abandoned on GoodReads.

I honestly have no clue what I saw in The Empire of Darkness all those years ago. I can only assume that I have grown in my reading since this initial read through and expect a bit more from my picks than I did in the past.


This review was originally posted on Second Run Reviews

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 1 July, 2016: Finished reading
  • 1 July, 2016: Reviewed