The New Achilles (Commander)

by Christian Cameron

[zooloo1983]

Wow, so I have just finished this mammoth book and I have now to try and find the words to formulate some review to get you excited by this book. I do not think, go buy this book will do it (although you should!).

This is not a book you can skim or take lightly. You have to concentrate on the wealth of information you have in front of you. Thank god I was reading this on my kindle because quite frankly I did not have a scooby what some of the words meant and so a lot of word pressing was going on and Google was my friend. I am blown away with how amazing this book is, although honestly, I did not have a clue what was going on for the first 20% of the book. You have so many characters, places, words, regions to get your head around, but I did not care that I didn’t understand half of it, because the storytelling of Alexandor and his life from “coward” to Priest was immense.

So, I am completely kicking myself as I have basically all of Mr Cameron’s books on my Kindle, along with Ben Kane and Simon Scarrow, because this is a genre I am completely fascinated with but have not had the chance to sit down and experience. I savoured the words on the page and I want more. I will be opening that Kindle and first chance I get, reliving more stories of the Spartans, Greeks and Romans to name the big few.

I loved getting to know Alexandor and Philopoemen, The New Achilles. We see both men, ravished by their past, both broken from these events, and both grown in well-respected men in their different areas. I do feel like there is potentially more to come from them.

This book was intense too when we had battles scenes, the night attacks, assassinations, I felt like I was there witnessing it, heart in my throat. I was never sure how these things would play out. I could not speed my way through the book to find out either, I had to sit back and watch the formations flank the enemy, I had to listen to the arrows flying through the air, all the while trying to find our heroes in the midst of battle, and hope they made it safely away.

I have been rewatching Spartacus on TV lately, so it was easy to envision the characters from the show in the book, Craig Parker (Glaber) or Simon Merrels (Crassius) could easily be Nabis!

I just have to reiterate that the knowledge of Mr Cameron is immense and it truly shows. It was also refreshing to have the main character as a healer, not a ‘barbarian’ of war. Not bloodthirsty, but one to shy away, Alexandor has some candid views on the world around him but naive at the same time. Between Philopoemen, who wants the glory without saying it, and Phila, the woman that Alexandor is drawn to, opens his eyes to what truly is in ahead of him.

So I refer back to my first comment, GO.BUY.THIS.BOOK!