Review - David Gemmell's Troy

Lord of the Silver Bow (David Gemmell)

I was somewhat hesitant to read this next, as it seemed quite long, but I read it in a single day: it's easy to read and interesting. I'm not sure I really like how it changes the story of Troy that I know so well, but I enjoyed the book a lot, so I suppose I'll have to forgive it. It's a bit rambling at times -- this guy was in this battle, and that's where this comes from, and this guy always remembers that battle when whatever happens -- but once I'd got into it, it didn't really matter. I like the life and detail it gives to characters like Andromache and the characters who, as far as I can remember, are not actually from the Iliad, Odyssey or Aeneid.

I think I liked Laodike and Argurios the most, and I was rather sad about how that ended, even if it was rather sudden. Andromache and Aeneas' relationship never felt real to me, though, so I didn't really relate to what happened with them. Or with Halysia. I was actually, strangely for me, more interested in the fleshing out of the Trojan world than the characters, though I really liked the inclusion of Kassandra and the role she had: the idea of her has haunted me ever since I first read about her.

Definitely enjoyable, especially because it covers other ground than other novels about Troy -- the time before, if only a little before.

Shield of Thunder (David Gemmell)

Another enjoyable and interesting twist on the stories of Troy. How the war begins, and how the battlelines are drawn, are something that I wasn't familiar with at all: I don't know if there any records of it, and I know that this book isn't precisely faithful to what we already know even if there are, but this is an enjoyable take on it.

It is a little difficult to feel emotionally connected when all this killing is going on, and you know that several of your favoured characters will die, particularly if they're not recognised names from the epics (e.g. Argurios, Laodike). Helikaon snaps from reasonable to vengeful devil and back with, for the most part, flimsy transitions, which is also hard to relate to. I want to like him, but I don't get him at all.

I do like the character of Odysseus and the way these books handle him and his tall tales. I'm wondering if the story about him pretending to be mad will be included somewhere in here. We'll see.

Sometimes the role of women, and the reversals from the original myth, are a little hard to swallow. Andromache gets to do pretty much whatever she wants, which doesn't seem right at all, and other women have unrealistic amounts of power, too. In one way, it's good to read -- a male author writing strong capable women! -- but it's also frustratingly far-fetched.

Fall of Kings (David Gemmell)

The conclusion to the trilogy is just as good as the others, despite being finished, I gather, by David Gemmell's wife, Stella, after his death. I can't find a transition point, which is as it should be. The twisting of the stories you know if you've studied the epics is interesting, and the little references back to the stories always make me smile -- it's okay if you don't recognise them, but you can kinda feel clever if you can see what he did there (so to speak). A favourite scene of mine from the epics is Hector kissing Astyanax goodbye, and Astyanax being afraid of his helmet, so I loved the little reference to that.

The constant fighting gets a little boring, in the end. It's still well-written, but I don't find endless battle scenes entertaining. It's the moments between battles that I liked: the comradeship of Kalliades and Banokles, Xander scurrying about the city, Andromache trying to protect the children... and pretty much anything involving Cassandra.

I'm glad that at least some of the characters got a happy end, and the last image of the epilogue is one I think I'll carry with me for a while.