On Kindle
Caesar has returned to Rome announcing, for the second time, that Gaul is pacified and leaving his
Legions to re-equip and where possible recruit to make up for their considerable losses.
The book opens with Galba, Legate of the Twelfth Legion, trying with his three remaining cohorts to garrison the town of Octodurus, capital of the Veragri tribe and holding the pass between Lake Geneva and Cisalpine Gaul. Having fortified the upper part of the town Galba then faces a revolt by the Veragri and two neighbouring tribes and faced with overwhelming odds extricates the survivors to Eporedia in Cisalpine Gaul. In Northern Gaul Crassus, Legate of the Seventh Legion, stirs up a hornets nest with his constant raids on the local tribes for food and other supplies. He steadfastly refuses his officers plea to arrange supplies from Southern Gaul as he fears losing face in the eyes of Caesar. When he arresta a Druid who arrives to negotiate with him the Veneti leading the other local tribes rise in revolt.
Meanwhile in Rome Fronto, who is on leave and Priscus his First Spear who is convalescing from a crippling leg wound, are recruited by Cicero to guard Caelius Rufus who is being prosecuted by Caesar's enemy Clodius Pulcher. At this point we are reintroduced to Aulus Paetus whom all other characters in the story believe to be dead. Paetus was Caesar's Camp Prefect and was found to be spying on behalf of Clodius who had threatened his familly. Fronto persuades Caesar to use him to send misleading information to Clodius in return for protection for his familly. Caesar makes this promise then does nothing and when Clodius discovers he has been tricked Paetus' familly is butchered. Paetus is now in Rome seeking revenge on both Clodius and Caesar.
Clodius case against Caelius is trashed in the Court by Cicero and Crassus Senior but Caelius is still in danger of being murdered by Clodius who now runs the biggest gang of cutthroats in Rome. As Fronto is recalled to his Legion by Caesar he leaves Caelius in the protection of Priscus who has also recruited a gang to act as bodyguards.
On his return to Gaul Caesar, who had already told the Senate that he had conquered the Gaulish tribes, is not pleased that Crassus had stirred the Veneti to revolt. However, he cannot dismiss him as he needs the support of Crassus Senior in Rome and so sends the Seventh to pacify the restless tribes of the Pyrenees. The Veneti avoid a pitched battle with the Romans by using their skill as sailors but eventualy they are cornered and those who are not killed are enslaved.
Priscus writes to Fronto that men loyal to Caesar are being murdered by Clodius gang and that Clodius himself has had meetings with Pompey Magnus and that Fronto's mother and sister were attacked at the market but rescued by an unknown man who walks away without a word. The man, of course, is Paetus. Clodia, sister of odious Clodius, has disappeared and Priscus finds her murdered body at the mausoleum of the Paetus familly.
In Gaul two more revolts are put down but Caesar and Crassus are persuaded to leave the tribes on their land if only because they can grow the increasing amounts of food that an ever expanding Rome requires.
Caesar, Fronto and the rest of the senior officers return to Rome as the Legions move into winter quarters to recruit and re-equip. There they find that Clodius is ever more ambitious and daring as his huge private army rules the streets and an escalating series of fracas lead to a full scale attack on Fronto's home. It is beaten off but leads to Caesar calling a meeting with Crassus Senior and Pompey Magnus with the intention of bringing down Clodius once and for all.
SJA Turney has given us another first class adventure story set in my favouite historical period. However, I must admit that I was more interested in the Roman episodes than the battlefield incidents which all seem to end up as a load of Celtic nutters throwing themselves at disciplined Roman sheildwalls and being slaughtered. Perhaps volume four will show us more of the battle against Clodius and his street fighters.
Tuesday 1 October 2013
Sunday 15 September 2013
Petite Mort by Beatrice Hitchman
On Kindle
In 1963 a film is discovered in a basement. Entitled Petite Mort it was made at the famous Pathe studios in 1913 and it's star was Adele Rous a young unknown who never appeared in a film again. A young journalist, Julliette Blanc, tracks down Adele and goes to interview her and the narrative cuts between her interview and re-enactments of the events of 1913.
In 1912 Adele arrives in Paris determined to break into films and is employed in the sewing room at Pathe. She is spotted by leading director Andre Durand who makes her his mistress then employs her as assistant to his wife Luce who acts in his films under the name Terpsichore. Adele moves into the Durand mansion in the Bois de Boulonge and Luce appears indifferent to Andre's visits to her room but when Andre is away she seduces Adele who falls in love with her.
At this time another Pathe director is constantly asking Luce to appear in his film Petite Mort but she refuses and so he uses Adele, a fact that she tries to conceal from Luce. A further complication is that Adele's young sister, Camille, has turned up also trying to get into films and hopes to use Adele to do this which she does but this is not revealed until the end. Violence and murder are also on hand to tangle the web nicely and bring the tale to a satisfyling conclusion.
Beatrice Hitchman has written a subtle and entertaining tale which, considering I bought it on Kindle for ninetynine pence, is as good as books ten times the price. I hope to see more from this author.
In 1963 a film is discovered in a basement. Entitled Petite Mort it was made at the famous Pathe studios in 1913 and it's star was Adele Rous a young unknown who never appeared in a film again. A young journalist, Julliette Blanc, tracks down Adele and goes to interview her and the narrative cuts between her interview and re-enactments of the events of 1913.
In 1912 Adele arrives in Paris determined to break into films and is employed in the sewing room at Pathe. She is spotted by leading director Andre Durand who makes her his mistress then employs her as assistant to his wife Luce who acts in his films under the name Terpsichore. Adele moves into the Durand mansion in the Bois de Boulonge and Luce appears indifferent to Andre's visits to her room but when Andre is away she seduces Adele who falls in love with her.
At this time another Pathe director is constantly asking Luce to appear in his film Petite Mort but she refuses and so he uses Adele, a fact that she tries to conceal from Luce. A further complication is that Adele's young sister, Camille, has turned up also trying to get into films and hopes to use Adele to do this which she does but this is not revealed until the end. Violence and murder are also on hand to tangle the web nicely and bring the tale to a satisfyling conclusion.
Beatrice Hitchman has written a subtle and entertaining tale which, considering I bought it on Kindle for ninetynine pence, is as good as books ten times the price. I hope to see more from this author.
Friday 13 September 2013
The Yard by Alex Grecian
This novel, a debut by an American writer of comic books, is set in 1889 as the Metropolitan police attempt to salvage their reputation following the Ripper murders.
As the book opens the body of Inspector Little of the newly formed Murder Squad is found in a cabin trunk at Euston Station. Sir Edward Bradford, newly appointed Commissioner of Police, knows that the morale of his force depends upon a swift solution to this direct attack on his men. Eyebrows are raised when he puts in charge of the investigation Inspector Walter Day recently transferred from the Devonshire force and who has to cope with the resentment of older members of the squad. Fortunately he is supported by Inspector Blacker and Constable Hammersmith (an unlikely name but the writer is American) who render him the assistance he needs to solve the case. The character of Doctor Bernard Kingsley is used to introduce the newly developing science of Forensics and makes a major contribution to the plot. To try to outline the action would result in too many spoilers and so I shall refrain.
All in all Alex Grecian has spun an entertaining yarn which shows much research and attention to detail and is just the thing for a quiet afternoon.
As the book opens the body of Inspector Little of the newly formed Murder Squad is found in a cabin trunk at Euston Station. Sir Edward Bradford, newly appointed Commissioner of Police, knows that the morale of his force depends upon a swift solution to this direct attack on his men. Eyebrows are raised when he puts in charge of the investigation Inspector Walter Day recently transferred from the Devonshire force and who has to cope with the resentment of older members of the squad. Fortunately he is supported by Inspector Blacker and Constable Hammersmith (an unlikely name but the writer is American) who render him the assistance he needs to solve the case. The character of Doctor Bernard Kingsley is used to introduce the newly developing science of Forensics and makes a major contribution to the plot. To try to outline the action would result in too many spoilers and so I shall refrain.
All in all Alex Grecian has spun an entertaining yarn which shows much research and attention to detail and is just the thing for a quiet afternoon.
Thursday 5 September 2013
The Racing Factions by Robert Fabbri
On Kindle
This is another of Fabbri's novellas featuring the Crossroads Brotherhood and published exclusively on Kindle. The Brotherhood operate a protection racket in their neighbourhood and also act as bodyguards for Senator Pollo who is the uncle of Vespasian the hero of Fabbri's full length novels.
The action opens in the Circus Maximus where Magnus and the gang have just won a sizeable bet. However, the bookmaker, Ignatius, refuses to pay up which is a major mistake on his part. The rest of the story concerns Magnus organising an elaborate plot to get his revenge.
This is a very entertaining story if a rather amoral one but by now we should all be used to the attitudes of Rome at the time. There is also a tendency to portray as appealing characters what are essentialy a gang of vicious thugs but Fabbri is not alone here think Mario Puzo and the American Mafia.
This is another of Fabbri's novellas featuring the Crossroads Brotherhood and published exclusively on Kindle. The Brotherhood operate a protection racket in their neighbourhood and also act as bodyguards for Senator Pollo who is the uncle of Vespasian the hero of Fabbri's full length novels.
The action opens in the Circus Maximus where Magnus and the gang have just won a sizeable bet. However, the bookmaker, Ignatius, refuses to pay up which is a major mistake on his part. The rest of the story concerns Magnus organising an elaborate plot to get his revenge.
This is a very entertaining story if a rather amoral one but by now we should all be used to the attitudes of Rome at the time. There is also a tendency to portray as appealing characters what are essentialy a gang of vicious thugs but Fabbri is not alone here think Mario Puzo and the American Mafia.
Tuesday 20 August 2013
A Clash of Kings by George RR Martin
On Kindle
This is the second volume in the Song of Ice and Fire Saga and Martin manages to keep both the pace and complexity going despite the episodic manner of the narrative with each chapter named for a character and describes their part of the action. That such a format avoids reducing the reader to vexation is a tribute to Martin's skill in building his characters and matching their actions to recognisable human limitations. There are no super-heroes here! Further, Martin's fantasy world is relatable to the real as, for example, the echoes of Lancaster/York of the Wars of the Roses in Lannister/Stark. Likewise the names that he gives his characters vere only slightly to the fantastical, an aspect that has put me off other similar works.
At the end of Game of Thrones King Robert was dead and his throne claimed by his eldest son Joffrey backed by his mother and her ambitious and ruthless Lannister clan. Joffrey orders the execution of Lord Eddard Stark which results in his son Robb rebelling and declaring himself King of the North. King Robert's two brothers, Stannis and Renly, both claim the throne and all the rest of the noble Houses sign up to one or other of the various claimants though their loyalty is flexible to say the least. On another continent Danaerys, last of the Royal House of Tregaryan is still trying to raise support for an invasion of the Seven Kingdoms and now she has three young dragons to back her claim. North of the Wall Jon Snow, bastard son of Eddard Stark, is on patrol trying to locate the forces of outlaw King Mace Ryder when he is captured and, under orders of his captain, pretends to change sides.
We are not half way through the saga yet let us hope that George Martin's imagination can keep up the pace.
This is the second volume in the Song of Ice and Fire Saga and Martin manages to keep both the pace and complexity going despite the episodic manner of the narrative with each chapter named for a character and describes their part of the action. That such a format avoids reducing the reader to vexation is a tribute to Martin's skill in building his characters and matching their actions to recognisable human limitations. There are no super-heroes here! Further, Martin's fantasy world is relatable to the real as, for example, the echoes of Lancaster/York of the Wars of the Roses in Lannister/Stark. Likewise the names that he gives his characters vere only slightly to the fantastical, an aspect that has put me off other similar works.
At the end of Game of Thrones King Robert was dead and his throne claimed by his eldest son Joffrey backed by his mother and her ambitious and ruthless Lannister clan. Joffrey orders the execution of Lord Eddard Stark which results in his son Robb rebelling and declaring himself King of the North. King Robert's two brothers, Stannis and Renly, both claim the throne and all the rest of the noble Houses sign up to one or other of the various claimants though their loyalty is flexible to say the least. On another continent Danaerys, last of the Royal House of Tregaryan is still trying to raise support for an invasion of the Seven Kingdoms and now she has three young dragons to back her claim. North of the Wall Jon Snow, bastard son of Eddard Stark, is on patrol trying to locate the forces of outlaw King Mace Ryder when he is captured and, under orders of his captain, pretends to change sides.
We are not half way through the saga yet let us hope that George Martin's imagination can keep up the pace.
Saturday 17 August 2013
Huntingtower by John Buchan
On Kindle via Project Gutenberg
It takes courage for a writer of adventure stories to make a retired grocer the hero of a tale of derring do and when his main allies are a troop of scruffy boys from the Gorbals it would appear that he has made his task impossible. However, John Buchan takes on such a task and pulls it off with aplomb.
Dickson MacCumm has sold his grocers shops in Glasgow to a larger company and, as his wife is away at a therapeutic spa, decides to go on a walking holiday. With his head full of dreams of romance and adventure from his extensive reading of Scott, Stevenson and the romantic poets such as Browning and Tennyson he sets off and by chance meets John Heritage an aspiring poet. Together they walk to the village of Dalquharter where they become involved in the rescue from Bolshevik agents of a Russian princess who was entrusted with a fortune in jewels by the Tsar. Assisted by the Gorbals Diehards, as the gang of young ruffians is known, they manage to defeat the villains without straining credulity beyond bearing.
Despite it's age, it was published in 1922, I found Huntingtower an entertaining read for a fine summers day which is a tribute to the talent of this excellent writer.
It takes courage for a writer of adventure stories to make a retired grocer the hero of a tale of derring do and when his main allies are a troop of scruffy boys from the Gorbals it would appear that he has made his task impossible. However, John Buchan takes on such a task and pulls it off with aplomb.
Dickson MacCumm has sold his grocers shops in Glasgow to a larger company and, as his wife is away at a therapeutic spa, decides to go on a walking holiday. With his head full of dreams of romance and adventure from his extensive reading of Scott, Stevenson and the romantic poets such as Browning and Tennyson he sets off and by chance meets John Heritage an aspiring poet. Together they walk to the village of Dalquharter where they become involved in the rescue from Bolshevik agents of a Russian princess who was entrusted with a fortune in jewels by the Tsar. Assisted by the Gorbals Diehards, as the gang of young ruffians is known, they manage to defeat the villains without straining credulity beyond bearing.
Despite it's age, it was published in 1922, I found Huntingtower an entertaining read for a fine summers day which is a tribute to the talent of this excellent writer.
Monday 5 August 2013
Reamde by Neal Stephenson
I first discovered Neal Stephenson some eight years ago when I read his hugely entertaining Baroque Cycle of novels set in the eighteenth century. This book, by contrast, is as up-to-date as you like.
The book begins in 2010 as Richard Forthrast the black sheep of an Iowa farming familly, is attending the annual familly reunion. We are then given his back story as follows. In 1972 Richard had fled across the Canadian border to avoid being drafted for service in Vietnam and used his backwoods skills to make a living first as a hunting guide and then backpacking marijuana from Canada to America using remote hunting trails. His drugs contact in America is the leader of a motorcycle gang called Chet and when draft dodgers are amnestied by the US government he and Chet use their drug money to renovate a faux French Chateau built by a nineteenth century gold miner in British Columbia to use as a ski resort. This is successful but not half as lucrative as the online computer game he develops with a Chinese programer. This brings us back to the re-union and Richard's neice by adoption, an Eritrean refugee named Zula who he invites to visit his ski resort along with her boyfriend Peter an IT consultant from Seattle. Whilst at the resort Peter meets a Scottish accountant named Wallace to whom, unknown to the others, he has agreed to sell the details of one hundred thousand credit cards that he has hacked from the Net. Zula returns to Seattle with Peter determined to break off their relationship and so drives to the warehouse that Peter has converted to office/living space to collect her things. Whilst she is there Wallace turns up demanding a copy of the credit card file as the original has been hijacked and held to ransom by a group of Chinese hackers using a virus named REAMDE. Peter admits that he does not have a copy and when Wallace tells him that all the hackers are asking is seventy three dollars he says "Pay up". However, it is not as simple as that. The method of payment involves playing an online computer game called T'Rain which is the game run by Zula's uncle Richard. Before they can try to retrieve the files the warehouse is invaded by a Russian gangster called Ivanov accompanied by an entourage of heavies. It is Ivanov who was really buying the credit cards and he is most displeased with Wallace for losing them. Needless to say it is all downhill from there. As if the Russians were not enough in attempting to catch the Chinese hackers they break into a group of Muslim terrorists who are plotting a bombing campaign and we are still not halfway through the book.
I read the hardback edition of REAMDE, one thousand and forty two pages packed with incident and an amazing cast of characters all fleshed out with detail and back story. What more can I say than this is a thumping good read which kept me turning the pages until forced to stop and got a good bicep work out into the bargain!
The book begins in 2010 as Richard Forthrast the black sheep of an Iowa farming familly, is attending the annual familly reunion. We are then given his back story as follows. In 1972 Richard had fled across the Canadian border to avoid being drafted for service in Vietnam and used his backwoods skills to make a living first as a hunting guide and then backpacking marijuana from Canada to America using remote hunting trails. His drugs contact in America is the leader of a motorcycle gang called Chet and when draft dodgers are amnestied by the US government he and Chet use their drug money to renovate a faux French Chateau built by a nineteenth century gold miner in British Columbia to use as a ski resort. This is successful but not half as lucrative as the online computer game he develops with a Chinese programer. This brings us back to the re-union and Richard's neice by adoption, an Eritrean refugee named Zula who he invites to visit his ski resort along with her boyfriend Peter an IT consultant from Seattle. Whilst at the resort Peter meets a Scottish accountant named Wallace to whom, unknown to the others, he has agreed to sell the details of one hundred thousand credit cards that he has hacked from the Net. Zula returns to Seattle with Peter determined to break off their relationship and so drives to the warehouse that Peter has converted to office/living space to collect her things. Whilst she is there Wallace turns up demanding a copy of the credit card file as the original has been hijacked and held to ransom by a group of Chinese hackers using a virus named REAMDE. Peter admits that he does not have a copy and when Wallace tells him that all the hackers are asking is seventy three dollars he says "Pay up". However, it is not as simple as that. The method of payment involves playing an online computer game called T'Rain which is the game run by Zula's uncle Richard. Before they can try to retrieve the files the warehouse is invaded by a Russian gangster called Ivanov accompanied by an entourage of heavies. It is Ivanov who was really buying the credit cards and he is most displeased with Wallace for losing them. Needless to say it is all downhill from there. As if the Russians were not enough in attempting to catch the Chinese hackers they break into a group of Muslim terrorists who are plotting a bombing campaign and we are still not halfway through the book.
I read the hardback edition of REAMDE, one thousand and forty two pages packed with incident and an amazing cast of characters all fleshed out with detail and back story. What more can I say than this is a thumping good read which kept me turning the pages until forced to stop and got a good bicep work out into the bargain!
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