Ahira's Hangar

Lately I have been reading some of the historical fantasy of David Gemmell, and have been loving it.

He has a duology set in ancient Greece in the years leading up to the birth of Alexander the Great and dealing with his childhood. The first is a nice mixture of historical fiction and some fantasy and is called
The Lion of Macedon. It tells the story of a man named Parmenion, who is a halfbreed Spartan and Macedon, and his growing up in Sparta, and how he becomes the best general in Greece. The second book has mostly fanasty in its content, with a bit of historical fiction thrown in, and deals with Alexander's childhood adventures in an alternate Greece where magical/mythical creatures still live (Alexander is kidnapped to that world to be an important human sacrifice). That book is called The Dark Prince.

While I greatly enjoy the Alexander stories (particularly the first one) - to me Gemmell's glory is his series about Troy.

I have read the first book Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow and am halfway through the second, Troy, Shield of Thunder. These two books are among the best historical fiction I have ever read.

Gemmell has done his research, and sets the conflict firmly in a greater Mediterranean world dominated by two super powers - the Egyptians and the faltering Hittites, with Troy being the capital of a powerful and wealthy Hittite vassal state. The Myceneans (Greeks) are a rising superpower moving in the Hittites and the wealth of Asia Minor. This is all shown in the latest archaeological research and by the Hittite Imperial Archives.

I love how he focuses on two more or less minor characters of The Iliad rather than Achilles and Hector (though, of course, Achilles and Hector are here, and Hector is a very likable character) - his two main characters are Aeneas and Andromache, with a quite wonderful Odysseus and a certain runaway Egyptian prince as major secondary characters. Yes- Moses (under another name) is a character here - and he is very very very cool!

Wonderful stuff, just wonderful.

I know that Gemmell also has soem series set in worlds that he has created. How are they? he does such a great job with the historical fantasies that I am actually a bit reluctant to pick up the other stuff.

Well, as I think I've mentioned, I'm a big fan of his work. I haven't read the Troy books at all, but Lion of Macedon was the first book I read by him, and it spurred me on to the rest.

I think his "straight" fantasy books are every bit as good.

--A

A wonderful article about Stella Gemmell and her finishing of Troy Fall of Kings. She quite obviously loves and mourns her husband David greatly...

Lovely article Duchess. A real loss. Still, now that he's stopped writing, I might one day have them all...

--A