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King Of Kings (2009)

by Harry Sidebottom(Favorite Author)

3.95 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0718153316 (ISBN13: 9780718153311)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Michael Joseph,

series

Warrior of Rome

review 1: I was not blown away by the first book and if I hadn't bought this at the same time would probably not bothered with the ongoing tales of Ballista. The author seems to try too hard to prove he is a 'proper' historian so we are given too much detail and this is not balanced out with well paced plots or interesting characterisations. This was true of the first book and the author has not changed his style here. So if you loved the first, more of the same here, if you found the first flawed, well this is too.Ballista was never supposed to have survived the events of the first book, and Emperor Valerian is not quite sure what to do with him flipping between favour and distrust. And that is the central theme, Ballista gets sent off to do stuff, comes back, gets sent off again. ... moreWith dull interludes involving father son bonding and assassins.There is a lot better than this out there so I will not waste my time on any further adventures of Ballista (even though this book does end of a cliff-hanger).
review 2: I may return to this book starting with the first in the series (this is the second) but in comparison with other books about the Roman Empire, military, politics, etc., this starts as a long slough of the "heroes" being chased by "non-heroes" with dull sentence after dull sentence after dull sentence. It sent me back to Ben Kane's The Forgotten Legion as a comparison to see whether I was being unfair to Sidebottom. Nope. The Forgotten Legion still grips me from the get-go and is well written. It will take a lot for me to give time to Sidebottom when there are so many other attractive books on this and related topics. less

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