Tyrant: Force of Kings (TYRANT SERIES), by Christian Cameron
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Tyrant: Force of Kings (TYRANT SERIES), by Christian Cameron
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The vast and deadly conflict between Alexander the Great's former generals as they battle for control of his empire has reached a tense stalemate. No one seems able to strike the decisive blow.But with everything in the balance, a secret emerges: hidden in the remote mountains is a young man who could change everything: Herakles, the son of Alexander.Whoever aspires to Alexander's mantle must now control his one legitimate heir - or destroy him - and a war being played across the known world is set for its final, bloody conclusion. As the rival armies converge on the village of Ipsus, twin monarchs Satyrus and Melitta know that they too must gamble their own lives and the survival of their Black Sea kingdom on the outcome...
Tyrant: Force of Kings (TYRANT SERIES), by Christian Cameron- Amazon Sales Rank: #610823 in Books
- Brand: Cameron, Christian
- Published on: 2015-05-19
- Released on: 2015-05-19
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.75" h x 1.13" w x 5.13" l, 1.01 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 400 pages
Review It's wonderfully descriptive, the characters are fascinating and above all else it's the story of Alexander that everyone should read ... Finally add to this Christian's wonderful writing style, with cracking prose, a wonderful sense of pace and when backed with an instantly identifiable writing style, it's a book that is going to take a hell of a lot to beat this year especially in the award season, and let's face it, that's saying something considering how early this one's out―FALCATA TIMESThis saga of daring, heroism, vanity and monumental battles reveals a man who believed himself invincible―CHOICEThe more Cameron's 700-page story progresses the more impressive it becomes. Detail is piled upon detail to reconstruct the Alexandrian world ... the battles that punctuated Alexander's journey with his armies from Greece to the Indus valley are described with enormous verve and power. The ruthless intrigue and politicking that dominate his court are also brilliantly evoked. And, as fate and his own insatiable desire for conquest and glory drive Alexander towards death in Babylon at the age of 32, a genuine sense of an extraordinary personality emerges. Cameron has risen to the challenge of creating a portrait of Alexander that matches - and often eclipses - those of earlier novelists―SUNDAY TIMESOne of the finest writers of historical fiction in the world
About the Author Christian Cameron is a writer and military historian. He is a veteran of the United States Navy, where he served as both an aviator and an intelligence officer in the first Gulf War, Somalia and elsewhere. He lives in Toronto with his wife and daughter, writing his next novel while studying classics. To find out more, visit www.hippeis.com
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful. Fitting climax By JPS This is volume 6 of the Tyrant series, and I must confess that I was expecting more of the same about Satyrus and Militta the fictitious twins, respectively King of the Bosporus, Queen of the Western Scythes and successors to their long dead Athenian mercenary captain father and Scythian warlord mother.In plain English, I was expecting this book to be a good yarn and a good adventure story more or less grounded (and generally more than less!) in the history and endless wars of Alexander’s Successors, but perhaps no more than that. I was also expecting to see Satyrus in particular, rushing around, getting bashed about to the extent that you wonder who he survives, and making a difference single-handed, since he so much wants to be a hero like his father. I was finally expecting Melitta to be her usual free, fierce, bloodthirsty and strutting warrior-Queen.In other words, I was expecting to like this book, to find it a good read and a “page-turner” but to end up by being slightly disappointed, despite all of this volume’s other qualities, because the two main heroes were somewhat hard to believe and at times came across as stereotypes. However, I ended up by being most agreeably surprised: I loved this book despite my initial preventions and prejudices. My general (and very subjective!) impression was that the author has been much more careful with this volume than he had perhaps been with the two previous ones in the series. .Essentially, I felt that the features above, which I had somehow found hard to believe (and at times annoying) in “King of the Bosporus” and “Destroyer of Cities”, were somewhat toned down here, while the usual strongpoints were still on display and even emphasised. Two additional elements worked particularly well (at least for me!). One was the book’s structure and events, with the building of suspense up to the climax; the huge battle of Ipsos where the forces of just about all of Alexander’s surviving marshals (with the exception of Ptolemy) fought it out, once and for all. Another was that the author has quite deliberately brought together in this book just about all of the surviving characters that readers have come across throughout the series since its very beginning.Also included are multiple allusions and references to the author)s other books and to those that have died and to the events they took part in. This feature, again, worked wonderfully well for me, although it might not work quite so well for someone who has not read the five previous volumes and the stand alone novel on Alexaner (God of War).I was a bit concerned towards the beginning of the book because I was a bit afraid that the author would get somewhat carried away one of his personal hobbies – martial arts. You do in fact get “treated” to development on pankration the first time Satyrus gets bashed about in Athens and there are a couple of other examples where I felt that the author barely managed to restrain himself from “overdoing it” and risking to become “boring” some of his readers. However, he managed to stop just short of that. The same seems to have happened with the “Satyrus-bashing” which I had found somewhat implausible in previous volumes and in “Destroyer of Cities” in particular. Satyrus does get very much bashed, beaten, torn wounded, captured and poisoned. However, this time at least, his survival did not sound, look and feel entirely implausible even if, at times, credulity had to be stretched a bit.As mentioned above, I also had the impression that the usual qualities and strongpoints (or, to be more accurate, what I see as the usual qualities and strongpoints) with Christian Cameron’s “Tyrant” and “Killer of Men” series were even more on display than usual. Specifically, I very much liked some of the characterisation, especially that of the Successors. I also liked the way in which the author, who, as usual, clearly knows his period and has researched it in depth, manages to fit the story he has to tell into it, even if it means taking a few liberties. Finally, the “action scenes” are superb and realistic and perhaps even better than usual. To illustrate why and what I liked so much about this book, I will mention just a few examples for each of the three categories, but the book contains many more such features for each of them.Regarding characterisation, my favourites were probably Cassander and Lysimachos, although the two Antigonids, father and son (Antigonos and Demetrius), come in as very close seconds.Cassander is well shown as the crafty, plotting, ruthless and murderous King of Macedon (among others, he “bumped off” Alexander’s surviving family). All the surviving historical sources depict him as a particularly unpleasant character and this is how he is very much shown in the book. As a usurper who had murdered his way to the Macedonian throne and ousted the Regent that his father Antipater had nominated before his death, he was threatened during just about all of his reign, mostly by Demetrius (although Ptolemy was not averse at stirring up trouble in Greece against him). Quite fittingly therefore, he is shown as brooding and suspicious, or even rather paranoid.Lysimachos, one of the much lesser well-known of the Successors, is just marginally more sympathetic. This ex-bodyguard of Alexander who was given the rather difficult task to hold Thrace and subdue the ever warring and feuding Thracian tribes with too little troops is very adequately shown in the book as “though as nails”, brutal and quite insensitive, but a very competent soldier and very far from stupid. As the author gets one of the characters to mention at one point, the fact that Lysimachus survived two crushing defeats when attempting to conquer and “pacify” his territory (with the scorched-earth tactics shown in the book!) shows to what extent he was a resourceful and though commander.One-Eyed Antigonos, the very old “Lord of Asia” (he was over eighty at the battle of Ipsos), is the Successor that comes across as the most sympathetic, with Ptolemy perhaps. He is also one of the lesser known among the Successors. He was one of the two who almost succeeded in reunifying all of Alexander’s Empire under his rule, but ultimately failed (the other one would be Seleukos some twenty years after the events described in this book). In fact, from BC 316 to BC 301, the Wars of the Successors were essentially fought against him, because all the others feared him and ganged up against him to avoid being wiped out one at a time (as he had done to quite of few of Alexander’s other senior officers).Finally, there is the flamboyant, very gifted but vet inconstant and excessive Demetrius, his favourite son. Although not strictly a Successor (he was not one of Alexander’s officers and had not participated in his conquests because he was too young), is one of the better known of these outstanding characters, mostly, ironically, and quite fairly, because of his failed siege of Rhodes. As shown in this book, his excesses matched his qualities and his successes were also quite outstanding. The previous volume showed to what extent he had crushed Ptolemy’s army and fleet at Salamis in BC 306. It would take years for the King of Egypt to rebuild his forces and it is this crushing defeat which largely explains his absence from Ipsos five years later: Demetrius had essentially crippled his forces to such an extent as to put him out of the fight. Following the failure of the siege of Rhodes, there were Demetrius’ successes in Greece, where he destroyed a large part of Cassander’s forces, and in particular expelled them from Greece. Demetrius’ successes in Greece, and the fact that he was recalled by his father to Asia just before he could invade Macedon and finish Cassander, are well shown in this volume. An additional feature of this book is that the characterisation of Demetrius – including his incommensurable arrogance and self-confidence which made him such a dangerous and unpredictable gambler - is more believable than it was in “Destroyer of Cities” where he at times tends to come across as a “spoilt brat”.Then there is the historical context and how the author has adapted it to fit the needs of his plot. To my knowledge at least, there are very few historical novels on this period (one exception is an old novel from Alfred Duggan on Demetrius) and this is the first I come across where the plot is structured around the climatic battle of Ipsos. So, full marks for originality, it seems. One of the difficulties that the author may have had was that, having told the story of the siege of Rhodes in the previous volume and wanting to bring back all of his characters into this one, he had to take liberties with the chronology and some of the events. So, for instance, the comeback of Herakles (Alexander’s bastard son and a historical character), which historically took place a few years before the siege of Rhodes, if here presented afterwards. Also, for the purposes of the plot, the disruptions which lead Antigonos to recall his son Demetrius from Greece are all attributed to Satyrus, a fictional character. In reality, at least some of them were due to Lysimachus himself. His position was not quite as desperate as shown in the book and it seems that it was his forces which in fact took Ephesus, and then had to evacuate it when Demetrius sailed in from Greece and went after him.There are a number of excellent military points made about this last war between the Successors. The book clearly shows that the Antigonids, father and son, were the strongest on paper. This was especially true when they were together, but this was only true as long as they could defeat their enemies separately. Hence the importance, well shown in the book, of preventing Cassander from sending reinforcements (mainly heavy infantry) to Lysimachus who was campaigning in Asia against Antigonus, by controlling the Bosphoros with a their fleet, and of defeating Lysimachus and/or Seleucos separately before they could join forces. All of this is perfectly shown in the book, although I seem to reminder that it was the contingents send by Cassander which were badly mauled by storm and enemy ships when trying to join Lysimachus in Asia.Also well shown is even after the allies joined together, they were only just about a match in numbers with the Antigonids. Hence the relative confidence of both father and son is entirely believable. They had more and better heavy infantry, although perhaps a bit less cavalry and much fewer elephants (although they had over sixty of these all the same). One of the author’s interpretations had been to limit the number of elephants that Seleucos brought with him to a couple of hundred or so (and not the 500 that are often mentioned and which represented the total size of the herd given to him as part of his treaty with the Indian Emperor).Another of the author’s interpretations is his rather original reconstruction of the battle of Ipsos, where the role of the Seleucos’ elephants, while still important, is somewhat minimised. I will write no more about this here, to avoid spoilers, except to mention that the author’s reconstruction is rather believable, although different from the traditional “historical” (the inverted commas is because there are some uncertainties as to what happened at some stages of it). Here again, the main reasons for the author’s adaptations is to attribute a prime role to the twins in the battle. Anyway, “adapted” or not, it worked very well for me and I am certainly not complaining here since the last sections of the book, with the run up to huge and decisive battle, clearly and obviously has a lot of momentum.Two other pieces, which I particularly liked, and which seem to be entirely fictitious, are the assault on Corinth and the storming of Ephesus combined with a naval battle. I will mention nothing more about these two events except that they are described with Christian Cameron’s usual attention to detail and hyper-realism. He has done this a number of times in his previous books, and it is clearly still one of the strongpoints in this one.As all reviews, this one is, of course, terribly subjective, since it tries to explain everything I loved with this book. For me, it was such a superb read that I almost missed a business appointment to finish one of the chapters (the attempted storming of Corinth, which was one of my favourite scenes)! So, if you happen to be a fan of well-researched and well-thought out historical novels packed with these “action scenes” (and I confess that I certainly am one of them), then this is probably a book that you do not want to miss.For me, this one was just about as good as the first two in the Tyrant series (the two with Kineas) and slightly better than “Funeral Games” (the third one). This created a little bit of a problem for rating this book because I have rated the former 5 stars and the latter four only (although I would have given it four stars and a half if this had been possible. So, this one was, for me, worth more than 4.5 stars although a couple of fractions less than 5. Something like 4.8 rounded up to five. Needless to say, I am very much looking forward to the next one in the series because it looks like, I assume (and very much hope!) that this was not the last one.For those wanting to learn more on the historical events, there is an increasding number of narratives on the Successors and the subject has become quite popular. Two of the most accessible and easier to read ones - or more accuratly two of the ones I preferred - are "The Legacy of Alexander" (A Bosworth), which is particularly valuable with its piece on Macedonian numbers throughout the Empire at the death of Alexander (and afterwards, to a lesser extent), and the more general "Dividing the Spoils" (Robin Waterfield). There are however other good ones as well. There is also a growing list of biographies on the main Successors. One I definitely recommend is Billows on Antigonos the One-Eyed and the Creation of the Hellenistic State, even if is perhaps a bit biaised in favour of this outstanding character.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. An excellent conclusion to the Tyrant series By Hepius An excellent conclusion to the Tyrant series. I've loved the entire series, but this one might be my favorite. I loved how Cameron managed to bring together the surviving characters from all of the earlier books for the dramatic finale.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Tyrant VI - an excellent book. By Amazon Customer Personally, though I am familiar with the history of the world of Alexander's successors and the surviving accounts thereof quite well, I am very pleased with this book and its author's skill in filling in the gaps in the historical record.With an excellent, emotional, and often thought-evoking storytelling style, Christian Cameron shows a highly-developed understanding of the operational level of warfare, and the logistical complexity and exhausting nature of mobile warfare -- even before the battle begins!One can clearly feel the love that He has for his subject matter, and his devotion to research. This fictional account, like many in the series before it, surprises and entertains the reader by fulfilling that oft-desired but uncommonly-delivered tandem of both historically-plausibility and brilliant character and event driven storytelling.I've read this book many times since it first became available for purchase, and I hope you will too - highly recommended.
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