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grav_ityFunny Thing About Getting A Degree In Near Eastern Archaeology: A lot of the time, they skip Alexander the Great.
I'm not even kidding. He's one of the most influential people in history, and he's a footnote in my degree. I still remember it (because my friend Elizabeth was REALLY ANNOYED), when our Greek class ended with a two hour lecture on Phillip on account of the prof running out of time, and our Hellenistic and Roman Palestine course literally began with the prof saying "After the death of Alexander the Great..." I'm also pretty sure we ran out of time in Egyptian Art and Archaeology too, and got so bogged down in the Hittites that we didn't get anywhere close when we did Mesopotamia. In my last year (I think, it might have been the year after I left...) there was a class about Alexander the Great. Either way, I didn't take it.
So my knowledge of Alexander the Great is not exactly encyclopedic. And, honestly, sometimes I find his legacy very frustrating (see previous re: healthy disdain for the Greeks). But regardless of my personal feelings towards Greek architecture and statuary, I have do admit that Alexander had a wonderful sense of the cosmopolitan, which makes him about a hundred times more likeable than your average Greek.
Also, he had a tendency to name things after his horse, and the bonus mark I got for knowing the horse's name meant that I got 100% in my grade eleven Ancient History class, which was worth $150 and eternal bragging rights of having scored better than perfect on everything all year long (thank you, Mr. Yates!).
But enough about me! Let's talk about the book:
You guys, I don't even know where to START.
Because it would be easy to start at the beginning, except the beginning was three books ago, and two of them take place after this one, so that doesn't really work.
I adored Lydias to bits, of course. And that was before I realized that I had inadvertently and uncharacteristically (and I mean that: I never pick actors for books without significant prompting) cast him as Peter Wingfield. For a while I was all "Seriously? Is there anyone alive who is this awesome a human being?" and then I realized that I had no trouble with him when he was a woman, which really wasn't fair, so I decided to love him as much as I love Gull (and, by extension, the others).
I also really liked Ptolemy (surprise!) and Artashir (sur...you know what? I'm not even going to pretend. I don't think I've ever want to marry a fictional character this badly, and I can say that about every incarnation), and I really liked the way that Roxanne and Thais were written. And Chloe. Oh, Chloe.
At one point, there was a nine day long moving siege. That lasted for pages and pages and pages. With descriptions of the walls. And evolving battle tactics. And crocodiles. *draws hearts and flowers around this book*
Seriously, it's taking everything I have not to just hit the CAPSLOCK button and flail at you indiscriminately.
As with Hand of Isis, this was not an empty book. It was a book full of THINGS. Like the aforementioned cosmopolitan nature that Alexander hoped to engender in the world he conquered, and Bagoas's search for his identity once he arrived in a place where his gender didn't exist. And love, of course. These books are absolutely full of love.
Also, I totally thought the astronaut thing was in half-jest, but it's, uh, canon. *beams*
I am going to need a wall chart to keep all these people straight...
Even though I think I actually still like Black Ships the best, I am going to go ahead and give this one a 10 out of 10, because it was REALLY WELL WRITTEN, and since I feel like I've now read this book four times*, that's saying something, and because it had a happy ending, and we all know how I feel about those.
*in that that's how this world works, not that Graham is recycling plots willy-nilly. It's an "All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again" kind of thing. And I adore it.
++++
And because I can't resist, Alexander is also the subject of my favourite mosaic (well, sort of. He's on the left and mostly destroyed, but still). I love it because the centre of the piece is a horse's behind (which must have been on purpose, but I think is also something that would have just KILLED the artist afterwards), and because at least one of the horses has five legs, but also because the largest tessera is thumbnail sized. There is a gleam in Alexander's eye, f-list. There are a MILLION AND A HALF PIECES, f-list. And some dude in Pompeii WALKED on this thing.
I'm not even kidding. He's one of the most influential people in history, and he's a footnote in my degree. I still remember it (because my friend Elizabeth was REALLY ANNOYED), when our Greek class ended with a two hour lecture on Phillip on account of the prof running out of time, and our Hellenistic and Roman Palestine course literally began with the prof saying "After the death of Alexander the Great..." I'm also pretty sure we ran out of time in Egyptian Art and Archaeology too, and got so bogged down in the Hittites that we didn't get anywhere close when we did Mesopotamia. In my last year (I think, it might have been the year after I left...) there was a class about Alexander the Great. Either way, I didn't take it.
So my knowledge of Alexander the Great is not exactly encyclopedic. And, honestly, sometimes I find his legacy very frustrating (see previous re: healthy disdain for the Greeks). But regardless of my personal feelings towards Greek architecture and statuary, I have do admit that Alexander had a wonderful sense of the cosmopolitan, which makes him about a hundred times more likeable than your average Greek.
Also, he had a tendency to name things after his horse, and the bonus mark I got for knowing the horse's name meant that I got 100% in my grade eleven Ancient History class, which was worth $150 and eternal bragging rights of having scored better than perfect on everything all year long (thank you, Mr. Yates!).
But enough about me! Let's talk about the book:
You guys, I don't even know where to START.
Because it would be easy to start at the beginning, except the beginning was three books ago, and two of them take place after this one, so that doesn't really work.
I adored Lydias to bits, of course. And that was before I realized that I had inadvertently and uncharacteristically (and I mean that: I never pick actors for books without significant prompting) cast him as Peter Wingfield. For a while I was all "Seriously? Is there anyone alive who is this awesome a human being?" and then I realized that I had no trouble with him when he was a woman, which really wasn't fair, so I decided to love him as much as I love Gull (and, by extension, the others).
I also really liked Ptolemy (surprise!) and Artashir (sur...you know what? I'm not even going to pretend. I don't think I've ever want to marry a fictional character this badly, and I can say that about every incarnation), and I really liked the way that Roxanne and Thais were written. And Chloe. Oh, Chloe.
At one point, there was a nine day long moving siege. That lasted for pages and pages and pages. With descriptions of the walls. And evolving battle tactics. And crocodiles. *draws hearts and flowers around this book*
Seriously, it's taking everything I have not to just hit the CAPSLOCK button and flail at you indiscriminately.
As with Hand of Isis, this was not an empty book. It was a book full of THINGS. Like the aforementioned cosmopolitan nature that Alexander hoped to engender in the world he conquered, and Bagoas's search for his identity once he arrived in a place where his gender didn't exist. And love, of course. These books are absolutely full of love.
Also, I totally thought the astronaut thing was in half-jest, but it's, uh, canon. *beams*
I am going to need a wall chart to keep all these people straight...
Even though I think I actually still like Black Ships the best, I am going to go ahead and give this one a 10 out of 10, because it was REALLY WELL WRITTEN, and since I feel like I've now read this book four times*, that's saying something, and because it had a happy ending, and we all know how I feel about those.
*in that that's how this world works, not that Graham is recycling plots willy-nilly. It's an "All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again" kind of thing. And I adore it.
++++
And because I can't resist, Alexander is also the subject of my favourite mosaic (well, sort of. He's on the left and mostly destroyed, but still). I love it because the centre of the piece is a horse's behind (which must have been on purpose, but I think is also something that would have just KILLED the artist afterwards), and because at least one of the horses has five legs, but also because the largest tessera is thumbnail sized. There is a gleam in Alexander's eye, f-list. There are a MILLION AND A HALF PIECES, f-list. And some dude in Pompeii WALKED on this thing.
