The Blood of Alexandria
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Review
'Fascinating to read, very well written, an intriguing plot and I enjoyed it very much.'
(Derek Jacobi on CONSPIRACIES OF ROME )
'I can't resist recommending this first volume of a promised trilogy. Set during the last pangs of Imperial Rome, with a vivid account of the machinations of the early Church, it is well-informed, atmospheric and beautifully written.'
(Literary Review on CONSPIRACIES OF ROME )'It's simply the best historical novel I've ever read, perhaps short of C.S. Forester. It's a very great deal better than any of the ancient Roman detective novels I've seen.'
(L. Neil Smith on CONSPIRACIES OF ROME )
Product Description
The tears of Alexander shall flow, giving bread and freedom . . .
612 AD. Egypt, the jewel of the Roman Empire, seethes with unrest, as bread runs short and the Persians plot an invasion. In Alexandria, a city divided between Greeks and Egyptians by language, religion and far too few soldiers, the mummy of the Great Alexander, dead for nine hundred years, still has the power to calm the mob - or inflame it . . .
Aelric, the young British clerk who has become a senator and the trusted henchman of Emperor Heraclius, has come to Alexandria to send Egypt's harvest to Constantinople and to force the unwilling viceroy to give its land to the peasants. But the city - with its factions and conspirators - thwarts him at every turn. And when an old enemy from Constantinople arrives, supposedly on a quest for a religious relic that could turn the course of the Persian war, he will have to use all his cunning, his charm and his talent for violence to survive.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
a historical thriller with blakes usual style and skill
all the ingredients are in there! conspiracies,riots, effete villains, however it went over much of the same ground as your average eygto thriller the signposted lost city, the secret brotherhod of the old faith, the terrible secret, the lost tomb of alexander
alexanders mummy was unlike some novels of the same theme only an aside some nice touches but also lot of talk from the now familiar charactors
if you like blakes other aelric series and i did you will enjoy this but then again i always had a fondness for this period and blakes captures it well
all the ingredients are in there! conspiracies,riots, effete villains, however it went over much of the same ground as your average eygto thriller the signposted lost city, the secret brotherhod of the old faith, the terrible secret, the lost tomb of alexander
alexanders mummy was unlike some novels of the same theme only an aside some nice touches but also lot of talk from the now familiar charactors
if you like blakes other aelric series and i did you will enjoy this but then again i always had a fondness for this period and blakes captures it well
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I discovered Richard Blake in 2008. I am a big fan of 'Conspiracies of Rome', and I greatly enjoyed 'Terror of Constantinople'. When I heard there was another one on the way, I could barely wait. I was also more than a little apprehensive. Sequels (and sequels of sequels) are often increasingly disappointing. I had been lucky once with Mr Blake, but this was hardly a guarantee of his continued excellence. But I have now read 'Blood of Alexandria', and while I would be the first to say it is not in fact the best novel I have read, it is certainly the best historical novel I have read. Indeed, it is better even than his first, which I have come to prefer to the admittedly more richly-studied and sophisticated follow-up (possibly because it seems to me to be in some way "purer"). But what more of this one? Well, the best idea I can give you of it is to as you if you would like to know 7th century Alexandria. If you would, this is the book for you. Would you like to see the mummy of Alexander the Great? Would you like to see the Great Pyramid before the Arabs chose to deprive it of its limestone casing? Would you to see, hear, smell and taste a world that is long-dead, and may never have existed quite as depicted here, but which is presented with the utmost persausiveness and plausibility? Blake's knack for setting the scene is one of his greatest strengths. He has never been less than impressive in this respect, but here he excels himself: we are presented with a veritable rogue's gallery of disreputable but entirely credible characters. We are also left in no doubt that this is exactly how clever, ruthless people behave when plunged into an interlocking set of crises. Mr Blake's writing is fluent, immersive and so subtly expositional that we are able to persuade ourselves that the guilty pleasure of reading his works is tempered by their educational value. As we have come to expect, there are many moments of delicious black comedy, and many moments of shocking horror. And, driving everyone and everything inexorably on, is a plot as logical, complex and aesthetically and intellectually satisfying as a Bach fugue. It is a plot that picks us up on page one and does not allow us a moment's peace of mind until the moment when it sets us down, cathartically exhausted, five hundred pages later.
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is my first outing with Richard Blake Aelric,the young British clark who has become a senator and trusted henchman of Emperor Heracluis and i found that it kept me page turning all the way to the end of this politcal intrigue in 612AD Egypt.The one character i was not sure of was the Mistress who seem to float through the story but was not notice by anyone except Aelric and who had powers that seem to take us into the world of fantasy.The man who i grew to like was Priscus,the old enemy from Constantinopl who has a drug habit and a passion for a nice stake,but not all ways on the plate,which along with his pet cat,was not unlike that of a Bond villain.I also throught the Amazon Nuns was a nice touch in the final outcome,so perhaps not so far from fantasy.So to sum up,a good read that makes me want to explore the first two books by Blake and the ending leads one to believe we will have more adventures with Aelric yet to come.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Egyptian troubles for Aelric
The new Emperor Heraclius appoints Aelric with the less than pleasant job of enforcing a new taxation system and re-allocation of the land in Egypt: this plunges our anti-hero in a... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Ventura Angelo
A solid offering
The second novel for me by Richard Blake and one that I really devoured after finishing the first. As with the original, its beautifully written with a great excursion from modern... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Gareth Wilson - Falcata Times Blog
Directionless and not page-turning
After thoroughly being disenchanted with the screenplay, historically liberal photo-jacket offerings of Iggulden, I've steered clear of similar offerings from the likes of Anthony... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Mark
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