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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyable if a bit anachronistic here and there, 23 May 2008
If you're a nit picking historian or athropologist with an interest in pre-biblical societies then Dawn of Empire will have you spitting tacks. Full of anachronistic language and social and scientific developments, this tale of early agrarian civilisation on the banks of the Tigris is not a good history lesson.
If however, you like a decent sword and sandals adventure then Sam Barone's debut will probably entertain (based on the cover art the publishers are aiming this very squarely at people who enjoyed the movie '300', although it shares little in common with it). Its not brilliant. There are too many repetitive sex scenes (every chapter seems to end with one) and the whole thing is about fifty pages too long. Overall however, its not a bad effort. Barone keeps the story simple (a bit too simple in places, with too few surprises being served up along the way), the pace moving along swiftly, the action scenes are well handled and the characters memorable enough that you don't lose track of who is who.
Its all enough to leave me sufficiently intrigued about what Barone does with the next volume in what is likely to be a trilogy of adventures at the very least. If its more of the same then I think I call it a day there, but Dawn of Empire suggests that the author at least has the potential to try something a bit different next time out.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dawn of a literary empire?, 20 May 2008
I was fortunate to pick up both Dawn of Empire and the sequel Empire Rising at the same time and read both over the course of a weekend then went back and immediately re-read them. I often re-read novels but usually months not days apart, such was my desire to drink in the author's creation.
The story is set by the Euphrates 3000 years before Christ at what might be called the dawn of Civilisation, the towns folk of Orak are threatened by the onward march of a tribe of migrating Steppes horseman, who sack each settlement in their path. Enter Esskar an exiled tribesman who has just been raised to the position of Captain of the Guard and with it the task to save Orak. To help in his task he is gifted a young slave girl Trella who soon uses her keen intellegence to aid Esskar navigate the challanges of preparing the village for the coming assault and the jealous nature of the native nobles.
In my view Trella is he highlight of both novels because Mr Barone does not use the familiar post feminist device of a "Xena" like amazon as his heroine but rather a more realisitic heroine who becomes powerful by exploiting the male perception of women and the influence that women have over their sons, brothers and husbands. That is not to say that she is soft, she is ultimately a pragmatist.
I would suggest that if you enjoy historical action novels that Cornwell, Scarrow, Forrester et al produce or are looking for a more satisfying female lead character then invest in these novels.
As for me, I shall wait impatiently for part three of the story and hope that the author may have time to produce a prequel that will detail the lives of Esskar and Trella before they meet.
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57 of 64 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Some Author Comments . . ., 9 Jul 2007
First, please excuse the rating, but as the author, I felt obligated to answer some of the negative comments posted here.
To start with, "samueltyler" is a bit off. Dawn of Empire isn't 'over 500 pages long,' it's only 480. And my name is Barone, not Bourne. Samueltyler recommends Conn Iggulden (one of my favorites, too), but I wonder if Mr. Tyler read Conn's very favorable review of Dawn, which is provided on the book's cover. The publisher shortened the full quote, which included Mr. Iggulden's comments that he couldn't get any work done for two days, because he couldn't put DOE down.
As for Mr. Chris Iphidaemos' comments, I really appreciate the remark about being 'well written.' I was attempting to tell the story of a very interesting period in our history, a time when technological advances in metallurgy and farming were changing the world. I'm quite aware that villages have had walls about them possibly much earlier, and I'm aware that horses were much smaller in those days (as were people; even as late as the 5th century BC, the average Greek warrior was only five and a half feet tall. And the American Indians, perhaps the finest light cavalry ever, did quite well with 'pony' sized horses.
His remarks about the use of coins are not quite accurate either, as I was very careful to avoid the term 'money' or imply any standardized currency. However, gold, silver, and other metals have been used for barter since their discovery, and in the interest of moving the story along, I created the use of locally made 'coins,' (not currency, which, by the way, was in use in India much earlier than the Roman time period). Otherwise, every chapter would have had large sections dealing with the barter of goods and services, which would have really slowed the narrative down.
What I did intend to show was that people in those ancient times were not any less intelligent than they were today. My theory, supported by some significant research, indicated that, with proper diet and nurturing, people might have been even more intelligent.
Again, I wanted to tell an entertaining story about a historically significant time period. Hopefully, those wanting to learn more 'facts' about those times will be motivated to read real history books. And that, I'm glad to say, seems to have happened in quite a few cases.
And I would like to remind Chris that there are quite a few 'Americans' who know their history quite well, thank you. But writing a story is a difficult undertaking, and literary license thankfully provides some leeway in the story telling.
sam barone
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