by Steven Pressfield
|
by Steven Pressfield
|
by Conn Iggulden
|
by Steven Pressfield
|
by David Gemmell
|
See buying choices for this item to see if it's one of the millions that are eligible for Amazon Prime.
|
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to their laws we lie.
Thus reads an ancient stone at Thermopylae in northern Greece, the site of one of the world's greatest battles for freedom. Here, in 480 B.C., on a narrow mountain pass above the crystalline Aegean, 300 Spartan knights and their allies faced the massive forces of Xerxes, King of Persia. From the start, there was no question but that the Spartans would perish. In Gates of Fire, however, Steven Pressfield makes their courageous defence--and eventual extinction-- unbearably suspenseful. In the tradition of Mary Renault, this historical novel unfolds in flashback. Xeo, the sole Spartan survivor of Thermopylae, has been captured by the Persians and Xerxes himself presses his young captive to reveal how his tiny cohort kept more than 100,000 Persians at bay for a week. Xeo, however, begins at the beginning, when his childhood home in northern Greece was overrun and he escaped to Sparta. There he is drafted into the elite Spartan guard and rigorously schooled in the art of war--an education brutal enough to destroy half the students, but (oddly enough) not without humour: "The more miserable the conditions, the more convulsing the jokes became, or at least that's how it seems," Xeo recalls. His companions-in-arms are Alexandros, a gentle boy who turns out to be the most courageous of all, and Rooster, an angry, half-Messenian youth. Pressfield's descriptions of war are breathtaking in their immediacy. They are also meticulously assembled out of physical detail and crisp, uncluttered metaphor:
Review
This is an international bestseller of truly epic proportions. It gives account to thet Spartan-Persian battle of Thermopylae - the most awe inspiring and heroic battle ever fought in the ancient world. A novel rich in human colour and humour. With such touches of humanity as to bring us suddenly very close to those Spartans of 480BC. Following in the footsteps of many Renault, Pressfield brings his passion for the classical world to his work, and it shines forth from the page. A highly literate and accomplished work. Pressfield is to continue his work on the Spartans and the Peloponnesian War in Tides of War due to be published later this year. (Kirkus UK)
A triumph in historical fiction best describes this stirring account of the famous battle of Thermopylae, told by the lone survivor before succumbing to his wounds, in a logical followup to Pressfield's Homeric take on golf, The Legend of Bagger Vance (1995). The young squire Xeones is pulled from beneath a burned battle wagon when the carnage finally ends at the narrow mountain pass where, in 480 B.C., three hundred Spartans and a small allied force fought off, for a full week, the two-million-man army of Persian king Xerxes. Xeones is kept alive by the king's own physicians in the hope that he'll tell His Majesty all there is to know about those sublimely disciplined warriors who accomplished so great a victory. In a series of interviews recorded by the royal historian, Xeones recounts his own origins: forced to flee, newly orphaned, when his own city was sacked, he lived hand-to-mouth in the mountains until deciding to go to Sparta in order to learn all there was to know about defending himself. As he recalls Xerxes' army rolling inexorably into Athens, burning the city after a token defense, the survivor describes the decades of hard training endured by every Spartan male, and also the contacts he had with his youthful sparring partner, the silver-throated, sensitive Alexandros, and with the fair-minded, modest Dienekes (whose squire he would become). But by the time Xeones comes to the crux of his story, involving the mighty battle itself and the heroic actions of his comrades-in-arms, things have started to go awry again for the Persians. Although he will soon join his friends in death, Xeones lives long enough to know that their sacrifice was not in vain. While the romantic interests are somewhat stilted, the man-to-man and mano-a-mano elements are all superb, with a fine, elegiac tune - to be expected, frankly, given the subject - enhancing equally the historical details and the human touches. (Kirkus Reviews)
See all Product Description
Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to their laws we lie.
Thus reads an ancient stone at Thermopylae in northern Greece, the site of one of the world's greatest battles for freedom. Here, in 480 B.C., on a narrow mountain pass above the crystalline Aegean, 300 Spartan knights and their allies faced the massive forces of Xerxes, King of Persia. From the start, there was no question but that the Spartans would perish. In Gates of Fire, however, Steven Pressfield makes their courageous defence--and eventual extinction-- unbearably suspenseful. In the tradition of Mary Renault, this historical novel unfolds in flashback. Xeo, the sole Spartan survivor of Thermopylae, has been captured by the Persians and Xerxes himself presses his young captive to reveal how his tiny cohort kept more than 100,000 Persians at bay for a week. Xeo, however, begins at the beginning, when his childhood home in northern Greece was overrun and he escaped to Sparta. There he is drafted into the elite Spartan guard and rigorously schooled in the art of war--an education brutal enough to destroy half the students, but (oddly enough) not without humour: "The more miserable the conditions, the more convulsing the jokes became, or at least that's how it seems," Xeo recalls. His companions-in-arms are Alexandros, a gentle boy who turns out to be the most courageous of all, and Rooster, an angry, half-Messenian youth. Pressfield's descriptions of war are breathtaking in their immediacy. They are also meticulously assembled out of physical detail and crisp, uncluttered metaphor:
"The forerank of the enemy collapsed immediately as the first shock hit it; the body-length shields seemed to implode rearward, their anchoring spikes rooted slinging from the earth like tent pins in a gale. The forerank archers were literally bowled off their feet, their wall-like shields caving in upon them like fortress redoubts under the assault of the ram. The valour of the individual Medes was beyond question, but their light hacking blades were harmless as toys; against the massed wall of Spartan armour, they might as well have been defending themselves with reeds or fennel stalks."Alas, even this human barrier was bound to collapse, as we knew all along it would. "War is work, not mystery," Xeo laments. But Pressfield's epic seems to make the opposite argument: courage on this scale is not merely inspiring but ultimately mysterious. -- Marianne Painter, Amazon.com
Review
This is an international bestseller of truly epic proportions. It gives account to thet Spartan-Persian battle of Thermopylae - the most awe inspiring and heroic battle ever fought in the ancient world. A novel rich in human colour and humour. With such touches of humanity as to bring us suddenly very close to those Spartans of 480BC. Following in the footsteps of many Renault, Pressfield brings his passion for the classical world to his work, and it shines forth from the page. A highly literate and accomplished work. Pressfield is to continue his work on the Spartans and the Peloponnesian War in Tides of War due to be published later this year. (Kirkus UK)
A triumph in historical fiction best describes this stirring account of the famous battle of Thermopylae, told by the lone survivor before succumbing to his wounds, in a logical followup to Pressfield's Homeric take on golf, The Legend of Bagger Vance (1995). The young squire Xeones is pulled from beneath a burned battle wagon when the carnage finally ends at the narrow mountain pass where, in 480 B.C., three hundred Spartans and a small allied force fought off, for a full week, the two-million-man army of Persian king Xerxes. Xeones is kept alive by the king's own physicians in the hope that he'll tell His Majesty all there is to know about those sublimely disciplined warriors who accomplished so great a victory. In a series of interviews recorded by the royal historian, Xeones recounts his own origins: forced to flee, newly orphaned, when his own city was sacked, he lived hand-to-mouth in the mountains until deciding to go to Sparta in order to learn all there was to know about defending himself. As he recalls Xerxes' army rolling inexorably into Athens, burning the city after a token defense, the survivor describes the decades of hard training endured by every Spartan male, and also the contacts he had with his youthful sparring partner, the silver-throated, sensitive Alexandros, and with the fair-minded, modest Dienekes (whose squire he would become). But by the time Xeones comes to the crux of his story, involving the mighty battle itself and the heroic actions of his comrades-in-arms, things have started to go awry again for the Persians. Although he will soon join his friends in death, Xeones lives long enough to know that their sacrifice was not in vain. While the romantic interests are somewhat stilted, the man-to-man and mano-a-mano elements are all superb, with a fine, elegiac tune - to be expected, frankly, given the subject - enhancing equally the historical details and the human touches. (Kirkus Reviews)
See all Product Description
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?
 |
88% buy the item featured on this page: Gates of Fire |
 |
4% buy Bones of the Hills (Conqueror 3) £3.77 |
 |
3% buy Tides of War £6.99 |
 |
2% buy Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow (Trojan War Trilogy): 1 £4.94 |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Customer Discussions
Beta (What's this?)|
This product's forum
(0 discussions)
Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Active discussions in related forums
|
Related forums
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > P > Pressfield, Steven
- Books > Fiction > By Period
- Books > Fiction > Genre > Historical
- Books > Fiction > Historical
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
Health & Beauty at Amazon.co.uk |
Treat Someone
With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is). |
|||||||||
| |||||
Your Recent History
(What's this?)|
You have no recently viewed items or searches.
After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session. |
Continue Shopping: Top Sellers
| ||||
Amazon Home | |
| International Sites: United States | Germany | France | Japan | Canada | China | |
| Business Programs: Sell on Amazon | Fulfilment by Amazon | Join Associates | Join Advantage | |
| Customer Service | Help | View Basket | Your Account | |
| About Amazon.co.uk | Careers at Amazon | |
| Conditions of Use & Sale | Privacy Notice © 1996-2009, Amazon.com, Inc. and its affiliates |