Hannibal's Children: Amazon.co.uk: John Maddox Roberts: Books

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4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)

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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Alternative History is Thrilling, 4 April 2004

By

Manolas Emmanuel (Athens, Greece) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hannibal's Children (Hardcover)

The Romans won the three Punic (Foenician) Wars and eventually destroyed Carthage. That is history.
Science fiction deals with the question "What If?".
In this book the author John Maddox Roberts asks this question "What if the Romans were defeated in the second Punic War?" and examines the alternative flow of history, which is also very interesting. The author surely knows his Latin, but everything is explained and the adventure is vivid.
Do not wait to see it on film!

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well Worth a Read, 10 Mar 2007

By

J. Chippindale (England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Hannibal's Children (Paperback)

John Maddox Roberts is the pseudonym of Mark Ramsay, author of numerous works of science fiction and fantasy, in addition to his successful historical SPQR mystery series. He lives in New Mexico with his wife.

This is a slight change of tack by the author, though this novel is still about Ancient Rome. Rather than mysteries to be solved by the leading character in the SPQR series, Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger, the author tackles the hypothetical question as to what would have been the consequences for Rome if Hannibal had received the reinforcements he needed to drive home his attack?

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Amazon.com: 3.5 out of 5 stars (31 customer reviews)

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It plods...., 17 Oct 2002

By W Boudville - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Hannibal's Children (Hardcover)

Alternate history is such a strange beast, full of windy unresolvable what might have beens. Ancient Rome has attracted its share of modern writers, speculating about its nemeses. And of these, none came closer to destroying Rome than Carthage. (With the exception of Rome's ultimate collapse in the 5th century to the Huns.) In the first and second Punic Wars, Rome was locked in a death dance with Carthage, whose greatest leader, Hannibal is remembered to this day. Several years ago, Poul Anderson wrote a novelette, "Delenda Est", invoking time travelling terrorists who use ray guns to put Carthage victorious. The result is an Earth utterly unlike ours.

John Maddox Roberts chooses a different tack. Through the vagaries of the second Punic War, Hannibal crushes the Romans and forces them to migrate north. Hannibal's victory is not implausible. That war was a close run thing, to those who have read of it.

All this is the prelude to the novel, set a century later. The Romans have conquered in central Europe, and are pushing back into Italy, thirsting for revenge. Some of you science fiction readers may notice the resemblance thus far to S M Stirling's "The Chosen". In that, a warlike people get defeated and forced into exile. But generations later, they have rearmed and are back for a rematch.

The contrasts are interesting. Stirling's Chosen are the bad fellows (proto-Draka), while Roberts' Romans are our heroes. The Chosen and the Romans have a better military, and chalk up many successes. But somehow this novel plods. Technically each section of a chapter is ok. But something is missing. The Carthaginians seem more foolish than bad. The Romans effortlessly outthink and outfight their opponents, who are not actually Carthaginians in this novel, but Egyptians. The protagonists are almost cartoonish cardboards. Very little nuancing here.

Clearly, a sequel is planned. Perhaps it will be more compelling.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Very Good Read, 24 Jun 2002

By Troy C. Goodale "troycg" - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Hannibal's Children (Hardcover)

Once again John Maddox Roberts displays his extensive knowledge of ancient Rome (like in the SPQR series), and in this book Carthage as well. In this alternate Earth, unlike our own, Hannibal gets assistance from Philip V of Macedon during the Second Punic War and forces Rome to conditionally surrender. Rome's leaders agree to emigrate north out of Italy into the Roman province of Noricum: comprising most of present day Austria and bits of Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia.

The plot is revenge. After 115 years of forced exile the descendants of the Romans feel the time is right to send an expedition into the Italian penisula and down to Rome. The leader of the expedition is Marcus Cornelius Scipio, whose ancestor Scipio Africanus ultimately defeated Hannibal in actual history. The Roman party then visits the cities of Carthage and Alexandria and partakes in a war between the Carthaginian Empire and Ptolemaic Egypt.

This book is very interesting and I found it quite a page-turner. Maddox gives eloquent descriptions of the gods of the Roman pantheon, as well as those of many Eastern religions (Carthage and Egypt's). The reader is also given thorough explanations of Roman military tactics and warfare in general from that era. In all, the book is quite informative.

My only problems with this historical fiction novel are the development of the protagonist (M. Scipio) and the antagonist Titus Norbanus. Titus is descended from a Germanic tribe that is absorbed into the population of Roma Noricum. The Norbanus family is one of the "new" patrician families in the Senate who are at odds with the "old" patrician families that migrated from Rome, such as the Scipios. The author grants Marcus Scipio with all the virtues that Romans were noted for, while Titus is an incidious compilation of Marius, Sulla, and Caesar. I found these two characters simliar to John Maddox Robert's "Islander" fantasy series in that: the good guy is too good to be true, and the villain is so obnoxious that the reader (this one anyway) wishes that somebody would simply strangle the antagonist and remove him from the story. Further, I found the authority that the Senate gives Titus Norbanus not to be credible in the slightest degree. The author knows that Romans during the Republic were required to serve two magisterial positions and have some actual military experience before they are given the command that Titus gets, no matter how influential his family is. John Maddox Roberts glosses over this problem by saying that these were extraordinary circumstances, but that is poor justification in my opinion.

All in all, I highly recommend this book and will definitely read the next book in the series.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Eternal Rome in an Alternate World, 17 July 2002

By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Hannibal's Children (Hardcover)

Rome's rise from a tiny group of clans to a vast empire that endured for centuries has something inexorable about it. So it seemed to the Romans themselves when Virgil talked of destiny, to the Christians when Augustine proclaimed the empire divinely ordained, and to the barbarians who encircled and attacked it, yet always desired it. However you interpret Rome's history, the City's survival was on a knife's edge more than once. If the Etruscans had conquered the new Republic or Alexander the Great had turned west to Italy or Hannibal had led Carthage to victory, all of subsequent history would have been different. Or maybe it wouldn't have been? What if the Romans were exiled after the second war with Carthage and sent into exile, still a nation? That's the premise of Roberts' novel. The book is fun, fast paced, backed up with lots of historical knowledge and some interesting characters. I'd like to see a deeper sense of contingency and human imperfection in the sequel, with Roman soldiers who are not so perfect and undefeatable and with two main antagonists who are not so completely Good Guy vs. Bad Guy. But mainly I want to see how Roberts works things out. Will history resume along the lines we know, making the Mediterranean a Roman lake and the Hellenistic kingdoms Roman provinces? This book is good summer entertainment.

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