Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Even better than the first book..., 5 Jan 2009
I left quite a gap between reading the 'Pillars of Rome' and 'The Sword of Revenge', yet I caught up with the plot and characters again in no time. This is surely testimony to the care and resonance with which these books are written; notably the depth of narrative, human insight and the epic, panoramic scale of the adventures.
Jack Ludlow's writing is highly memorable, full of drama, taut suspense and deeply drawn characterisation. There is also level of irony and wit about his characters you don't often get in historical fiction.
I shan't spoil it for you, only suffice to say the story of Aquila continues, this time our Celtic (now Romanised) hero heads south to Sicily where there is a slave uprising and a reunion with Gadoric. In Rome, we see a brave and noble Marcellus come of age as the politics of the Republic reaches boiling point. Lucius meets his destiny as foretold by the Oracle and the sons of Aulus (Titus and Quintus) find themselves at moral odds in an ultimate struggle for power at very the heart of Rome.
I am now off to buy the third book in the series!
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great sequel, 24 Sep 2008
This is the 2nd book of a trilogy. In book one we were introduced to Lucius and Aulus, boyhood friends who grew to become a powerful but corrupt politician, and a noble and victorious general respectively. Both their wives have sons by other men with Lucius raising Marcellus as his own, while Aquila is abandoned at birth but is found and raised by a soldier and his wife. Aulus has two other sons, Quintus and Titus. By the end of book one Aulus is dead, and Aquila has lost both adoptive parents, his mentor has been sold to slavery and his girlfriend has been given away as a political gift.
This book takes up where book one finished. Quintus is adopted by Lucius as his political heir, while Titus and Marcellus want little to do with Lucius, politics and the corrupt ways of the Senate. Aquila falls in with a band of unsavoury characters, and a large part of the book is devoted to a slave revolt in Sicily. SPOILER - by the end of the book, Lucius too is dead, Aquila loses more people he cared for, and Aulus wife has begun to search for her son as she now suspects he survived being abandoned.
Ludlow doesn't pull his punches with some of the graphic descriptions of slaves being punished, many combat scenes, attempted male rape, and abuse of female slaves.
I enjoyed book1 one of this series and felt the sequel was even better. I look forward to reading book 3.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Even better than the first!, 23 April 2009
This is the second novel in Jack Ludlow's The Republic trilogy. As with the first novel this is amazingly well written, the character development is far better then in his previous work as is the back drop to the many different environments. Ludlow is definitely one of the best writers of historical fiction out there, easily up there with Iggulden and Cornwell. If you're a fan of Rome or any historical fiction then read this it will impress you.
With Aulus dead in battle and one part of the prophecy fulfilled, Lucius now wonders if his time will come soon. Aulus two sons Quintus, now Lucius's political heir and Titus, commanding his own legion now must face a future were war and power struggles seem a sure thing. While after the death of his mother, Aquila goes in search of his friend who has been sold to wheat fields of Sicily. All of these stories come together to create and explosive finally.
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