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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A noble attempt--, 31 Aug 1999
By A Customer
as one of Harlan's characters might say, as they seem incapable of realistic speech. Seriously, a good try for a first novel--nothing to be ashamed of--but I hope Mr. Harlan works on his characters and forbears from pushing the plot around just to get from point A to point B in his next book. We have a character introduced in a manner that suggests he's a fairly young boy, no older than 11 or 12, then we suddenly find out in the middle of the book that he's 16. 16, dammit! We have a character wondering time and again why the men under her command accept her as a leader, but golly, they just do. We have a character who gives no hint of his ability to stand up to the major supreme meanie on the block, but he almost does, not once, but twice. His attempts seem to cause more harm than good by the way--and just how does his body end up back within city walls when he falls outside them in single combat, surrounded by the enemy? A few other things that happened off-stage took me quite by surprise. Oh, I also hope he eases up on the fashion show. I was getting to the point where one more description of a plain tunic with stitching at the collar and cuffs would have had me hurling the book across the room. And it's a library book. That wouldn't have been nice.
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2.0 out of 5 stars
Thin characters and little alternate history, 14 Nov 2008
Shadow of Ararat starts out strong, but it doesn't last for the long haul. Where the story fails is not so much in the plot, but in the characterization.
Mainly we follow 4 characters (Maxian, Dwyrin, Thyatis and Ahmet), though the story jumps from viewpoint to viewpoint willy-nilly. The characters however are cliched and in general not believable. Maxian - a healer - suddenly turns necromancer without a single moral scrupple (he agonizes a lot over other things, but never about becoming a necromancer). By the end of the book he has become a great sorceror/necromancer, though the book doesn't bother explaining why this is so. Dwyrin is a young mage of no interest in this story - probably a sequel character. Thyatis is a great woman leader - she constantly wonders why her troops follow her - after reading the book, I still wonder (a very unrealistic character). Ahmet is another mage, spending the entire book doing nothing with his magic until the end where he suddenly turns out to be a great sorcerer. There are many more huge gaping holes in the characterization (for all the major characters).
One very irritating habit of the author is to gloss over important events - thus we will read that "they charge" and then shift viewpoint, so we never what happens when they charged (only the result, later). The same thing happens with emotional scenes or dialogues - the story gives the initial dialogue - then the story jumps, and later we get to understand that such and such have become lovers. It's a first novel, so a few of these episodes can be excused, but it's frustating to read (and seems lazy of the author).
As alternate history, the story isn't much good: the reader is given no reason for the world (or why the West Roman Empire survived). The story occasionaly mixes up "historical facts" (unintentionally), though this is not too bad (even Turtledove does that). The worst part is probably Julius Caesar - who is not the least bit credible (the only thing remotely Caesarian about this character is his dalliance with females). I shudder to think what the next book will do to Alexander. All in all, this story might as well have been placed in any standard fantasy world - it certainly has very little resemblance to the real Roman world other than the names and descriptions of clothing (no scene without a description of the clothing - its a little excessive).
So why do I give it 2 stars? Well, the battle scenes are ok (though a bit cinematic) when they don't jump. Some of the plot lines are interesting (though others are downright boring). Having bought this book at a hefty discount, I don't feel too bad about buying it. I didn't buy any of the sequels.
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1.0 out of 5 stars
Close, but no cigar, 8 Aug 2006
As a few people have noted, this is a great idea, but let down by its execution.
The characters could be great, but seem to lack motivation/reason-to-be or just something !
Its unnecessarily long ( should be cut by half at least ) and needs a good edit, correcting the irritating grammar ( starting sentences with "Too", meaning "As well", "whitewhashed white wallls"? )
Perhaps the author's a fashion guru, but the detailed clothing description every time we meet a character ( new or old ) is frankly tedious. It also needs a large dollop of humour.
I skip-read the last 200 or so pages and don't think I missed much of the plot, and I would gather from the final pages and the latest "historical" character to be resurrected, that the subsequent books are as lengthy, and probably as tedious.
I thoroughly enjoy reading alternative ( even fantasy ) things with an historical basis, but it still needs to be well-written, even more than having a good plot.
I'd gather that the author has produced many of these, so he must have found a niche : I just hope the grammar and writing have improved along with a shortening of the novel length.
Somehow, I doubt it, and, for me at least, the rest of this alternative Roman history will remain unread.
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