Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
EXCELLENT....., 5 Sep 2000
A brilliant book that brings alive the majic of ancient Egypt. Followers of Pauline Gedge will not be disappointed with this most recent novel. Gedge paints a vivid picture of life in ancient Egypt and the characters are all depicted brilliantly. Gedge really explores her characters and brings them to life, especially Kamose, who very little is known about. With such little information on this ancient figure she has still managed to bring him to life as an emotional 3D character. I am waiting eagerly for the second part of this novel, becuase I couldn't put the first one down! I recommend this book to anyone...
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Must read for Egypt fans, 27 Nov 2003
I absolutely love this book and the other two parts of the trilogy. It is full of details and the historical characters are described in a way that we feel as if we knew them in real life. Gedge is one of the few authors who actually do some research on the topic they're writing a novel about, and she needs credit for this, it's a pity that other authors don't follow her example. She is true to the real historical events and alters only minor things to add a twist to the story (like the historical Tani was the sister of Apophis and I'm not sure if Siamun really existed) but these things do no harm to history and just make the story better.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
First Book in an Excellent Historical Trilogy , 13 Dec 2008
Pauline Gedge, an author who seems able to make ancient Egypt come alive, writes movingly about the true story of a small family, the last descendents of the pharaohs. This is not set in the era we think of when we think of conquered Egypt---not Alexander the Great, nor the Romans were the conquerers, but the Hyksos, a group of wandering shephards who were probably Semitic. This time period is about 1640 BCE, or at the end of the Middle Kingdom.
The descendents of the last ruling native Pharaohs were the family of Seqenenra Tao, whose ancestors had been pushed down to the area around Thebes, and lived quietly, much like country squires, with servants, with the respect of the local people, and were even recognized by the Hyksos leaders in the Delta region and Memphis. But they had no real power, and lived at the sufferance of the Hyksos king.
The Hyksos had conquered Egypt with new weapons---weapons so profoundly new and terrifying that they made every other nation's army obsolete. They had chariots and war horses, neither of which the Egyptians had even seen before being conquered by them.
By the mid-1550's BCE the tension between the house of Seqenenra Tao and the power in Memphis was at a peak. Tradition tells the story that the Hyksos king, to remain placated, kept forcing Tao to do tasks more and more difficult as well as objectionable to his culture and history. The final demand was for Tao to kill all the Hippopatami in the river near him, because their roaring kept the Hyksos king awake at night. This, clearly, was impossible due to the distances involved, and was an overt attempt to force Tao's hand or humiliate him more.
Seqenenra Tao and his young adult sons decided enough was enough, and to finally fight back though it would be against suicidal odds. This is the beginning of the first book in Pauline Gedge's trilogy.
The quiet life of the Tao family, their deep devotion to their local god, Amun, the fear of going to war, knowing what the outcome will almost certainly be, yet feeling they must pursue this course, these are all described with such feeling and such clear understanding of the mind of Sequenenra Tao, his wife, his elderly mother, his children and servants....
(In another book I rate very highly, the non-fiction "Egypt's False God: Akhenaten" by Nicholas Reeves, a section on earlier Egyptian history discusses this time period, and there are photographs of the mummy of Tao).
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by Pauline Gedge
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