Christian Kachel

Trusting a very effusive review of someone whose opinion I respect, and though I'm excited at reading anything on the ancient world, I found this one was not my 'cup of tea.' Basically a Bildungsroman, a young Ionian Greek, Andrikos, falls in with a bad bunch of companions and because of a crime he commits, has to leave town. So he joins the army. Alexander the Great has died, leaving no clear successor and heir to his empire. Andrikos has joined the faction supporting Alexander's infant son. We see his brutal basic training, then he is blooded in his first battle but killing prisoners is distasteful to him. A spymaster sees something in him that he feels will be valuable--his naiveté--and recruits him for an espionage mission. I enjoyed his training to be an effective spy. Most of the novel follows that intrigue. A mature Andrikos emerges and we are left with not exactly a cliffhanger, but room for a new adventure, possibly incorporating his new talent. If Andrikos' adventures become a series, I pass on continuing.

On the whole I enjoyed the story. I was squeamish at the torture scene, which I felt was too grisly for my taste. Bad proofing or lack of any proofing annoyed me and spoiled my full enjoyment. I did not become immersed in that time period. Past participles were turned into verbs; there were many wrong homophones. Style ranged from too well organized and long-winded with extensive vocabulary, dialogue, and vulgarisms soon after. This was therefore unbelievable to me that simple soldiers and even the spymaster would talk that way. The author kept the same tone when different characters spoke and with descriptions. I couldn't connect with any characters, despite Andrikos being presented as a basically decent young man, led down the metaphorical "garden path" at first by the bad company he kept--and infiltrating the real pleasure garden, Triparadeisos, as part of his mission.… (mere)