I am in the process of reading and greatly enjoying the second installment of John Maddox Roberts' foray into fantasy or, more accurately, alternate history. He began this last year with Hannibal's Children, set in a world where Hannibal and Carthage had won the Second Punic War, forcing the Romans to abandon Rome and to go into exile North of the Alps. The Romans had done so, packing up bags, baggage, livestock, and ancestral masks and taking them across the Alps to found a new Rome, "Roma Noricum", which they built into an empire along the Danube and the Rhine Rivers. But they were just biding their time, rebuilding, waiting for the moment when they could return to their true homeland. Hannibal's Children starts there, with what amounts to an armed reconnaissance into Italy and, eventually, into Carthage and Egypt.
The new book, just out, entitled The Seven Hills is as good a read as the first one and it is continuing the stories of the two primary characters, Marcus Scipio, of the old Roman patrician family that would have produced Publius Scipio Africanus in our history, and Titus Norbanus the Younger, a member of one of the new senatorial families created from the leaders of the conquered tribes, and deadly political rivals. It also adds two Greek philosphers, Zeno, a Stoic, and Izates, a Cynic, althogh a Jew by birth, as well as Gabinius, the Senatus Princeps, the First Senator, who is leader of the Senate. The further adventures of these and other individuals are great fun to follow, the only problem being that the book keeps me up too late at night reading it.
Actually, it is good to read a fantasy that is written by one as absolutely grounded in the history of the era in which it is set as is J.M. Roberts, who is also the author of the equally good "SPQR" series of mysteries set in the Rome of the First Century BCE.
I recommend that anyone with an interest in Rome and a willingness to enjoy a fantasy buy these books and get hooked on them as I am.
The new book, just out, entitled The Seven Hills is as good a read as the first one and it is continuing the stories of the two primary characters, Marcus Scipio, of the old Roman patrician family that would have produced Publius Scipio Africanus in our history, and Titus Norbanus the Younger, a member of one of the new senatorial families created from the leaders of the conquered tribes, and deadly political rivals. It also adds two Greek philosphers, Zeno, a Stoic, and Izates, a Cynic, althogh a Jew by birth, as well as Gabinius, the Senatus Princeps, the First Senator, who is leader of the Senate. The further adventures of these and other individuals are great fun to follow, the only problem being that the book keeps me up too late at night reading it.
Actually, it is good to read a fantasy that is written by one as absolutely grounded in the history of the era in which it is set as is J.M. Roberts, who is also the author of the equally good "SPQR" series of mysteries set in the Rome of the First Century BCE.I recommend that anyone with an interest in Rome and a willingness to enjoy a fantasy buy these books and get hooked on them as I am.