Troy: Fall of Kings

I finished Troy:  Fall of Kings the other day and I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed this series.  For those of you who do not know, this series is David Gemmell’s retelling of the Trojan War cycle.  The final book focuses on the war with Troy and Greece.  Let me highlight some of my favorite parts.

-Achilles battle with Hektor.  Such a good fight scene, plus Gemmell does such a good job of making Achilles a likeable character at the beginning of the book.  He learns how to be a decent man from Odysseus.  Also, instead of Achilles killing Hektor outright, it was much cooler that they both died from the dual.

-Gershom heads to Egypt with the desert folks and we learn at the end of the book that because of the eruption on Thera, the Nile is turning red and also locusts are attacking people.  Gershom had a prophecy of his brother, the pharaoh, freeing the desert people, but only after suffering a great loss (hinting towards the first born).  Apparently, the people believe that Gershom’s god caused these “plagues” upon the city.

-The Hittite emperor coming to destroy Troy after Agamemnon takes over.  That was pretty awesome.  The sheer contempt he shows for Agamemnon made me so happy.  Agamemnon is such a dick in just about every version of the old story.  It just felt so good to have someone knock him down a few pegs.

-I also loved the part where Helikaon goes to help Odysseus rescue Penelope.  Such a cool thing seeing these two forget the war and rescue Odysseus’ wife, with the help of Achilles.

-I can understand how some people would have problems with the ending.  It ends with Helikaon being dead and Andromache setting his funeral pyre (his ship) on fire.  She is joined by her grown sons and grandsons.  We learn that Dex (Helikaon’s first wife’s/stepmom’s son from the rape) is now known as Iulos, which will be the family that gives birth to Julius Caesar.  It just ends so abruptly, but whatever, I still enjoyed it.

Actually there is just way too much that I loved in the book.    If you read the book(s) let me know what some of your favorite things were…

Author: Ngewo