Empire Rising | Sam Barone

Empire Rising | Sam Barone | Empire Rising/ Dawn of Empire

books:

Empire Rising

	Empire Rising Sam Barone William Morrow, 2007 - 480 pages average customer review:based on 17 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

It is 3157 B.C.?The beginning of the Bronze Age and the rise of cities?and at the eastern edge of the great southern desert in Mesopotamia, men are at war. Bandits and worse plunder the countryside seeking women, slaves, and gold. Into this unsettled land come the outcast Korthac and the remnants of his mighty desert fighters. They encounter a band of thieves led by Ariamus. The two join forces and set their sights on the biggest prize of all: the burgeoning city of Akkad?the town formerly known as Orak that just a few months earlier defeated a horde of raiding barbarians by building an impenetrable wall. Akkad is known not only for its riches, but also for the courage and wisdom of its leaders, the former barbarian Eskkar and his enchanting wife, Trella. Together they drove off the barbarian horde, and now they face an even more daunting challenge?to preserve their victory.

But it's only by defeating Eskkar, Trella, and the people of Akkad that Korthac and Ariamus can claim Akkad's wealth and enslave its people . . .

Korthac devises a plan to slip his men into Akkad and conquer the city from within. And while Eskkar is roaming the land, winning the trust of other towns and bringing them into his growing empire, Korthac and Ariamus strike, wreaking havoc on the young city.

Told with rich historical detail and set in a time of promise and peril, Sam Barone's thrilling, beautifully rendered tale places him in the ranks of the best historical fiction writers working today. Empire Rising is another marvelous trip into the past with an unforgettable cast of characters.

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Empire Rising

Very enjoyable -- too bad there's such a long wait for the next volume! While this continues the saga of Eskkar & Trella, it is truly Trella's reign that is being established. Eskkar relies so much more on her wisdom that is well beyond her years as well as her keen "sixth sense" to aid her to stay ahead of the political intrigues that begin to manifest society in Akkad. She's smart enough to know there are many more enemies than the recently defeated barbarian hordes. Those new enemies now seek to usurp Eskkar & Trella and gain the riches of Akkad's citizens. One has to remember this is 5,000 years ago - not yet ready for democracy as we know it!

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Empire Rising/ Dawn of Empire

Sam Barone takes the best from my three favorite authors: Zane Grey, Bernard Cornwell, and Wilbur Smith. Like Zane Grey the main characters are presented as people that you can really like and respect. They are thoughtful, introspective, grow in stature, and have interesting relationships. The women tend to play a major role and know how to inspire their men and share in their success. Like Bernard Cornwell, Sam Barone writes great historical fiction. Cornwell is a master at writing about battle and how people react to it. Barone is equal to or better than Cornwell! His single battle detail may take 50+ pages to read, and the battles are described through the eyes of many characters both the good and the villainous. I was up until 2:30 in the morning last night reading the climactic battle in Empire Rising, just loving it while at the same time wishing for it to end so that I could go to sleep. Like Wilbur Smith, Sam Barone is a wonderful story teller. But unlike Smith, Barone rarely kills off the people that you grow to admire. And when he does, he doesn't make the reader ill by graphically dismembering them the way Smith does. Lastly, unrelated to any of the three authors I previously mentioned, Sam Barone's characters tend to not just see and react to dangerous situations. What I find vastly interesting is that when there is time, the characters contemplate what they see, try to make sense of it, use the lessons that they have learned, and then try to make knowledgeable decisions. It is hard to believe that Sam Barone has only written two books!!! Well, I am one person that will continue to buy his future books.

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A superior sequel

This is one of those rare cases when a pretty good first novel is followed by an even better sequel. In _Dawn of Empire,_ Eskkar, an ex-barbarian nomad turned town-dweller some 5,000 years ago, establishes a base of personal power by taking responsibility for defending the prosperous village of Orak from his erstwhile fellow marauders. He undergoes a major mental and psychological transformation under the tutelage and urging of Trella, a slave girl who was raised to use her brains before she fell onto hard times. The construction of a defensive town wall and the building of a small infantry army consisting mostly of archers does the trick, though not without some very chancy moments. Now, Eskkar has to try to consolidate his hold on Orak -- now renamed Akkad -- by bringing the surrounding territory under his sway, trading the town's protection for trading rights. Most of the book, in fact, has Eskkar up north in another village, learning how to take the first steps in building an empire by winning hearts and minds, while Trella looks after things back home. The fly in the ointment is Korthac, an Egyptian who lost his own struggle for power and has fled across the desert to Mesopotamia in search of another opportunity for self-aggrandizement. He runs into Ariamus, the cowardly ex-captain of Orak's town guard turned bandit whose place Eskkar took at the beginning of the first book. Instead of a frontal assault, Korthac undertakes a stealthy campaign of subversion and fifth-column-building in the town -- and then strikes suddenly, taking control and making a prisoner of Trella. When word finally reaches Eskkar, who has been taking a semi-vacation up north, the leader has to hurry back and figure out a way to himself break into the town that he recently defended against attack. There are several artfully intertwined sub-plots that all come together at the end, and the reader is left in no doubt as to Trella's motivations; she doesn't seek the expansion of power for its own sake, but because that's the only way to protect the child she's carrying, to be sure her progeny will rule after Eskkar. Barone's writing is much smoother than in his first book, so he seems to be learning the trade. And while the anachronisms from the first book (mounted cavalry and coinage, etc.) are still there, the reader is advised to not worry about it and simply enjoy the story. I'm assuming there will be a third volume, in which young Sargon will start to learn how to rule, and I'll certainly be watching for it.

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OK, but too politically correct

I enjoyed most of the first 100 pages, except for the ultra-politically correct sex scenes written for 21st Century sensitivities. The book lost its focus and unravelled as it went on. The author could have placed his story in almost any time and place. Rather than a deeply felt and researched novel of Mesopotamia, it was a soap opera approach (albiet well done for the most part). Unfortunately, like most historical fiction written recently, the author cashes in on our fascination with the past without doing the difficult and time-consuming research required to bring the realities of that era into contemporary focus.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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