Tag: Reading Challenges

#BookReview #Ad The Wall by Adrian Goldsworthy @AriesFiction @HoZ_Books

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About the Book

Britannia, AD 117: Roman centurion Flavius Ferox is trying to live a quiet life of dignified leisure, overseeing his wife’s estate and doing his best to resist the urge to murder an annoying neighbour – until someone else does it for him. Dragged back into a life of violence, Ferox finds himself chasing raiders, fighting chieftains and negotiating with kings, journeying far into the north just as war breaks out.

With the new emperor, Hadrian, sending agents from Rome, the whole world seems to be changing: old friends become enemies, enemies claim they are friends, and new and deadly threats lurk in the shadows.

When, five years later, Hadrian himself comes to Britannia to inspect his great wall, a new war erupts suddenly, dividing tribes and families. Ferox is the only one who can save the emperor – but with his family, and his own life, in danger, Ferox must first decide whose side he is on…

Format: eARC (480 pages) Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 8th June 2023 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

The Wall is the chunky but absorbing final book in the City of Victory series, the follow-up to The Fort, which I read when it was first published in 2021, and The City, published in 2022 which has been on my wishlist ever since then. Although The Wall can be read as a standalone, I found I missed not having witnessed the exploits of Flavius Ferox in the previous book so my recommendation would be to read the series from the beginning. (I suspect the author would like that as well.) If you want to go back even further, Ferox first appeared in the author’s earlier ‘Vindolanda’ trilogy comprising Vindolanda, The Encircling Sea and Brigantia. True to form I’ve only read the first one, have the second one in my TBR pile and the third on my wishlist.

As a renowned historian of Ancient Rome, it will come as no surprise that the book is crammed full of detail about Roman army structure, weaponry and military strategy that just oozes authenticity. (An extensive glossary is provided for those who don’t know their spatha from their pilum, or want to learn some Roman army slang.) I would also recommend reading the Historical Note in which the author sets out the many gaps in the historical record which he has filled with a combination of invention and reasoned speculation based on his extensive knowledge of the period.

The Wall has everything that fans of Roman age historical fiction could desire. There are intense, bloody and bone-crunching battle scenes. ‘Shield thumped against shield. There were grunts of effort, rage and fear, rare clashes of sword on sword, more of iron biting into flesh.’ As usual, Ferox is often one step ahead of everyone else thanks to that instinct for which he has become renowned, but even he can sometimes be caught napping and there are some narrow escapes. An element of mystery – and mysticism – is introduced by means of a fanatical warrior who has a very personal vendetta. And there are those who, for reasons of personal gain, aim to create havoc by pitting one tribe against the other or disrupt the fragile peace that has existed between some tribes and Rome. There are also those who are just plain deluded about their own abilities which might not be so bad if it weren’t for the fact they’re responsible for the lives of thousands of others.

The book is set after the death of Trajan as the new Emperor Hadrian is consolidating his position, involving some strategic getting rid of people, and settling into the role of governing an empire whose borders are fraying at the edges. Although supreme power has its rewards, Hadrian learns it’s also a burden, ‘an endless task, like Sisyphus and his boulder’. The scenes involving the building of Hadrian’s Wall are absolutely fascinating and the author manages to weave in some exciting skirmishes alongside the technical detail of its construction, which, as he acknowledges in the Historical Note, are still the subject of discussion among historians.

Characters from previous books return, including Vindex, Ferox’s faithful companion. I loved that we get an insight into the personal relationship between Ferox and the woman who is now his wife, and mother of his children, Claudia Enica, who also happens to be Queen of the Brigantes and a skilled warrior in her own right. Having your sleep disturbed by someone who hogs the bed covers or snores is possibly something we can all identify with. As perhaps befits the last book in a series, there’s plenty of settling of scores in often bloody ways, and quite a few of the characters won’t make it to the last page.

The Wall is a terrific finale to a hugely enjoyable series.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of Head of Zeus via NetGalley.

In three words: Authentic, assured, action-packed

Try something similar:  The Emperor’s Shield by Gordon Doherty

About the Author

Adrian Goldsworthy studied at Oxford, where his doctoral thesis examined the Roman army. He went on to become an acclaimed historian of Ancient Rome. He is the author of numerous works of non-fiction, including Caesar, Pax Romana, Hadrian’s Wall and Philip and Alexander. He is also the author of the Vindolanda series, set in Roman Britain, which first introduced readers to centurion Flavius Ferox.

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#BookReview The Geometer Lobachevsky by Adrian Duncan @serpentstail @waltscottprize

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About the Book

‘When I was sent by the Soviet state to London to further my studies in calculus, knowing I would never become a great mathematician, I strayed instead into the foothills of anthropology …’

It is 1950 and Nikolai Lobachevsky, great-grandson of his illustrious namesake, is surveying a bog in the Irish Midlands, where he studies the locals, the land and their ways. One afternoon, soon after he arrives, he receives a telegram calling him back to Leningrad for a ‘special appointment’.

Lobachevsky may not be a great genius but he is not he recognises a death sentence when he sees one and leaves to go into hiding on a small island in the Shannon estuary, where the island families harvest seaweed and struggle to split rocks. Here Lobachevsky must think about death, how to avoid it and whether he will ever see his home again.

Format: Hardback (208 pages)         Publisher: Tuskar Rock Press
Publication date: 31st March 2022 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

I’m not sure I ever imagined myself reading a book that combines events in the life of a man who fears persecution if he returns to his homeland in the Soviet Union, the surveying of Irish bogland and seaweed farming. And I probably wouldn’t have had it not appeared on the shortlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.

The Geometer Lobachevsky contains some wonderful descriptions of the wilder parts of Ireland and I liked the gentle rhythm of the life of the islanders described in the second part of the book. I also loved the amiable humour of Nikolai’s attempts to spell Irish names.

Nikolai arrives as an advisor but is happy to get stuck into the job of surveying the bog in preparation for large scale peat extraction even if he can’t get the team led by Rhatigan to understand the shifting nature of the area they’re trying to survey. Perhaps it’s in the nature of things to think you’re on solid ground even when you’re not? Having adopted a false identity in order to cover his tracks and fled to a small island on the Shannon estuary, Nikolai learns the secrets of seaweed harvesting from the families who live there. But although he might join in with things, he remains somehow always isolated from others.

There is a theme of old versus new that runs through the book. Old crafts are being lost, labour intensive tasks are gradually being mechanised and the landscape is being changed by the building of new factories and houses with modern amenities. You get a sense it’s being done to the local people not for them.

Many of the characters exhibit obsessionial traits. Rhatigan, the chief surveyor, is a perfectionist when it comes to the accuracy of surveying. One of the locals, French, has a ‘museum’ full of curiosities, such as many different types of hammer, that he has collected over the years. Nikolai himself becomes obsessed with observing the moon through a telescope in order to make precise topographical drawings of its surface. And once on the island he witnesses a prolonged and dangerous attempt, led by the son of one of the local families, to split a huge boulder seemingly for no other reason than to prove it can be done.

Right from the beginning of the book there’s an ominous sense that a bleak future in one form or another awaits Nikolai. Having seen friends (possibly lovers?) persecuted for their views, he’s afraid of what will happen to him if he returns to the Soviet Union. He describes himself as living every day ‘tired with fear’. The book’s dramatic ending proves he was right.

Given the title of the book it’s no surprise that Nikolai sees things in terms of shapes, angles and geometric patterns. I’m afraid this is where I struggled with the book because the geometrical stuff went over my head. No matter how hard I tried I could not envision the existence of a curve in a straight line or a straight line in a curve. Where Nikolai looks at the incoming tide and sees ‘plummeting curvatures’ I just see the incoming tide. Where he sees a wetland ‘mapped out with a constantly collapsing Cartesianism of intensities’ I have no idea what that is. I think this prevented me forming a stronger connection with the story. Although I admired the wonderful writing, I was left with the feeling that this is a book I was not quite clever enough to appreciate fully.

In three words: Evocative, elegaic, complex

About the Author

Adrian Duncan is an Irish artist and writer. His debut novel Love Notes from a German Building Site won the 2019 John McGahern Book Prize. His second novel A Sabbatical in Leipzig (2020) was shortlisted for the Kerry Novel of the Year. His collection of short stories Midfield Dynamo was published in 2021 and longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize. His third novel, The Geometer Lobachevsky, was published in April 2022. (Photo: Publisher author page)

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