Warrior of Rome 4 - The Caspian Gates - Final Review

This was my original review of this novel written at the beginning of October Warrior of Rome 4 The Caspian Gates.

It wasn't a thrilling review, but then I found the book not particularly thrilling up to the point I had read at that time, finding it very disappointing in comparison to the previous three novels in this series.

I think I stated that on finding the first three books I picked them up and started reading them and could hardly put them down.  They were fast paced, full of information and the authors undoubted knowledge of his subject and penchant for using both Greek and Latin terminology was not off putting in the slightest, the books still moved on at a cracking pace and kept me, as the reader, fully involved with the story lines, wanting to turn pages and continue reading, until there was no more to read.

The ability of an author to be able to do that, is, I suspect, going to be a measure of his or hers mass appeal.  They write it and we are unable, once we start reading it, unwilling to stop. And we get distracted from everything else that is going on in our lives as we start to live vicariously through the pages of the book we are reading (!) but not in this instance.

On No 4 then I still have to say that it was not up to, well I guess, 'my standards of expectation' from this author.  What I wrote in the previous review still stands.  When I find a really interesting book that captures my imagination like the first three in the series of Warrior of Rome, as I have said, it doesn't take long to read, but this one took me over a month, not a good sign.

I don't know if Dr Sidebottom was or is getting bored with his subject in novel form but it seemed to me that he strayed into the realms of classical lecturer, and on this showing that should be avoided. Maybe it is to be expected though as we get to the end of the book and he goes in to all of the historical books drawn on and then we get to the 'Thanks' to all those who assisted in some way and it is littered with all of the College people who contributed in some way or other and it is in this I suspect where it all fell apart.  I am sure that they are all people of admirable intellect in academia, but in proofing a novel, probably not so clever!

I also thought he might be trying to have a bit of a laugh at the readers expense with the character of  the Eunuch 'Mastabates', yes you did read that correctly.  While the name has obvious and funny connotations, the whole thing seemed like a distraction and while we did  move on to a small battle it was really nothing to write home about.

Ballista continues in his exile and is moving on to his next far flung outpost at the end of the book and so this means that there is probably going to be another outing for him and his 'familia', whether it will be an other outing for me remains to be seen!

Finally, if the author or any other author or publisher of E Books is reading this can I make a suggestion?


If you need to include a glossary, and historical novels do tend to need them from time to time, can I ask that this be placed at the beginning of the book, in ebook format at least.  If you are reading an ebook across, in my case, a Kindle device and a smart phone, if the glossary is at the rear you lose the ability to sync the devices to the furthest page read, as it will always, after opening the glossary for the first time, default to that section of the book, AND THIS IS QUITE ANNOYING. 

The Caspian Gates (Warrior of Rome 4) A (provisional) Book Review

I discovered  Harry Sidebottom  a couple of years ago after the first three Warrior of Rome novels had been published, so came to him late.  But, as is usual with some books that you stumble upon unexpectedly I was impressed and quickly took to Ballista the central character and his familia.

I have to say, to begin with, The Caspian Gates was a bit of a disappointment.  It wasn't just the irritating insertion of hyphens in names and words where previously there was none, e.g. Hippothous became Hipp-othous and then back to Hippothous. Vinegar became Vin-egar, these are just a couple of examples and I don't know if that was down to poor proof reading or in translation to Kindle format but irritating it was.

But it was the story telling itself that I found well below the standard of the first three novels.  Dr Sidebottom, to give him his proper title, is a Fellow and Director of Studies in Ancient History at St Benets Hall, and Lecturer in Ancient History at Lincoln College, Oxford.  And he clearly approached the first three novels with these lofty credentials using his immense knowledge to draw out the characters and the descriptions of the various parts of the Roman Empire where Ballista was fighting, but while drawing on his immense knowledge his lecturing and teaching credentials were tucked away and hidden from sight writing the novels as an author intent on bringing to the reader a collection of stories full of reality.  The hierarchy and inner workings of the Senate and the Empire, Roman fighting tactics, humour (great humour), and loyalty.  All of this interspersed with homilies and nods to the great writers and philosophers of the day a great combination, well written and gripping, keeping the pace at a level that made it difficult to put these books down.

So, Harry Sidebottom clearly set out, as an author who wanted to give his readers a gripping tale and he succeeded, but, in No 4 I think he forgot to take of the College Dons robe and began to write this one as a lecturer, as Dr Sidebottom, and therein lies the problem.  If you read any great or even good novel the writer writes in a way that is engaging to the reader.  The characters have a dialogue with each other and the central character has a dialogue with the reader, much the same way as Michael Caine has with the watcher in Alfie however in the first 6 chapters of The Caspian Gate the dialogue is as sparse as pimples on a new born baby's bum.  A novel with characters telling a story should be dialogue heavy it should be like a teenagers acne riddled face, you can't see the features for the plooks and spots and we shouldn't be able to see the page for the interaction between the characters.  In this book so far, I am really struggling not to just close it down on my Kindle and move on to something else.

I have just read Julian Stockwin's latest offering, Conquest, and Michael R Hicks's latest from the In Her Name series, Dead Soul.  Both are writing about a central character and both have written a number of books in the series and as always the characters engaged the readers and their books were gripping and I resented having to go to work, or go to bed, in fact to do anything that we should be doing in our daily lives, that would take me away from these books, and that is how I felt about Harry Sidebottom and the first 3 books in the Warrior of Rome series.

I've never done this before, not that I have done many reviews, but, I just felt that I had to come and do an early review of this one as I do feel let down by it.  I will not stop reading it and I will come back to this review  after I am done, when hopefully I will be able to update it with a much more positive review.