Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow

Cover to cover I enjoyed this book. I figured I would, the Praise For David Gemmell page included a comment from Anne McCaffery who said, “He’s several rungs above the good-right into the fabulous.” I completely agree with her after reading this book. There are many things I could gush about Gemmell doing in this book-but I’ll stick with the three things I liked the most. 1) Characters, I don’t think there was a character presented I was not drawn to know more about or invested in and was cheering on. Ladi-dadi-everybody Gemmel had me meet I wanted to know more about. Even the Egyptian Eunuch who made garments for trade. Reading his chapter I was laughing to myself thinking, “I even like this guy. Gemmel you are a freaking genius!” You learn about the character you are following while also learning about the characters they are interacting with. Gemmel divvied up chapters into scenes where you follow one of his various characters. The story moves forward, but you view it from the different character points of views. A brave risk, and thankfully taken up by an experienced author. This style of writing can loose the interest of the reader due to lack of empathy for certain characters, or the failure of the author to move the story forward. Readers will skip over scenes involving the characters they don’t like, or put the book down all together. I never once felt the urge to do either of these. We get to view the protagonist through many character points of view and all of them have different opinions of the man and his actions. Just like in real life, I loved being able to form my own opinion of Helikaon. Born with a natural leadership talent we get to see how he was nurtured out of it, and then developed back into it. We get to see the mentors who influenced the young prince, and watch the drama of them confronting Helikaon over different actions he took in the book. These chapters offered some beautiful conversations about grief, how a monarch influences his people, and how we recover from haunting sorrows of the past. When he introduced Andromache I was holding my breath. Can he do this, will he do this? Can he pull off a strong female without making her a non-relatable psychopath, whore, or worse someone we might believe to be strong-but never get to see in action? Oh he pulled it off-and I’d say he knocked the strong female character right out of the park. She was defiant, brave, and a woman who knew her own mind, and limitations. She also displayed heart and compassion. I loved how Gemmell portrayed Odysseus. Brilliant-especially how he brought to life the theory that Odysseus was most likely a form of early drama and not just an example of oral history. 2. I enjoyed how Gemmell created a solid balance of non-fiction elements into the story. The Greco-Roman world came to life, but we were not subjected to pages upon pages describing buildings, clothing, furniture and food. It was relevant and aided the action and drama. 3. Gemmell knows how to write a battle scene. He’s not afraid to take on the task of writing the horrors of battle. In my opinion there are many fiction authors to chicken to try. They skim over the battles-because its hard to write them and you can easily fail trying for a laundry list of reasons. Kudos to an author who cares enough to get the details right, but not douse us in each sword stroke of every soldier on the field. The weapons were right, the use of the weapons was right, the strategies were correct-and as someone who cares about these historical realities it was blissful to read. The battles were awesome. My favorite scenes being Blue Owl Bay, and then the culminating battle at the end. “Death is coming!” I ended the book wondering where Gemmell’s books have been all my life and looking forward to discovering his other works.

If you're a fan of David Gemmell and enjoy reading about his epic heroes, then you'll love this book, too. Keep in mind that this book contains some of the characters from the Iliad, but not all of them. It mostly focuses on the Trojans. Story The story and pacing are the book's weakest point. At times, it skips around and seems disjointed. It mainly focuses on Helikaon (Aeneas) and how he grew from a traumatized child to a powerful merchant and warrior under the tutelage of Odysseus. Although the story skips around quite a bit, it is made up of unforgettable scenes of friendship, loyalty, and honor. Characters The characters are a strong point of Lord of the Silver Bow. Helikaon's transformation is inspirational and he faces many challenges. Andromache is a strong female character with courage, skill, and wit, who is sent to marry Trojan Hero Hector, but falls in love with someone else. Argurious is an honorable Mykene warrior set to avenge his former king by killing Helikaon. Odysseus is a wise mentor that guides the characters along their journey. King Priam is a ruthless king at war trying to defend Troy against its enemies. Gershom, an Egyptian who flees his country, and seeks refuge with Helikaon. World Although, David Gemmell is known for his fantasy and his books have featured demons, astral projection, and spirits, this is more of a historic book. There is nothing supernatural. The gods like Zeus, Poseidon, and Aphrodite are mentioned, but they are not characters. Action As you can expect, the book is action packed. There are brawls, skirmishes, assassinations, tactical battles, and naval combat. The battles are exciting and they have dire consequences. Maturity There's violence, death, torture, some sexual scenes. It's similar to a rated R movie, but doesn't go over the top. Overall 4.5 Stars The disjointed story prevents this from being a page turner, but so many of the scenes are full of strong themes of honor, loyalty, respect, honor, it wins you over. In the end, Lord of the Silver Bow is very exciting and inspirational. It's definitely one of David Gemmell's better books. If you enjoyed this book, check out The Lion of Macedon, also written by David Gemmell. If you enjoy his style of writing, you're sure to enjoy Blood Song by Anthony Ryan as well.

Having read the Legend books and the complete saga of Druss the legend it was only a matter of time before I bought this book. I felt that this book started off a bit slow and dragged on for a bit during the beginning but after reading on for a bit the story definitely picks up and becomes more entertaining. One of the things I've always liked about DG was that his main characters were always very likeable and entertaining and you always found yourself becoming attached to them. In this book the main character I would say was on par with other DG main characters such as Druss and Waylander. As the book progressed and I got into the story I saw myself begin to like the supporting cast of characters more and more as well. Overall it was a good read and if you are a fan of David Gemmell or a fan of anything that has to do with Trojan times you should give this series a try.

Great book. All of David Gemmell's book are a good read. This being the first of a trilogy that makes up the Troy trilogy. The others being Shield of Thunder and Fall of Kings. This trilogy would make a great epic.

Lord of the Silver Bow is my first David Gemmell book i've read and i am so happy that i did read his book. The book is very entertaining and never lagged from page 1 to the end there was something interesting happening. As the series titles, this story is about the Trojan war but it is not about the common Helen and Paris story. The story revolves around Helikaon and Andromache and their lives and politics and the lifestyle of eastern and western kingdoms during that age. This change in the main characters made the story very refreshing and new way of looking at the old and classic story. The secondary characters also was very well developed like Argurios, Priam, Laodike etc. at the end of the book i needed more and very soon ill start the second book of the trilogy and excited to start other books and series of David Gemmell.

そのものズバリのタイトルどおり、これはトロイア戦争の物語。 世界最古の叙事詩に材を取った翻案作品は数多ありますが、本書の主人公はトロイアの同盟国ダルダニアの王子アイネイアス。陥落寸前のトロイアから脱出し、流浪の果てにローマ帝国の始祖となったという伝説の主。 作品中では Helikaon と呼ばれ（副題 "Lord of the Silver Bow" も太陽神アポロンに擬えた彼の異名）、敵だけでなく味方からも恐れられる勇猛な戦士、有能な船乗りで実業家、暗い生い立ちのトラウマをオデュッセウスとの親交で克服し、親友ヘクトルの婚約者アンドロマケと恋に落ちる… こういった劇画的な主人公の設定で想像できるように、本作品は元ネタ『イリアス』他トロイア戦争周辺の神話から大きく飛躍し、作者の大胆な創作によって生み出された登場人物たちが、秘密と陰謀、アクション、ロマンスをコテコテに盛り込んだ波瀾万丈の物語を繰り広げます。 ３部作シリーズの第１作であるためか、前半は作者独自の考察で描写される時代背景や膨大な登場人物の説明が興味深いながらも少々もどかしく、元ネタと乖離したエピソードの数々にはやはり違和感を覚えますが、後半、トロイア戦争の前哨戦ともいえる戦いに向けて盛り上がっていくあたりは、急展開と見せ場の連続。 しかし、いきなり王宮の大広間にミュケナイ兵がなだれ込んでの大乱戦ときては、壁の前で10年戦っていた元ネタの立場は…（笑） 作者デヴィッド・ゲメルの著書は全て邦訳未刊行ですが、英米のファンタジー愛読者には人気のある作家だそうで、なるほど、ともすれば荒唐無稽になりかねない物語を手練のストーリーテリングが支えています。 いよいよトロイア戦争本番の第２作 "Shield of Thunder"、終戦後が描かれるという完結作がとても楽しみです。

Habe mir vor kurzem nach langem Überlegen "Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow" für meinen Amazon Kindle gekauft. Hab deshalb lange überlegt, da die letzten Fantasy Bücher die ich gelesen habe alle ziemlich nach dem gleichen Muster geschrieben waren, und mich nicht vom Hocker gerissen haben. Aber diese Buch hat mich mehr als positiv überrascht!!!! Seit langem habe ich kein Buch mehr gelesen, das mich vom Anfang bis zum Ende derart begeistert hat! Kann nur hoffen, dass es im nächsten Teil genau so weitergeht!!!!

As someone new to David Gemmell I have been blown away by the book. The author's skill at story telling, at developing characters and describing places / events is simply brilliant....you find yourself immersed in a world of honour, war, politics, heroes, myths and legends. I can't believe that other reviewers have complained about the amount of characters....surely this shows the skill of the author to be able to knit together several main characters, sub plots, and stories all in one. The worlds described, characters, battle scenes and plots are so enchanting and intense that you will not be able to put this book down. Having read this one I am already onto the second book of the series, Shield of Thunder, and I can say that this one is somehow even better than the first! Do yourself a favour and treat yourself to these books and read them somewhere where you won't be disturbed and you can lose yourself in the books for hours on end!