07-22-2010, 12:56 PM
(This post was last modified: 12-13-2015, 08:17 PM by Nathan Ross.)
I've just read the first of these books, and it was a pretty pacy read so I'll try and get hold of the second. The military detail was impressive - but with Ammianus' siege descriptions and the Dura Europos material as background, that's not surprising 
The siege and its build-up, with the problems amongst the city worthies and so on, actually reminded me of the novel A God Strolling in the Cool of Evening by Mario de Carvalho, which is about the magistrate of a provincial city in Lusitania trying to muster a defence against maraudering Moors. Less military focus, and more character stuff, but the siege itself is very well done, I thought. (There's also a subtext link, maybe - Sidebottom's 'jihadist' Persians and de Carvalho's 'pre-Islamic' Moors, assailing an outpost of Western Civilisation!)
- Nathan
The siege and its build-up, with the problems amongst the city worthies and so on, actually reminded me of the novel A God Strolling in the Cool of Evening by Mario de Carvalho, which is about the magistrate of a provincial city in Lusitania trying to muster a defence against maraudering Moors. Less military focus, and more character stuff, but the siege itself is very well done, I thought. (There's also a subtext link, maybe - Sidebottom's 'jihadist' Persians and de Carvalho's 'pre-Islamic' Moors, assailing an outpost of Western Civilisation!)
- Nathan
Nathan Ross
