\'Gates of Fire\' By Steven Pressfield

[sitalkes]

Yes, I agree that nit-picking should not be the major criteria for damning the book - it's part of the fun of reading it in fact, to pick out such errors. When I said I think the book is adequate, but nothing to rave about, it was due to other factors which I don't remember now. Actually if you read too much history I think it does reduce your enjoyment of such books as you know what is going to happen next. It gets really bad when you read a fantasy story and the characters wonder into a new country and you can immediately recognise which ancient/medieval culture is being plundered to characterise that country/town/island/continent. "Oh, so we're in Rome now." I think the best and most original such plundering I've read is the combined Aztec/Japanese culture used by one of the nations in Raymond Feist's "Magician" series.