Rating: 
Summary: Loved it!
Review: This was a "don't put me down!" type of book. Buy it and relive a Spartan's life!
Rating:
Summary: PRESSFIELD FOR PRESIDENT !!!
Review: A wonderful achiecement of historical fiction that will perpetually appeal to anyone who reads. Six stars is not enough. Escapism, heroism, it's all there. You must read this book!
Rating: 
Summary: "Gates of Fire" Well Worth Your Time
Review: Steven Pressfield has done a masterful job of transporting the reader (or listener, in my case - I listened to the audio version) back to another age, and has done it in such a way that one feels as if he is living in the moment. His descriptions of "the Spartan way" and the workings of their society bring to life vivid mental pictures of how it might have been. And the humanity Pressfield breathes into the characters - this is excellent work! Beginning with the central figure and narrator, Xeo, through all the ensuing ones the reader encounters...by the end of the story, I couldn't help but feel that I knew them.
Pressfield devotes much of the book to the Battle of Thermopylae itself, but a good deal is also spent laying groundwork for the battle. There is also something of a love story woven throughout, but it is an unrequited love at best and doesn't detract too much from the main storytelling. The focus is squarely on the Spartans - why they thought the way they did, why they lived the way they did, and most of all, why they chose to die the way they did. It would seem to be a herculean task to place the reader into an ancient (and foreign) world and do it in such a way that the reader barely realizes it, but Pressfield has done just that. I didn't feel like I was reading about some long-forgotten warriors or about some event from a history book - I felt like I was reading about people, REAL people. It is a testament to Pressfield's ability as a writer to take such an event as an ancient battle and wrap around it a riveting narrative. If you are at all interested in ancient history and/or military history, you will not be disappointed. Not in the least.
Rating:
Summary: Splendid stuff -- enthralling
Review: The battle of Thermopylae was one of the most noteworthy events in all human history, so at least we can deduce that Steven Pressfield chose his subject brilliantly. He also writes about it brilliantly. The characters are great, the details are right (and gory when necessary), and he actually explains how a mere "handful" of brave Greek soldiers kept an enormous Persian army at bay. I found that I couldn't put it down, and I also found (to my great joy) that we finally have an author who can be classed in the same league as Mary Renault! (That's strong praise indeed, and well-deserved.) Highest recommendation!
Rating:
Summary: A true masterpiece...
Review: We Greeks know all the details of Thermopyles battle by heart.
But I never thouhgt that I would be enjoyed so much
about this book, since it describes a very familiar
moment of Ancient Greek history.
It is indeed the most epic battle of all times...
I believe this book provides the opportunity for alot of
people to learn something more instead of Gladiator,Rob Roy
and other rubbish
Rating:
Summary: Magnificent,stirring and gripping
Review: How many people among the 6 billion or so alive today will be known to averagely informed people 2,500 years from now? One would assume not many, just as so few names from the world 2,500 years ago are known to us now. The extraordinary nature of the battle at Thermopylae means that it was a brave subject for Steven Pressfield to take on in his novel - how do you do justice to a heroism so remarkable that it still resonates 2,500 years after the last witness left the battlefield? Given this challenge, I have all the more admiration for the author's achievement. His writing style is economic, yet he is gifted with considerable descriptive powers. This short passage from the book describes the battle field after a particularly bloody days fighting "The wounded, in numbers uncountable, groaned and cried out, writhing amid piles of limbs and severed body parts so intertangled one could not distinguish individual men, but the whole seemd a Gorgon-like beast of ten thousand limbs, some ghastly monster spawned by the cloven earth and now draining itself, fluid by fluid, back into that chthonic cleft which had given it birth." (by the way, chthonic means of, or pertaining to, the underworld, I had to look it up and I think it is the only obscure word in the entire book) The book is a truly enjoyable read - one of those yopu will read in its entirety in a couple of days - I'm now looking forward to reading more of his novels. If you enjoyed the immediacy and vividness of the descriptions of the Ancient Greek world in this book, then look out for Tom Holt's novels about the same period - similar clarity of vision but written with a marvelously wry sense of humour.
Rating:
Summary: Homeric!
Review: Pressfeld's book was splendid and inspiring. I began reading it as I was shipping out for an Army exercise. My girlfriend had broken up with me the night before and I was in low morale, to say the least. I read this book before going out into the field, and it raised my morale very high. I felt Leonidas and Dieniekes watching me from Elysium as I trained, and I won a medal for my performance. We owe so much to King Leonidas and his valiant warriors. Democracy would surely have died at the hands of the absolutist Persian regime. Pressfeld brings to life the Spartan culture and the true love they had for their country and for each other. History generally portrays the Spartans as ignorant fascists, and that is what they wanted you to think. Pressfeld explores the cult of Phobos, fear. The Spartans wanted you to think they were pitiless fiends who loved to beat their children. It made people fear them. And they knew that half the battle was lost already if the enemy feared. Pressfeld pulls away the mask of fear in which Sparta is buried. He shows the humanity of the Spartans. This book is a must read for anyone who is a true warrior and anyone who loves democracy. Bravo, Pressfeld, they should have made this book, and not Bagger Vance, into a movie.
Rating:
Summary: Gripping with sympathetic characters...
Review: I bought the book initially for my husband, an avid history aficionado who's online name is Spartan. I assumed he would find it right up his alley. Before he returned home from abroad I idly picked it up to skim through and found myself compelled to read it from start to finish. So much for presents! I love historical fiction, not usually so much about war but more of biography and sociology. I found this to be an interesting mix of sociology as the Spartans were a warlike society and thus I was entertained by the backdrop presented. The dipiction of battle was gritty but not gratutiously done. I found it honest and raw in it's clarity. Pressfield's characters are sympathetic and his storytelling is vivid. Personally, I do not have the interest in reading about specific troop movements and thus he lost me at times. However, he did not lose me so much so that I lost interest in the novel. I doggedly trudged through those parts, picking out what I could find of interest. All in all, the book was not a waste of money but I found far more enjoyment from the first half than the latter which focused more on war than society.
Rating: 
Summary: phonybaloney
Review: dear Readers, thus site censors reviews. Plus, any realistic review is offset by three phony positive reviews. Any reviews doctored.
Rating:
Summary: HomerisnotjustatowninAlaska
Review: Oh my brothers, Is this the best we can do,..................................... we happy few?................................................... Mr Pressfield, if such a person exists, has a lot of............ 'splainin' to do................................................ Mr Donald Hall, the poet-laureate of New Hampshire, once wrote that each person has " a thousand books inside us". I suspect he was not kidding. Now that Mr Pressfield has written this mind-numbing, stupe- fying, ridiculous pretense of a novel, he should shoot straight upwards in terms of quality, diction, character development, sensitivity, intelligence, and in general, a more kind-demeanor towards his readers, who resist the unrelenting insult that exists on every page of this novel. The Law of Averages suggests Mr Pressfield has much better books in him. I am being grandmotherly kind in my assumption that this is the worst Mr Pressfield can do. Only 499 books to go, Stevie-baby, till you raise yourself up to mediocrity. Or maybe your Next book. Math is kind, you know. The problem I have with this book is larger than the gargantuan stupidity it foists upon the American People. This book, by its popularity, suggests that we Americans are unspeakably sad little toads. This book says to all the world we haven't the sense to reject Oprah, and embrace Homer. You already knew that.
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