Rating: 
Summary: Incredible!
Review: I bought this book on a whim and can only wish that my other impulse buys were this good! An absolutely incredible and riveting story! If you enjoy fiction and/or history this book is for you.
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Summary: The book brings to life a historical period.
Review: I was shocked and enlightened to read about the conditions in Greece shortly before its great flowering. The disruptive and duplicitous wars between the city-states make the Spartans' harsh militarism into a virtue. Few of us would want such severe tests and punishments in our settled times. Yet they may have been necessary in a less unified era. Like some other readers, I think of Dave Grossman's nonfiction study "On Killing." The dread and strain of slaying other men by hand at close range, especially under the horrific conditions Pressfield depicts, surely required a great deal of brutality, desperation and sheer hate in the training of the warrior. Nowadays we kill at long range by pushbutton and it's tormenting enough. They had to be practically inhuman. Even so, this "spartan" drill produced heroes who could live in our words and thoughts millennia later, and who were able to turn a foregone defeat into one of history's most brilliant victories by the courage of their sacrifice. How much more immortal they proved than their adversaries, the Persian "Immortals" who are recalled only in their shadow! Pressfield has done a brilliant job of depicting these harsh historical necessities.
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Summary: Fascinating recreation of Thermopylae
Review: A compelling depiction of ancient warfare, the action at the 'Hot Gates' rivals even the best battle scenes in recent great war novels like Gods and Generals and The Triumph and Glory. HISTORICAL FICTION AT ITS BEST! Pressfield is to be commended for the research he has done and techniques he has so masterfully developed to make ancient Sparta and her people come to such vivid life. A very fine novel!
Rating:
Summary: Good read
Review: It is a good read, if you can get past the American colloquialisms. At one point the narrator descibes enemies "playing possum", another has a soldier yelling out "put the steel to 'em boys!" Neat trick in the Bronze Age. Countless references to God instead of Zeus. Constantly uses God in a singluar form. Nick naming an Egyptian "Tommie" because his real name is difficult to pronounce. This from a bunch of guys named Polynikes, Doreion, Terkleius and Dienekes from Lakedaemon. Nit picky I know, because the book is a good read outside of that. These things tend to pull you out of the story. Just when you can practically smell the sweat and leather, he yanks you back to your couch.
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Summary: A sobering book of uncommon valor, sacrifice and virtue.
Review: This book is one that from cover to cover draws you ever more into it. The subject matter is more than just an armies defense of a strategic pass. Its constant theme is courage, valor, sacrifice and the return of the true warriors heart that has been somewhat absent in our modern times. Gates of Fire is a well researched, creative and believable account of men willing to pay the supreme price, that of laying down their own lives, for the higher callings of family, village, country and honor. This books calls back from sleep the concepts of virtue and love. It went to the primitive heart of man verses man. I highly recommend it to everyone and to this generation.
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Summary: Thrilling tale of classical warfare
Review: Gates of Fire is a superbly written book that retells a well worn story of near mythic status (the Spartan stand at Thermopylae) in such clear, elegant prose that the reader is transported into the ranks of the Spartan army. The exposition of Spartan "simplicity" (oxymoronic these days of course)is well done, as is the camaraderie of the soldiers as they mature under the harsh barracks system. Given much less impressive treatment are the roles of women and slaves in Sparta, which may have been the most socially repressive society ever known. Nevertheless, this is a book about fighting men, and fight they do: Pressfield's ability to provide gripping battle scenes is unsurpassed, and the climactic battle is simultaneously blood-soaked yet profoundly moving. HISTORICAL NOTE: for very good reasons, the Spartan army did not follow a "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding sexual relations in the barracks, in particular between the knights and their pages. Not that there'a anything wrong with that. Just something to keep in mind when reading about Xeo anointing his master with oils and all that.
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Summary: Great historical fiction - an epic with humanity
Review: If you've ever been to a battlefield memorial and wondered what it must have been like to have witnessed the battle itself, then this is the book for you. Great entertainment, and a fascinating history lesson to boot. The final battle is truly moving -- as we witness characters that we have come to care about sacrifice themselves for a greater cause. Exciting, informative, and a testimony of the courage it takes to truly be a man -- what more can you ask for. A great "guy" book!
Rating:
Summary: A terrific fictionalization of history
Review: A terrific book even though the reader (one hopes) knows all along how the story turns out. Less a novel, really, than an extended meditation on fear and courage using the Spartans as exemplars, and expositors, of an older view of courage than typically appears in movies of the "Rambo" variety. The Spartans, as Pressfield repeatedly demonstrates, look down on bluster or fury as inappropriate to true men. Bluster is dismissed as "pseudandreia" or false courage; berserker-like fury is dismissed as "catalepsis" or possession. An excellent book to read along with nonfiction works like Stephen Ambrose's "Citizen Soldiers" or Dave Grossman's "On Killing." Nonetheless, the book kept me almost "possessed" until I finished it. Despite the known ending, and the slightly archaic flavor of the prose (a deliberate choice of the author, of course) it is a genuine page turner.
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Summary: What an entertaining read!!!
Review: I firmly disagree with some of the critics of this book. I found it absorbing and well written. The prose was intelligent and the characters well developed. I can't wait for the next one!
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Summary: A great read if you're into military fiction or history
Review: I loved this book, have read it several times, and have even bought the audio tapes to listen to while I'm working-out or driving to work. I appreciate it because I believe it describes the psychology of hoplite warfare quite accurately. The book starts off kind of slow but rapidly accelerates after a chapter or two. I believe my favorite character in the book is not the narrator himself, but his master - Dienekes. This warrior and character embodies what it is to be a warrior but also what it is to be a man. His character has taught me a great deal about myself. I always believed that you could learn a great deal about life and yourself from a novel. The book has been recommended by modern day soldiers/warriors and I am one among them. One reviewer mentioned the fact that Spartan society was repressive - a military dictatorship. But let us not forget that 300 members of this society saved the beginnings of Western civilization and democracy itself by sacrificing their own lives willingly. That in itself justifies the means by which they achieved their ultimate end. I understand that this book may be made into a movie. If it is a)I hope they make it into the epic it deserves to be - in the style of "Braveheart" b)I hope they stick to the book and not the "artistic license" of a director c)I hope it's historically accurate in terms of the equipment and tactics(see "Ancient Warriors" trilogy by The Learning Channel(TLC)). I could go on like this forever. Thanks for reading.
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