Last of the Amazons

Rating:
Summary: Athens vs. Amazons
Review: "Last of the Amazons" is another Steven Pressfield novel set in ancient Greece, except this time it is in Greece from mythology. In it, two stories are told at the same time; one of a voyage to the Amazonian lands (modern day Slovic countries) to rescue a young girl who ran off with her Amazon slave/governess. Along the way, the older soldiers tell the story of the first Amazon war with Athens twenty years ago. That story takes up most of the book. There are a lot of secrets that are reveled in the last twenty or so pages that seemes a little over dramatic. And how the battle was conducted and fought seems more or less guess work since it takes place in myth and not history. The conflict basicly boils down to civility vs. savagry, democracy vs. anarchy. The Amazons are portraiyed like the Apaches from a John Ford movie; savage and lawless, but very passionate. All the trouble starts when King Thesus takes one of the Amazonian women as his wife. The Amazons march on Athens and try to destroy it and the royal family for the insult. It is alright, but it seems a bit long in the tooth, especilly in the battle scenes. But it's alright. The violence is very gory, especially the crucifixon of Sith enemies. All in all, Pressfeild's novels seems to be like a overly romantic version of the History Channel.

Rating:
Summary: Athens vs. Amazons
Review: "Last of the Amazons" is another Steven Pressfield novel set in ancient Greece, except this time it is in Greece from mythology. In it, two stories are told at the same time; one of a voyage to the Amazonian lands (modern day Slovic countries) to rescue a young girl who ran off with her Amazon slave/governess. Along the way, the older soldiers tell the story of the first Amazon war with Athens twenty years ago. That story takes up most of the book. There are a lot of secrets that are reveled in the last twenty or so pages that seemes a little over dramatic. And how the battle was conducted and fought seems more or less guess work since it takes place in myth and not history. The conflict basicly boils down to civility vs. savagry, democracy vs. anarchy. The Amazons are portraiyed like the Apaches from a John Ford movie; savage and lawless, but very passionate. All the trouble starts when King Thesus takes one of the Amazonian women as his wife. The Amazons march on Athens and try to destroy it and the royal family for the insult. It is alright, but it seems a bit long in the tooth, especilly in the battle scenes. But it's alright. The violence is very gory, especially the crucifixon of Sith enemies. All in all, Pressfeild's novels seems to be like a overly romantic version of the History Channel.

Rating:
Summary: Fails to Capture the Spirit
Review: "Last of the Amazons" while better than the prior Pressfield novel, "Tides of War", still falls short of "Gates of Fire". The biggest problem, in my opinion is that "Last of the Amazons" fails to truly capture the spirit of a great story taken from Greek mythology.

The story is that the Greek king Theseus travels east to around the Black Sea where he encounters the Amazon, a society of warrior women. The queen of the Amazons Antiope (or Hippolyta) and Theseus fall in love and she accompanies him back to Athens. The Amazons then march west and declare war on Athens, forcing the Greek defenders to take cover in the Rock, an old stronghold in the city. During the battle, Antiope sacrifices her own life to save Theseus and Athens. The Amazons are driven off, but the loss of the love of his life destroys Theseus from within over the next couple decades.

Now that's a rough summation of the legend, and more or less Pressfield sticks to it. The problem is that his telling of the story is from such indirect points of view that he never gets to the heart of the story: the affair between Theseus and Antiope. Instead, Pressfield's 2nd and 3rd hand narrations focus on the crumbling state of Amazonian society. And much of it deals twenty years later with Athenians chasing after an Amazon warrior who murdered three Greeks. I never really bought into that story, perhaps in part because so little is known of the Amazons. It's hard for me to care about the fall of a society that may not have existed, but a good love story is universal.

Having read Pressfield's three books dealing with the Greeks, "Gates of Fire" stands out as the best to me, because Pressfield does what he does best. That is, to detail the struggles of ancient combat from the "everyman" point of view, soldiers who are not heroes, but common infantrymen. There are flashes of that in "Last of the Amazons" during the siege of Athens, where Pressfield talks about the rigors of ancient infantry combat.

However, the problem I had with the siege of Athens in the book is that the Greeks were such incompetents at fighting it seemed implausible that they managed to win. In fact, it was only through the heroics of Antiope and betrayal by allies of the Amazons that Athens won. I already knew who was going to win, but during the battle I kept wondering, "how are these clowns going to get it together enough to win?" Don't get me wrong, it's not like I wanted overblown heroics with each Greek killing a hundred of the enemy, but it would have been nice if they at some point didn't seem like a bunch of bozos.

At any rate, I think a lot of people like this book because they haven't been spoiled by "The Bull From the Sea" by Mary Renault. I read that book in high school and I think it does a much better job of focusing on the story of Theseus and Antiope. I think after reading and enjoying that book, Pressfield's effort failed to make as much of an impression on me. "Last of the Amazons" is worth reading just for the great battles, but I'd also recommend checking out Renault's "The King Must Die" and "Bull From the Sea". Even though they are rather old, I think they still hold up.

Rating:
Summary: Simply amazing
Review: a different world, believably, excitingly captured. (How can anyone call it "dry"?). Battle descriptions in the style of the Iliad.

I see he has sold the movie rights. I just hope we don't end up with Will Smith as Theseus.

Rating:
Summary: Clan of the Cave Bear 50,000 years later
Review: A warrior race who is peace loving? Give me a break!
Are they really living "free"? They seem to have so many rules governing their lives - and virtually certain death if they contravene them - except if you are in charge. All in all, it leads to a not very believable social structure.

The language the author employs leaves me wondering why he is using a 50 cent word (perhaps read the Illiad too much, too often) when a more modest word or phrase would have done.

The book was a gift. I suppose I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. However, I cannot recommend this title.

Rating:
Summary: Read the Tides of War instead...
Review: After Pressfield's other books, this one falls far short and was hard to finish. The language is pretentious and unnecessary to tell the story effectively-in fact, it distracts. The story of these women constantly and consistently massacring nearly every single male with which they come in contact is tiring and certainly ridiculous. Almost every Amazon seems to slaughter at will the legions of hapless men they encounter, most of the men are terrified and running in abject terror just from seeing the Amazons-then they are quickly dispatched. Maybe a few renditions of the ineptitude of the male race would be fine but this theme is repeated over and over and over...and starts to feel like Pressfield's Amazon story is really a venue for the militant wing of the feminist movement from the 1970s. And finally with the audio book rendering, the female readers are so full of themselves as to make it nearly unendurable. Soldiers (of any gender) after so many battles would not be dripping with arrogance and false pride but rather be real and battle-weary humans, not the absurd caricatures of warrior women that the female narrators foolishly push on the listener. It simply added to silliness of the story itself. Mr. Pressfield tells a good tale but needs to get back to the methods he employed with his best work, the Tides of War.

Rating:
Summary: Pretentious Narrative Bordering The Absurd
Review: After reading "Tides of War" and "Gates of Fire", I found this work to be a major disappointment: almost as if it was written by another writer altogether.

The narrative seemed to be a feeble rhetorical exercise at capturing the Homeric style but failing to deliver any passion: a pale imitation, nothing more. The characters are rather bland without any dimensions; the norms and motivations to their actions go beyond the lapse of time and become altogether unbelievable. The plot seemed to be overextended in every chapter with long pompous dialogues and monologues that come off simply as bad imitations of the Homeric style: it put me to sleep.

I expected more from an author such as Pressfield than this unimpressive work. I would recommend the two books mentioned previously over this one to anyone who isn't familiar with his works. If your want to read an epic narrative read Gilgamesh, Beowulf, Homer's Iliad and Oddyssey, or Appolonius' "Argonautica" instead of this dull and pretentious pseudo-epic.



Rating:
Summary: Pretentious And Stale Narrative Bordering The Absurd
Review: After reading "Tides of War" and "Gates of Fire", I found this work to be a major disappointment: almost as if it was written by another writer altogether.

The narrative seemed to be a feeble rhetorical exercise at capturing the Homeric style but failing to deliver any passion: a pale imitation, nothing more. The characters are rather bland without any dimensions; their actions and motivations surpass the foreigness of time and culture and descend into the inhumanely and impossibly absurd. The plot seemed to be overextended in every chapter with long pompous dialogues and monologues that would receive a failing grade from even the worse of sophists and tragedians of antiquity: it simply put me to sleep.

I simply expected more from an author such as Pressfield than this unimpressive work. I would recommend the two books mentioned previously over this one to anyone who isn't familiar with his works. If your want to read an epic narrative read Gilgamesh, Beowulf, Homer's Iliad and Oddyssey, or Appolonius' "Argonautica" instead of this dull and pretentious pseudo-epic.

Rating:
Summary: Mediocre At Best
Review: As a fan of Gates of Fire, I eagerly snatched up Last of the Amazons when it came out. To say I was disappointed is an understatement! This novel covers the love triangle of Amazon Warrioresses, the Greeks that tempted them (and eventually brought about their downfall), and their Amazon lovers.

The narrative is painfully slow and dry with pieces of over-the-top dialogue that could only have been written by a man. An example, "You reek of mare-stink from between your thighs..." Puh-leez!

What could have been a great book exploring the Amazon culture turned into a boring treatise on horsemanship in ancient times. If you like historical novels, treat yourself to the Roma Sub Rosa series by Steven Saylor or even Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series. Pressfield, while a great scholar, just doesn't have the narrative prowess to pull off a novel.

Rating:
Summary: Another modern epic from Pressfield
Review: For those of you who felt that Pressfield's last book "The Tides of War" was a little slow, you'll be pleased to hear that his newest book, "Last of the Amazons" is more on par with "Gates of Fire". While not quite as engaging as that novel, it is packed with every bit as much historical detail and tons of action.

While still set in Ancient Greece, "Last of the Amazons" strays slightly from the formula of its predecessors. Whereas in his first two books Pressfield wrote novelizations of actual historical events, in "Last of the Amazons", he explores the semi-mythological era of early Athens. As always, this novel is impeccably researched and laid out in a highly plausible way, but even the author admits that his story is speculative, at best. However, that in no way detracts from what is a great historical/military novel.

As anyone who has read his prior novels knows, Pressfield excels in writing the story of the mayhem and brutality of combat. I have not encountered a single other author who can make the sweat, blood and fear of close combat come alive like Pressfield. Furthermore, he has a knack for capturing the language of the time, such that his prose reads like something far older than it actually is. That's not to say he's another Homer, but he does capture the spirit of the epic genre in a highly effective manner.

While I didn't empathize with the characters in "Last of the Amazons" as much as I did in "Gates of Fire", they are perhaps even better written. "In Gates of Fire" Pressfield had real historical figures, in a real battle to work with, one that had a tragic and foregone conclusion. As a result, the reader knew the destiny of all the actors, and therefore developed a level of pathos for them that transcended the writing (which was still excellent). In "Last of the Amazons", however, Pressfield is writing about figures that are more rooted in mythology than history, so he had to flesh them out a great deal more, and succeeded admirably. He has created some genuinely tragic and conflicted figures that are incredibly complex. Moreover, he has proven that he can write believable, strong, female characters, which were noticeably (albeit understandably) absent from his first two novels.

Finally, since Pressfield was able to stray from, and manipulate, the historical record, this novel has a much stronger message than his prior ones. He makes a powerful statement about redemption, and explores at some length what constitutes civilization and civilized behavior.

In conclusion, "Last of the Amazons" is an outstanding read. It has breathtaking battle scenes, but also is very thoughtful. It is a great adventure, but also extremely well written. In short, it is an excellent novel: enjoy!