Arrows of Fury
You may remember me being a little less than complimentary about some aspects of Tony Riches' first book "Empire: Wounds of Honour". Well, now I've read his second, and am happy to report that nothing annoyed me much at all this time! It was, in fact 'un-put-downable' - I read it in two sittings, broken only by a meal. It's a gripping yarn, set, like the previous one, in the area around Hadrian's Wall during the reign of Commodus. There are, perhaps, a few too many twists to the tale - a sort of case of 'now how is our hero going to get out of this one?'. To be fair though, this only began to rankle slightly right near the end of the book. It is a good tale, and has several ideas that I might steal for wargames scenarios. It isn't 'literature' - it's more in the mould of Simon Scarrow or Bernard Cornwell than Patrick O'Brian. But that isn't a bad thing, per se - at times I find O'Brian annoyingly flowery and pretentious in his writing! But this is aimed at a different audience to O'Brian anyway, and it's a good solid addition to the ranks of 'page-turners'. Buy a copy, I expect you'll enjoy it as much as I did. It fairly stimulates the imagination, and had me imagining happenings many, many years ago in places I love, as well as imagining those same happenings being re-created on my wargames table.
So, what's next? Well, Tony is off on a trek along Hadrians Wall in aid of Help for Heroes - more on that in my next entry. And now, book-wise, I'm waiting for Harry Sidebottom's new Warrior of Rome book: "Lion of the Sun'.