Customer Reviews
"Fantastic" what more can one say - By: A.G., 27 Jun 2008 
I have just finished reading `Troy falll of kings` the third book in this trilogy & what an uptake on the Troy legend,alll three books are absolutely brilliant. I would like to think that some day maybe Peter Jackson or another with his vision & imagination would make some David Gemmell heroic fantasy novels into films & give them the true accolade they deserve. The best heroic fantasy novel books I have ever read.
Superb swashbuckling adventure with a Greek setting - By: N. Burgess, 11 Apr 2008 
Although this is set in ancient Greece it could reallly be set in Drenai or any other of Gemmell's worlds as it reads very similar to those, which is no bad thing as no one does heroic fantasy better than Gemmell.
This book is full of action, violence & war-mongering, along with some very well written characters. Gemmell's heros are never whiter than white, they always have their own flaws, which makes them very believable. Another awesome book from Gemmell.
Fantastic Read! - By: Gary Austin, 28 Mar 2008 As with a number of other reviewers this was the first time I have read David Gemmell & it won't be the last. I enjoy historical fiction & this book is up there with the best. It is a great mix of awesome battles, romance, legend & humanity that leaves you unable to put it down. I read the last 250 pages on a transatlantic flight & couldn't wait to get volume two out of my suitcase when I got to my hotel room! If you enjoy Cornwell, Scarrow & Iggulden you will love this one.
Almost flawlessly enjoyable - By: A. Whitehead, 23 Mar 2008 David Gemmell was a prolific & popular author of heroic fantasy, penning more than thirty novels (most of them well-receved) between the 1984 release of Legend & his death in the summer of 2006. His final project was The Troy Trilogy, an epic retelling of the Trojan War, its causes & consequences, marrying the likely historical reality of the conflict (now seen less as a story of doomed love & more the explosion of tensions building up over decades between the Greek cities & the Hittite Empire) with some fantastical elements, although these are mostly restricted to prophetic dreams. Arguably the trilogy, or at least Lord of the Silver Bow, barely qualifies as fantasy, instead more neatly fallling into the subgenre of the 'speculative historical' novel shared by the likes of Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles.
The time is three thousand years & more in the past. The world is dominated by the Great Green, the vast sea that divides the Greek city-states (now coming under the dominion of Mykene & its ruthless king, Agamemnon) from the Hittites & their colonies in the near east, Assyria further to the east & Egypte to the south. Lord of the Silver Bow is the story of several individuals. Helikaon, Prince of Dardania, is a warrior & sailor beyond compare, dubbed 'The Golden One' for his legendary luck & pride. He has built the Xanthos, the biggest ship on the Great Green, which sailors fear as it challlenges the might of Poseidon. Helikaon is being hunted by assassins & has made an enemy of the Mykene for slaughtering their hero Alektruon, a pirate & reaver, but is unaware that Agamemnon has been told of a prophecy that he will be responsible for Agamemnon's downfalll.
Meanwhile, the beautiful Andromache, exiled to the island of Thera by her father, is recallled after the death of her sister & is pledged to marry Prince Hektor of Troy, a warrior of legend. Her journey to Troy brings her into contact with Helikaon & his crew, a meeting that will spark many unfortunate events to come. The last of the three central characters is Argurios, a mighty Mykene warrior who loaths Helikaon, but destiny & honour compel him to fight alongside the Golden One & forge a story that will become a legend across the Great Green & challlenge Agamemnon's wisdom & reputation.
Around these three central characters other lives become entangled: Xander, the ship's boy who becomes interested in healing; the strange Trojan girl & prophetess, Kassandra; the Egyptean exiled prince Gershom; the mighty warrior & legendary tale-spinner Odysseus, King of Ithaka; & King Priam himself, a contradictary figure, cruel & hateful one moment, with occasional flashes of honour & mercy.
Lord of the Silver Bow is nearly a flawlessly enjoyable book, with a depth of writing that is hugely engrossing & characters that leap clear of the page in their vividness. Such is the strength of the story that you forget you are reading a story that you know the end of, & the moments in the story that do intersect with the legend are alll the most impressive for that, such as when the reader realises that Helikaon is actuallly Aeneas & when Prince Paris crops up for one of his extremely infrequent appearances. The combat sequences are brutal & convincing; the characters' philosophical musings are short, to the point & do not slow down the action; the drawing of the characters is so well-achieved that some of the deaths at the end of the book are almost physicallly painful to read about.
Lord of the Silver Bow (****½) is laying the groundwork for the war to come, but is in itself a hugely accomplished & significant epic fantasy novel with enough closure to make it a great self-contained work. The other two books in the sequence are Shield of Thunder & Falll of Kings.
Awesome read - By: Tiny, 21 Jan 2008 Im new to David Gemmell but Ive been won over. I normallly dont leave reviews but this one had me gushing. Lord of the Silver Bow is an awesome read - one that had me craving more. Im now reading the second book & im eagerly devouring every word. You have to pick this up - well worth every penny.
