The protagonist is a youthful soldier named Primus, son of a
noted officer who supported a rebellious general. The general lost, and so
Primus and the army with whom he has lived most of his life are in the
wilderness, far from Arcadia.
The story moves along at a fair lick, and the book has
practically no padding at all. There are one or two scenes that refer to events
within Arcadia, with an entirely
separate cast, but I feel that these would be better either being axed or added
to. As it is they feel a bit isolated and don't add that much to the story.
The author does a good job of creating problems and dilemmas
for Primus that are serious, without immediately plunging head first into End
Of The World territory. A few more secondary characters to back up Primus
perhaps would have helped flesh him and the world out a little more.
The central storyline revolves around Primus' enemy Varro
and his own promotion to the extrordinarii (must admit it slightly irked me
that the A was missing). The plot is tight and cohesive, and the fast pace
stops things getting bogged down. More than once I intended to read a single
chapter and ended up reading two or three.
As regular readers will now I am somewhat into classical
history, and whilst it's fantasy I was still pretty pleased to see that the
Arcadians are close enough to the Romans that nothing seriously jarred.
The back of the book indicates that whilst this is his sole
effort to date Mr. Gawley will be writing more, and I'll try and keep my eye
out for his future works.
So, to conclude: it's a good, fast story. The non-Primus
part of the story could be axed, and the writing quality's pretty good.
Thaddeus
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