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Even his lisp worked in Alcibiades' favor. It was a flaw; it made him human. It took the curse off his otherwise godlike self-presentation and made one, despite all misgivings, like the fellow.This tale of arms and the man requires two narrators. One, Jason, is an aging noble who serves as a sort of recording angel of the Athenian golden age. The other, Polymides, was long Alcibiades' right-hand man, yet is now imprisoned for his murder.
As they were in his previous novel, Pressfield's battle scenes are extraordinarily vivid and visceral. This time, however, many of these elemental clashes take place on water. "As far as sight could carry, the sea stood curtained with smoke and paved with warcraft. Immediately left, a battleship had rammed one of the vessels in the wall; all three of her banks were backing water furiously, to extract and ram again, while across the breach screamed storms of stones, darts, and brands of such density that the air appeared solid with steel and flame."
In addition to his gift for rendering patriotic gore, the author excels at quieter but no less deadly forms of combat. As Alcibiades' star rises and falls and rises again, we are escorted directly into the snakepit of Athenian realpolitik. Bathing us in the details of a distant era, Pressfield is largely convincing. But it must be said that his diction exhibits a sometimes comical variegation, sliding from Homeric rhetoric to tough-guy speak to the sort of casual Anglicisms we might expect from Evelyn Waugh's far-from-bright young things. No matter. Tides of War conquers by sheer storytelling prowess, reminding us that war was--and is--a highly addictive version of hell. --Darya Silver --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Less than I'd hoped for,
By
This review is from: Tides of War (Paperback)
Alcibiades is a less than admirable historical figure for me, and because of that the Peloponnesian War, its means and consequences, and its eventual outcome, is difficult for me to be particularly interested in. If someone could pull it off, I thought, surely the author of the masterful Gates of Fire could do so. Alas, even Pressfield faltered somewhat. His battlefield and nautical fights were done well, but characterizations and intrigue were weak. I found few characters to really sympathize with, and my attention wandered off so many times and I spent so much time wishing that it would hurry up and "get better," that I wouldn't recommend it to most people.However, if you are interested in ancient Greece, find an opportunist like Alcibiades an interesting figure to study, and don't mind tragedy without much heroism, you may like Tides of War. To be fair, in retrospect I wasn't sorry I read it; there were some parts that I really enjoyed. You may want to prepare yourself by familiarizing yourself with some of the main details of the Peloponnesian War, as Tides of War skims over much of it. Further, to Pressfield's credit, the novelization of a near-thirty year long war with such intricate complications is truly difficult, and he makes a bold attempt. Perhaps he shouldn't have tried, or perhaps he should have narrowed his scope to a traditional novel structure: exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, resolution. Nevertheless, I give this book 3 stars, as Pressfield does as good a job as anyone out there could. I just wish he hadn't tried - and I wish I hadn't read it with the hope that it could be anywhere as good as Gates of Fire.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Enaging, but uneven and hurried - or unedited?,
By A Customer
This review is from: Tides of War (Paperback)
I agree with the reviewers who say that this is an engaging and fun-filled ride through history, as seen through the eyes of those who lived it.What I wish to add, and warn about is the uneven quality of the writing. The writer wanders off the road quite frequently in his dialog. Soldiers as well as nobles will speak in near-Dickensonian phrases: long windy sentences, nuancing their terms and using euphemisms and poetic expressions. Then, without warning, the speaker will use gutter terms, and the conversation will linger on matters scatological or sexual. There is no thought for the consistency of the characters' nature, or previous style and manner of speaker. Nor to the reader's sensibilities. One gets the strong impression of the author showing off his own "enlightened" freedom with such matters. He can neither argue that this is the way people spoke - for the characters are wildly inconsistent - nor that he is rendering their conversations as we would hear them today. But that is not true, either, for those who speak so crudely today are not prone to switching gears and saying "...his carriage does comport to offer such illusions to the sympathetic eye.." in the next breath. The other possibility is that he is a good reader of history, but a poor writer. He takes his eye off the road, and drives into a ditch every few pages. His use of anachronisms - figures of speech using inventions and habits not yet invented in ancient times - is further evidence of this.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Awesome Book!,
By
This review is from: Tides of War (Paperback)
Mr Pressfield is at his best in this book. The story is compelling and absorbing. The action is non-stop and the description of the battle plans and battles puts goosebumps on your arms. I have read several novels of ancient warfare over the past two years, including Pressfields' Gates of Fire, and hands down this is the best. For sheer drama, action, characters, and just plain old adventure, this book is the best one out there. You will not want to put this baby down and then you will be very upset when you come to the end and there is no more.
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