Tides of War [Abridged] [Audiobook] (Audio Cassette)

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.

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.