Empire Rising

This book is one of the best reads I have had this year. It starts with the beginning of civilisation and combines fiction and history rather cleverly. If you look, this book has been highly recommended by the amazing writer Conn Iggulden. The main reason why I have written this review is more to promote the author rather than it to be totally about the book. Plenty have written enough about this. I have written to the author reviewing his books and he has informed me that we may not see the third book in this series unless the sales go up. I for one would like this book to be published immensly. If you enjoyed this book, please either recommend it or buy it for someone else.

This continuation of Sam Barone's first novel,"Dawn of Empire", keeps you interested from page one. You feel as if you are one of the warriors fighting for your life. I found this book so exciting that I hated to put it down. A must read for anyone who likes adventure.

I loved Dawn of Empire. This book is better by any measure. The writing style and dialogue is more flowing. Mr. Barone chooses to write the action in a non-linear fashion, switching scenes and rewinding the time line to catch-up to the action. At first disarming, I grew to see the value particularly in the final battle scenes with its divided action. He develops the Lani character into someone we grow to understand and believe in. Similar to his treatment of Trella, Sam Barone understands the value of a strong female persona. Even the minor characters are sufficiently developed to generate empathy (or hate). While the ultimate results of the siege were predictable, there were enough little surprises along the way (boats, a heroic cat,....) to captivate this reader. This book stands alone. By all means read DOE if you haven't, but the author has cleverly interwoven the necessary background into this novel without boring those that have. Very nice job. More please!!

Simply put... I loved this book! Finding out what happens to Eskkar and Trella, and the city of Akkad makes for one AMAZING story! There really is no need for me to say more because I would be just repeating what others have said. This is a wonderful story with everything that a wonderful story needs. Period!

Dawn of Empire, was an impressive debut for Sam Barone. I thoroughly loved that book and was keenly awaiting his follow up to see if he could build on that effort. Once again Sam has produced a winner with Empire Rising. Barone returns to the cradle of civilization in this, his sequel to Dawn of Empire. Lord Eskkar, a former barbarian who earlier saved the city of Akkad from almost-certain defeat, and Lady Trella, an erstwhile slave and his wife, now rule the "biggest city on the Tigris." Hoping to crush the bandits marauding in the countryside and extend Akkadian rule, Eskkar dispatches one band of soldiers south from Akkad and leads another north. In Eskkar's absence, true to form a menace appears on the horizon in the form of Korthac, a newly arrived Egyptian warrior posing as a trader. Infiltrating the city with his followers he aims to seize power while arranging for assassins to take out Eskkar, while his other allies in the form of bandits are sent south to ambush the returning Akkadian soldiers. Inside the city, his followers attack the soldiers left behind to keep order and take a pregnant Lady Trella prisoner. Of course its never that simple and thats what draws the reader onwards in this page turner of a book. Weaknesses in terms of the story? The outcome of the non stop action might be predictable, but thats about all one can fault since like Dawn of Empire the end result is not something that one doubts for long. Rather its a combination of other things such as the rich manner in which the author renders his Middle Eastern settings in all their historical detail and makes the reader feel they are present as well as the sharp and absorbing way he pens his characters be it heroes or villains and breathes life into them. The sense of adventure and promise of peril that lay ahead are nicely penned so the story doesnt have flat spots which have you skipping pages. Fans of ancient historical fiction will enjoy this instructive journey to the dawn of civilization. Barone knows his stuff and writes fluently of the everday life of our ancient forbears and the quality of his research is very sound. All up Empire Rising is a winner from the first page to the last. Highly recommended.