The Blood Star [Hardcover]

Nicholas Guild (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Shot through with dark, exotic lyricism, Guild's majestic historical epic cuts a wide swath through ancient Assyria, Egypt, Phoenicia, Sicily, Greece. Its narrator-hero, Tiglath Ashur, seen before in The Assyrian , is banished from Nineveh by his hated half-brother, the Assyrian king, partly due to a misunderstanding that is not cleared up until long after the brothers are reconciled. Fleeing the king's assassins, Tiglath encounters formulaic elements of the adventure novel--sudden perils, gory battles, omens, spicy lovemaking. But Guild easily transcends genre conventions. His witty, world-weary hero grows in stature through his quest, deepened by experience and by love for a young Egyptian slave-girl whom he rescues and later marries. This saga serves up a rich, intoxicating feast, interweaving a cultural anthropology of unfamiliar lands and a stoic meditation on mortality, fate, revenge and justice, the ties of love and blood.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 664 pages
• Publisher: Atheneum (July 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0689118988
• ISBN-13: 978-0689118982
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,483,316 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Almost a decade expecting, October 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Blood Star (Hardcover)

I bought The Assyrian while I was living in Panama. Back then, I was a 17 year-old guy,with my head full of dreams of greatness and ambition. I read it and inmediately felt myself identified with Tiglath; I thought I was someone powerful, lucky and admired by women. I read it again a couple of years later. I felt the character grew up with me in responsability, awareness, etc. It was OK again, yet different. Last summer, I was on a bookstore just checking the latest History textbooks(I'm a History student), when a flashy cover appeared to me: The blood star.I picked it up and surprisingly it was the sequal to my all time favorite novel.As I was on vacatios i "devoured" it in 2 nights. I couln't stop!! I thik it's better than The Assyrian. I read it as a25 year old man, and I felt the same thing: I've been growing up with the character. I introduced this masterpieces to all my family, including my fiancee's, and they love it. Thanks Nicholas for also showing me the right career (historian, after a couple of years studying Law), and thank you for those dreams come true.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars IF YOU READ THE ASSYRIAN HOW COULD YOU NOT READ THIS BOOK?, September 29, 1999

By 

Ronald D. Pierce "Grins" (Eatonville, Washington) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Blood Star (Hardcover)

WOW, WHAT A BOOK, THE SEQUAL IS BETTER THAN THE FIRST BOOK THE ASSRYIAN, very seldom have I read any sequal that is better than the first book. I can't give Nicholas Guild enough praise for the detail and story lines that fill this book. I was carried away into the story. I found myself participating in all the events. It was as if I were living out my part in these HISTORIC EVENTS. I hated finishing the book, and decided to start with the Assyrian and read both books through again. SOME WHERE THERE MUST BE A MOVIE MAGNET WHO WOULD LIKE TO PUT TOGETHER A MOVIE that would put BEN HUR, EL CID, SPARTICUS, QUO VADIS AND OTHER GREAT MOVIES TO SHAME. Do the world a favor, pick up the rights to these two books and make a movie. Where are you Kirk Douglas?? Nicholas Guild, get back to your element. Your other novels don't even hold a candle to the Assyrian and Blood Star. Bring us other classic novels based on the classic historical periods of the past. Thank you for these two wonderful books.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gush-worthy historical fiction, January 22, 2003

By 

S. Brand "sandra807" (United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Blood Star (Hardcover)

I can do nothing but gush and rave about this book! Where has this author gone, and will there be more? Nicholas Guild has an amazing mastery of storytelling and language, as in this sequel to the wonderful novel, The Assyrian, he brings to life an ancient and admirable hero in the land of Assyria, about 700 B.C.

Tiglath Ashur, a prince who should have been king, detours through life at the whim and design of the god Ashur. Tiglath is noble, brave, wise, a disciplined commander of armies who can mete destruction or mercy as justice requires. His journey through life takes him to the heights of victory, and to the depths of banishment. He always looks to the god and his signs to guide him as he escapes assassins and takes deadly treks through scorching desert, labyrinthine swamps, and squares off with enemies who set traps for him in unexpected places. Tiglath has fascinating companions, too: Kephalos, his loyal and cunning servant; Enkidu, his mute giant of a bodyguard, and Selana, his feisty Greek wife. Not only does the plot of this book take you on a great ride of adventure and human emotion, but it is told eloquently, in language with rich metaphors and detail.

Of course I had to find out more information about this historical period of Assyria, around the time of Tiglath's father, King Sennacherib. What I found online was sketchy compared to the novel, but with that skeleton of historical records, the author has built an incredibly imaginative and satisfying story, about 1400 pages between the two books. I greatly enjoyed the first: The Assyrian, but Blood Star was even better, and to cap it off, it ended perfectly.