Customer Reviews

The Hittite

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I picked this one up due to a recently acquired interest in the history of the Sumerians, Assyrians, Egypt and their neighbours. There aren't that many novels set in this period (broad as it is.....) and this seemed like it had potential. That said, I agree with many of Stuart's comments in his review - while the author seems to know his stuff, he's condensed a number of historical events for no good reason, the historical events used as background seem out of whack and chunks of the storyline seem a little forced. From the title, I was looking for a bit more in the way of "Hittite" themes and background woven into the book and that was certainly missing.

That said, ignore these failings and it's an entertaining reinterpretation of the Iliad using an "outsider" to give a different point of view. I certainly enjoyed it myself and if there's a sequel, I'd more than likely pick it up.

For another (and probably the only) really good novel set in Hatti, read I, the Sun by Janet Morris, a truely excellent novel that recreates the life of the great Hittite King, Suppiluliumas. Can't speak highly enough of this book.

And as for Harriet's review - I despair. As far as I can recall, there's no mention of the "Emporer" of the Hatti being stripped of his clothes. I fear Harriet may have read a publicity review or perhaps got this mixed up with another book. Truely, I shudder whenever I read a review by Harriet of a book I've just read - they seem to be taken straight from the publishers blurbs, and not particularly accurately at that!

A different take on the Trojan War and a quite unique one at that. Bova has retold one of the most retold stories in literature and managed to give it fresh view. The main character, Lukka, is a Hittite officer who leads his squad of soldiers in a search for kidnapped and presumably enslaved wife and children. His search takes him to Troy where he plans to ask Priam from help in his search. Instead, he is cut off from the city by the Greek army. He enlists with Odysseus's troops and fights (and survives) against the Trojan hero, Hector. Odysseus uses Lukka as an ambassador to the Trojans twice. In the city, he meets the beautiful Helen and can't get her out his mind afterward.
Bova takes the historical figures and give us great character sketches: Achilles, Agamemnon and Menalaos are all portrayed vividly.
There several twists on the usual events that are reputed to take have taken place once the walls were breached, but I'm not going to give them away. I've read a number of Trojan War stories and this has to rank up there with the best of them.
Four out of five stars

Tunnel Vision

If you love history,adventure,romance and a mystery thriller then The Hittite by Ben Bova is the book for you! Once started, I couldn't put it down. It's a real page turner,a convincing and inventive retelling of the legend of Troy. It has an interesting and believable twist! The Hittite is an adventure you'll want to undertake and be looking for more at the end of the book.
Historical figures and concepts are incorporated into the novel in an acceptable manner.
Mr.Bova has done his research. He takes recently discovered facts concerning the Hittites, their empire and military proficiency and turns the myth of Troy into a believable novel.
If you are a connoisseur of ancient history The Hittite will make sense and as the ending is left open there is a possibility for a sequel...I hope the author feels the same.
I highly recommend this book!
I read a few comments that questioned Mr. Bova's research....
if you are trully interested in the veracity of historical facts in the book then try:
Trevor Bryce
J.G.Mcqueen
Joachim Lactaz
and J.D.Hawkins to name a few.
These people are experts in their field of Hittite history, archeology and language.
"New evidence leads to these conclusions....recent excavations of 13th century Troy and translations of Hittite Tablets(by J.D.Hawkins)and an archelogical enterprise under the direction of of Manfred Korfman authenticates Mr.Bova's conclusions of Hittite and Tojan history and involvement.

Rebutal to Stuart McCunn: The only item I agree with you is the cover art: Lukka could have been portrayed more authentically and I would rather imagine Helen for myself. It had the look of a romance novel. But I do believe that cover art is more in the hands of the publisher than the author.
The story....well written or not....is your own opinoin and we are all entitled to that, although again I disagree with your analasys.
I draw the line at your conjecture of historical inaccuracies. To pit another novelist as comparison...a fiction writer himself is ludicrous.
Try the above named archeologists,historians and Hittite language translators who are experts in their fields.!
And you will see the Mr.Bova "is on time and on target"!

The Empire of the Hatti had defeated the Babylonians, Egyptians and many more, but face defeat from within by treachery. The emperor was stripped of his clothing by his sons and hence the Gods abandoned Hatti. Lukka leads his military unit home seeing the capital Hattusas ablaze from a distance. When they arrive inside the burning city they see gangs of drunken youths looting and killing. Lukka finds his dying father who informs him that his wife and sons might live, but are gone as property of the slavers.

He concludes his family would be sold in Troy. Leading his force to Troy, he finds the city under seize by the Achaians, whose lack of discipline makes Lukka ill to need them as an ally. He learns his spouse is a slave and vows to rescue her anyway he can and to learn the fate of his sons. Thus he begins the construct of a wooden horse that if he understands human nature should enable him to see "the face that launched a thousand ships".

This is an interesting retelling of the Trojan Horse with the above description only the beginning as the reader also for instance obtains Helen's side of the saga instead of the usual male machismo as she is all these super hunks' Achilles heel. Lukka is a fascinating military leader who understands war has three offspring: death, maiming and slavery. He knows when his men fight, some will die, some will be maimed, and maybe a few captured and tortured as slaves. Fans will enjoy Ben Bova's rendition of part of Homer's the Iliad

Harriet Klausner

Since my main interest in this book comes from an interest in history and especially the history of this period, I am splitting this review into two sections. The first section will deal with the story itself and the style, characters, etc. The second part is about the history and doesn't reflect my rating much either way, since most people who read this book will be looking for exactly what it is: An adventure novel set during the Trojan War. If you aren't interested in history then feel free to ignore the second part of this review.

Story
This book is basically about the Trojan War. The main character, Lukka, is a soldier from the fallen Hittite Empire which lies far away from either side. He is on a quest to rescue his wife and sons from slavers, and these slavers have rather unplausibly traveled all the way to Troy (a month-long journey) where you'd think there would be enough slaves already. Aside from the somewhat forced nature of his quest the first part of the book is the most successful. It feels like an adventure. A group of men on a quest to rescue their leader's wife. Unfortunately things reach something of a standstill once they reach Troy. Once there Lukka immediately joins the Greeks since his wife is now a slave to Agamemnon. From then on Lukka is predominantly a bystander to the Trojan War. There are a number of plot points that, perhaps because they are so well known, the author simply has other characters describe to Lukka, sometimes only moments after they have happened, instead of having him witness them himself. This kills any momentum that the book has. This story is essentially The Iliad retold with a new character. There is very little else added. It seems as if the book is on autopilot for as long as the war goes on (Which is the rest of the book basically). I think that I would actually have preferred it if they changed everything around and gave a different take on the material. It can't seem to decide whether to be realistic or fantastical and it sort of settles for being dull. As it is, you're better off reading the book that this is based on instead. If the Iliad is too hard for you there are dozens of abridgments out there. Get one of them instead.

The characters are not particularly complex and have rather a tendency to be defined by a single character trait. The Greeks are seen rather differently than Homer portrays them: Agamemnon is a whiner; Menelaus is a cruel husband; Achilles is an ugly, violent dwarf; and Nestor is a senile old man who keeps recounting boring stories. Odysseus comes off fairly well, being a cunning but professional soldier. Hector comes off well also, as he tends to do in modern takes on Troy. The biggest change of all is Helen. This book has a strong feminist angle which I personally find to be rather forced. Helen is a clever woman who wants to escape from the Greeks because they do not give her as much freedom and power as the Trojans. I don't want to say more since that would give the ending away, but her story is the only one that goes rather different from the legend. Since the Greeks are utterly unsympathetic this removes any concern that the reader might have for their story.

Perhaps the Adventure novel just isn't my genre, but I feel this book to be disappointingly average. There is nothing wrong with the book per say, it simply doesn't meet expectations. That isn't to say that this book is without potential. The ending is left wide open and it sounds like the author intends to continue the story. Since by far the most interesting parts of the book were those that did not deal with Troy the potential of quality sequels is decent. They are not likely to be deep or engrossing, but they might be entertaining and that is all that this book tried to be.

History
This section deals with the actual history portrayed in the book and isn't meant to affect the entertainment value of the writing. There have been some spectacularly inaccurate books out there that nevertheless manage to be fun. Still, for those who are interested here are my comments on the history portrayed in the book.

I have to say that the research here seems kind of sloppy. Perhaps I'm simply spoiled by reading Bernard Cornwell and the like, but I usually expect more work put into this kind of book. Certainly there was some research done since the names of the gods and the uses of chariots and siege weapons are more or less as they should be, but those feel like they have been just copied off of a list. The character names are taken from random places or made up. Lukka for example, is the name of one of the kingdoms bordering the Hittites. A positive point is that the Hittites refer to themselves as people of Hatti, as indeed they would have, even if everyone else does anachronistically refer to them as Hittites. Iron was not the standard equipment of Hittite soldiers. That is a theory that was disproven half a century ago. Leaving aside the question of whether there was a Trojan War or not (That is one of the advantages of writing fiction) the way that it was portrayed takes everything from the Iliad and merely adds touches here and there so that it seems more realistic. The political situation as portrayed is not right. The timing is off for the whole thing. Bova's grasp on dates seems rather shaky. He has people witness the sack of Babylon, the battle of Kadesh, the fall of Hattusas, and the fall of Troy all in a single lifetime. Some of these events were close in time, but others are up to 200 years apart. The Greek Cities fell before the Hittite Empire did, which means that the main character should never have been in the situation he was in. It certainly stretches credulity that the Trojans would have no idea after ten years of fighting that the Hittites had fallen and were not coming to their aid. In terms of sources used, apart from the names of the gods I don't see any information in this book that couldn't have come from the BBC series Lost Cities of the Ancients. The slant on the fall of the Hittite Empire is exactly the same with the Hittites falling solely due to civil war. Neither this book nor that show mentioned the myriad of raiders sweeping through the Near Eastern world at this point, destroying every country but Egypt. In fact, the show actually stated flat out that there were no external enemies facing the Hittites. This book seems to agree with that assessment. Of course, if this book becomes a series it will have a chance to correct that. Here's hoping.

The Greeks come off as arrogant, disorganized barbarians while the Trojans are rich and civilized merchants. Both are of course exaggerations but understandable ones. The Hittites, disappointingly, come across as rather bland and generic. They seem merely to be a powerful Imperial power. Nothing else is really shown. The Hittites are intentionally without culture and customs so that they can serve as modern eyes observing the Greek and Trojan ways. I feel that there was a missed opportunity there, since the Hittite world is never really shown. The situation in the Empire is left rather vague. You hear that the kingdom has fallen to a civil war, but you never hear more than that. Not even the name of the last king. Or any king for that matter. Perhaps he thinks that real Hittite names are too hard to pronounce (Try saying Suppiluliumas!). The capital city of Hattusas is sacked by the Hittite factions in the beginning of the book for reasons that are unclear and despite the fact that the former capital was abandoned by this point. Just from a storytelling perspective it would have been nice to have given the main character a home to flee from. Starting in the middle of things seems like a good idea, but I think that the book would have been better served to have either told the story of the fall in flashback or start it earlier so that you could feel for what Lukka lost. Amusingly enough, he already has a flashback to the fall of Hattusas about 20 pages in, even though we have already seen it. For a novel entitled "The Hittite" you'd think that there would be more about them. Instead we merely get another retelling of the Trojan War.

I'm an avid reader of historical fiction and so glad I bought this book. There just aren't enough historical novels out there on ancient times and this retelling of the Trojan War is a welcome addition to the genre. The cover grabbed me right away. I don't agree with a couple of the other reviewers who gave the cover a negative review. I'm a librarian and I see a lot of romance covers come through our library and this does NOT look like a romance cover. It has more of a Prince of Persia look to it and I think it would grab the attention of both men and women. The story appeals to both men and women too and is a compulsive read that captures the time period perfectly. It starts off from the Hittite Lukka's point of view, but women will enjoy the book too because it also shifts to tell Helen's story. I don't want to give too much away. I'm so hoping for a sequel.

The Iliad, supposedly the fount of western literature, is sometimes difficult--leaving out the capricious gods--difficult to handle.
It's about the wrath of Achilles? The whole Achaian effort stands and falls on this guy?
A hollow horse fooled the Trojans???
To paraphrase historians Edith Hamilton and Geoffrey Ashe, you should never take myths literally but you should always take them seriously.
Bova does, with mixed results. It is an ingenious view of where the "horse" theme came from--you'll have to read the book--and what drove Achilles might be more believable if you know the guy isn't quite right in the head to start with and his fearful combat skills are a combination of wiry speed, training, preternaturally fast reflexes, and the old saying, "If you ain't afraid to die, you won't." seems to help.
The protagonist, Lukka, is set on his way by the chaos in the Hittite empire caused by civil war.
Most historical novels have to take their protagonists and position them to pass through, or participate in, notable events. It does no good, as I've said in other reviews, to try to write a story about a soldier who follows the soldier in front of him to Waterloo where they shoot, are shot, and eventually discover if they've won or lost. So it does take some ingenuity on the part of the author to spring his hero from the usual restrictions. In this case Lukka, a squad leader in the Hittite Army, returns from campaign to find the empire in ruins, with brigandage and raids and death on every side. His wife and children are taken as slaves, which has the dual purpose of giving him no reason to hang around, and a serious reason to go searching instead of finding a place to set up for himself. His soldiers, some of them, are cut loose for some of the same reasons, giving him enough combat power, a dozen professional long-serving troops among bandits and peasants, to believably get where he needs to get without having his throat cut a score of times among the anarchy.
Eventually, he follows the track of the slavers to the Troad, finding the Trojan War going on.
He encounters Odysseus and becomes attached to his entourage, following him to one encounter or another we hear about in Homer, and getting a view of the man.
Here Bova makes a serious distinction which reminded me of a bit from Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror; The Calamitous Fourteenth Century" about Europe and the Hundred Years War. Children died so early so frequently that, she said, their parents rarely invested much emotional energy in them until age five or so. From that, she suggests that some of the statecraft, warcraft, and other puzzles of the age are the result of kings, dukes and others in a kind of arrested adolescence.
Real armies need grownups. They find them, or train them. Odysseus is an adult amid a sea of over-muscled, honor-seeking kids, which explains the effects and utility of his counsels. Lukka and his soldiers are, by training, adults as well, which is one reason Odysseus likes having them. Bova's battle scenes of chaos, confusion, and slaughter make make one wonder about having the Trojans or the Achaians face a Classical Greek phalanx, or a Roman legion.
This is written in the first person, so we see what the thing looks like to an experienced professional soldier--pretty sloppy.
In the end, Lukka makes possible the successful assault on Troy, then finds his wife--and loses her--and his sons and makes his escape with...Helen. With a few of his soldiers, the character later called Homer, and his sons, they wander toward Egypt, hoping to avoid Menalaus' searchers.
I see a sequel, presuming one hasn't already been written.
It's an interesting book, a good read.
I do think an earlier reviewer had something right about the cover. Doesn't strike me that a Hittite professional soldier would look like an alumnus of a boy band with hair extenders.
The ins and outs of Bronze Age warfare and associated activities seem reasonable and interesting.

I love historical books, I also am interested in the nation of the Hittites. however the language that this book was written in is extremely poor. Its been extremely dumbed down, and i while reading it i felt as if i were reading a children's book. after 60 pgs, i found that I was more interested in the city of troy, than if the main character ever found his missing sons. the main character was very flat, we new nothing of his personal history, or what sort of man he was. the slave poletes had more depth than the main character. how lame is that? i had no idea that war rape and murder could be so boring.

Given that much of history is rewritten by EVERY generation in our 'publish or perish' culture, and given that this is a NOVEL I found it entertaining, interesting in concept, and accurate enough for my needs.
As George Carlin once asked "are eggs good or bad for ya?"....
Bova takes a loose look at a time many of us know almost nothing about. He incorporates historical figures that got me to seek further knowledge and when I did I ran into the generational reassessment conflicts cited above.
All in all I enjoyed it immensely.

I've been reading Bova for years and this was quite different.

A very different take on the siege of Troy, set in a very vivid and realistic world, oftentimes quite brutal. It was easy to relate to the military man, and understandable why the main character did what he did throughout the novel and why it was justified by him, as well as the trials and setbacks he faced being in the military, rather than in charge of it. Well spoken and entirely believable in my humble opinion. It was difficult to put down at times, though the end seemed to drag just slightly.