Last of the Amazons [Hardcover]

Steven Pressfield (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 3, 2002

In or around 1250 BC, so Plutarch tells us, Theseus, king of Athens and slayer of the Minotaur, set sail on a journey that brought him to the land of 'tal Kyrte', the 'Free People', a nation of fiercely proud and passionate warrior women whom the Greeks called 'Amazons'. Bound to each other as lovers as well as fighters and owing allegiance to no man, the Amazons distrusted the Greeks with their boastful talk of cities and civilization. And when their illustrious war queen Antiope fell in love with Theseus and fled to Athens with the king and his followers, so denying her people, the Amazon tribes were outraged. Seeking revenge, they raised a vast army and marched on Athens. History tells us they could not win, but for a brief and glorious moment the Amazons held the Attic world in thrall before vanishing into the immortal realms of myth and legend. Resounding to the sound of brutal, bloody battles fought hand-to-hand and peopled with wonderfully realised flesh and blood characters - from the unforgettable warrior Selene, whose surrender to the Greeks does nothing to tame her, and her lover, Damon, an Athenian soldier who comes to understand and cherish the ways of the Amazon, to the great and tragic figure of Theseus, and Antiope, the noble queen who betrayed her people for love - here is Steven Pressfield's most thrillingly imagined novel yet. In this dazzling and profoundly moving tale of love and war, honour and revenge, he brings the ancient world to brilliant life as never before to recount the extraordinary, near-forgotten story of the last of the Amazons...

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Writing about ancient Greece with rich historical detail, passion and drama, Pressfield has previously dramatized the battle of Thermopylae (Gates of Fire) and the Peloponnesian War (Tides of War). Here, he steps further back in time, to 1250 B.C., when the civilized Greek city-state of Athens confronts the barbaric empire of the Amazons in a titanic struggle for survival. The novel does not pack the emotional punch of Pressfield's other Greek fiction, but it still rings with the clamor and horror of close combat, sword on shield, battle-ax on helmet and javelins thudding into armor. The Amazon kingdom, peopled and ruled by a ferocious society of female warriors, occupies land near the Black Sea. The Amazon war queen, Antiope, leads an army of female warriors feared for their savage cruelty and hatred of the Greeks. When Theseus, the Greek king of Athens, journeys into Amazon territory, he and Antiope spar verbally, but fall in love, creating a dilemma for both. Antiope forswears her allegiance to the Amazon life and flees with Theseus back to Athens to become his wife. Antiope's successor, her Amazon lover, Eleuthera, vows to wipe out Athens to erase the shame and treachery of Antiope and Theseus's marriage. She leads a mighty invasion of Greece, culminating in a long siege and a climactic battle before Athens's great walls. Amid the carnage, gore and violence, Pressfield presents a love story so grand it pits nations against one another. Pressfield's javelin is his pen and he wields it well in this gruesome tale of ancient blood lust in an age when there is no word for mercy.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Already celebrated for tales of ancient Greece, Pressfield now visits the Amazons.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Transworld Hardbacks (June 3, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385602669
• ISBN-13: 978-0385602662
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.8 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (64 customer reviews)

More About the Author

STEVEN PRESSFIELD is the author of the hugely successful historical novels Gates of Fire, Tides of War, and Last of the Amazons. His debut novel, The Legend of Bagger Vance, was made into a movie starring Matt Damon and Will Smith in 2000. He lives in California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Is it?, September 23, 2008

By 

Judy K. Polhemus "Book Collector" (Louisiana) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Last of the Amazons (Paperback)

When you have white space before you, a magnificent book beside you, there develops a reluctance to begin. What if you cannot do the book justice? But throw that question aside and begin. No faint heart for an Amazon or one who reveres Amazons.

"Last of the Amazons" is a magnificent book worthy of only the most devout reader. Brave, bold, courageous, fierce. Think of every bold word you can. Still they are not enough. The Amazons were a race apart. Did they truly exist? Plutarch says they did. Or, were they part of mythical Greece?

Steven Pressfield offers his take on Amazonia through this novel. If they did not exist as real women, they should have. What he presents is one of the early age-old clashes between the wild and untamed and the civilized and rooted. "Progress is inevitable" whether we want it or not. Greece was seemingly destined for greater things than the Amazons.

This story takes place 1250 BC just before the Trojan War. It is again one of the early stories of a manly, yet intelligent king, Theseus, who meets and falls in love with a womanly, yet wild queen, Antiope. She runs away with him to Athens, setting up an inevitable war. Her lover and co-leader, Eleuthera, declares war on Athens.

Two things stand out in memory from this novel: the description of the tal Kyrte, or race of Amazons. They refer to themselves in the plural because they are a working unit. They grow up on the steppes (the origin of the Amazon homeland was probably southern Russia) with a horse as part of themselves. They learn from a horse. They are part of nature. They are free.

The other thing from memory are the battle scenes which fully take up one-third or more of the novel. Whacking and hacking and thudding and smashing. Blood, blood everywhere, making battle grounds slippery. Hacked off limbs. I wondered how Pressfield knew so much battle goings-on and could write pages and pages and pages. The battle scenes were powerful and gripping and unimaginable. Add to that the fact that men and women were battling and hacking each other makes the fighting even more incredulous.

The final battle when the Amazons had pushed all the way to the very gates of Athens--an unthinkable act!-- was an intensity almost too much. How it all ends is Pressfield's acknowledged imagination, but it explains much about the Amazons that we don't know. How the Amazons scale that impossible stone wall is unbelievable!! Sheer fearlessnes, courage beyond words! A mettle worth Plutarch's words! Perhaps this act is why he insists they existed. How could this battle be made up?

The richness of Pressfield's imagination takes one last turn--in the title--"Last of the Amazons"--and the incredibly creative way this is so. In fact, this is a book so rich in detail, so epic in scope, so mesmerizing in storytelling that it is one to be placed on the shelf of favored books to be read and savored again and again.

43 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Informative but Empathetically Dry, March 10, 2003

By 

Paul McGrath (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Last of the Amazons: A Novel (Hardcover)

There is a blurb on one of the Flashman novels--I forget which and I can't find it now--which makes a comment about the author, George MacDonald Fraser. It says something like, not only is he a great writer, he is also a great storyteller. I thought of this after finishing Pressfield's excellent novel and feeling strangely unfulfilled. He is unquestionably a great writer: his knowledge of that which he writes is impeccable, he has a great and intelligent imagination, and he has a sound and thorough understanding of human nature. But it is as a storyteller, alas, that the novel falls somewhat short.

This novel has to do with the clash of cultures between the burgeoning Greek civilization and the mythical Amazon society and takes place about 1250 B. C. The plot is a little convoluted. It starts as the story of a group of Greeks tracking down an escaped Amazon slave. On the journey, an account is told by a couple of the older fellows of a previous trip to the land of the Amazons, and the subsequent Amazon invasion of Athens. This makes up the meat of the book. But also in there is the story of the very first Greek visit to Amazonia, made by the mythical Heracles. So we have a story within a story within a story, all of which relate essentially the same journey.

But this is not what bothers me. What bothers me is that the story of these journeys and the events which occurred on them is really all there is. Despite the fact that the book is comprised of several first-person narratives, we don't get the inner, personal stories of these people. To go back to Flashman: yes, he was present at the Charge of the Light Brigade, and yes, he was present at Custer's Last Stand. But the difference is, these are not the story. The story is Flashman's life; what he was doing, where he was, how he got into these situations, what he thinks of them, and how he got out of them.

This is what makes good historical fiction. We as readers are far more able to come to a new understanding of events when we are able to view of them through the eyes of a fully fleshed-out human being, one whom we've come to know and empathize with, and one who has an opinion we yearn to hear. This is a lot different from having a cardboard character read a history to us, no matter how interesting the subject matter.

But I am being perhaps a little too harsh, because, no question about it, the subject matter here is very interesting, and, as mentioned earlier, is brought to us by an author who is truly, remarkably knowledgeable about this stuff. We get descriptions of the peoples who inhabited the areas around the Black Sea, we get descriptions of the Amazon way of life, and we get descriptions of the beginnings of Greek civilization. The Amazon way of life is particularly imaginative and detailed, with their groups of three, their mating rituals, their preoccupation with horses, and their splendid prowess with arms.

Also excellent is the description of the siege of Athens, and the various other battles which take place throughout this novel. Again, Mr. Pressfield is extremely knowledgeable about ancient warfare, and there is so much here which was new to me: battle formations, cavalry and siege tactics, the importance of strong leadership, etc. In general, one gets an idea of what the average soldier feels ands experiences as he participates in an ancient, horrific battle.

Also here are the trademark, grand Pressfield speeches. The debates between Theseus and the Amazon queen, Eleuthera, are particularly wonderful. Theseus argues for the benefits of civilization and the ways in which it frees men to pursue their goals beyond simple subsistence. Eleuthera scorns this: "Our Athenian guest claims that cities produce leisure. What rubbish! Who has more free time than the hunter or warrior, whose very work is sport?" There is much more in this vein, all of which is very thought-provoking, and brings to one a vague sense of longing for the wild, untamed, ancient (or maybe not-so-ancient), past.

Pressfield is a great writer, no doubt about it, and this is a great book. But it sure would be nice to find a friend in here somewhere.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another modern epic from Pressfield, June 6, 2002

By 

J. N. Mohlman (Barrington, RI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Last of the Amazons: A Novel (Hardcover)

For those of you who felt that Pressfield's last book "The Tides of War" was a little slow, you'll be pleased to hear that his newest book, "Last of the Amazons" is more on par with "Gates of Fire". While not quite as engaging as that novel, it is packed with every bit as much historical detail and tons of action.

While still set in Ancient Greece, "Last of the Amazons" strays slightly from the formula of its predecessors. Whereas in his first two books Pressfield wrote novelizations of actual historical events, in "Last of the Amazons", he explores the semi-mythological era of early Athens. As always, this novel is impeccably researched and laid out in a highly plausible way, but even the author admits that his story is speculative, at best. However, that in no way detracts from what is a great historical/military novel.

As anyone who has read his prior novels knows, Pressfield excels in writing the story of the mayhem and brutality of combat. I have not encountered a single other author who can make the sweat, blood and fear of close combat come alive like Pressfield. Furthermore, he has a knack for capturing the language of the time, such that his prose reads like something far older than it actually is. That's not to say he's another Homer, but he does capture the spirit of the epic genre in a highly effective manner.

While I didn't empathize with the characters in "Last of the Amazons" as much as I did in "Gates of Fire", they are perhaps even better written. "In Gates of Fire" Pressfield had real historical figures, in a real battle to work with, one that had a tragic and foregone conclusion. As a result, the reader knew the destiny of all the actors, and therefore developed a level of pathos for them that transcended the writing (which was still excellent). In "Last of the Amazons", however, Pressfield is writing about figures that are more rooted in mythology than history, so he had to flesh them out a great deal more, and succeeded admirably. He has created some genuinely tragic and conflicted figures that are incredibly complex. Moreover, he has proven that he can write believable, strong, female characters, which were noticeably (albeit understandably) absent from his first two novels.

Finally, since Pressfield was able to stray from, and manipulate, the historical record, this novel has a much stronger message than his prior ones. He makes a powerful statement about redemption, and explores at some length what constitutes civilization and civilized behavior.

In conclusion, "Last of the Amazons" is an outstanding read. It has breathtaking battle scenes, but also is very thoughtful. It is a great adventure, but also extremely well written. In short, it is an excellent novel: enjoy!