Customer Reviews

The Legions of the Mist: A Novel of Roman Britain

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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After seeing 'Gladiator' I craved something more about the Roman Empire. This was the only book close at hand, a discard from the local library. I was quite surprised! The characters were the main focus, and I came to like them. The style and plot structure, especially the use of quiet foreboding, reminded me quite a bit of Cecelia Holland's work--you know from the outset this story is a tragedy, and you are subtly never allowed to forget things are not going to come out happily. I went back to the library and talked them into re-adding it to their collection!

Having read "Eagle of the Ninth" by Rosemary Sutcliffe when I was in grade school I was pleased to find this new novel by Amanda Cockrell which also dealt with the demise of the Ninth Hispania at the hands of the combined tribes in the early part of the 1st century AD in Norhtern Britain.

Thsi novel dealt in much more detail than did Sutcliffe's which takes place after the fact. I received in over a holiday weekend and once started is the type of book which cannot be put down. She flushes out the story to the extent that one can actually visualize the temper and morale of the legion deteriorating.

While the book was written in the late 1970's I would strongly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good historical novel. For anyone who had younger children interested in Roman Britain I would recommed Rosemary Sutcliff's novels beginning with "Eagle of the Ninth"

I am pleased to see two other favorable reviews of one of my favorite historical novels, Amanda Cockrell's Legions of the Mist. I recently reread it and enjoyed it more the second time than the first. Legions of the Mist is very good though undeservedly obscure novel of Roman Britain in the early second century A.D. The doomed 9th legion and why those who fought to save it ultimately failed makes up the main plot. A really rather moving love story is the most important subplot. The main character, a centurion naturally, is engaging, as are his affairs, both personal and military. The ending is inevitable (though the reader wishes it weren't so) and unhappy.

I finished the novel wanting to know more about the lives of those characters who survived, always a good sign. As another reviewer notes, Cockrell's treatment of her story reminds one more than a little of Rosemary Sutcliff, which I consider high praise. I wish Cockrell had written more in this vein. Interested readers should be made aware of her paperback trilogy The Centurions, written under the pen name of Damion Hunter. Why the pen name? Guess it sounded appropriately masculine to the publisher, but unfortunately it deprived Cockrell of her chance to build on the success of The Legions of the Mist.

I've read and reread the first two books in the series. They too are stories of the relatively early days of Rome's empire, the first book being mostly set along the unstable Rhine frontier while the second takes place nearly entirely in Agricola's Britain. Perhaps a touch more formulaic than her first novel, true, but these books are first rate and highly enjoyable historical fiction. Used copies of the two paperbacks are readily and inexpensively available through Amazon and are well worth the effort to buy and read.

The third book in the series is rare and very expensive. At least one Amazon reviewer makes a good case that the book is not worth the extravagant price. Not having read it, I have no opinion. But The Centurions, vol. 1 and The Barbarian Princess, vol. 2 are books to make anyone who enjoys historical novels glad. I am morally sure that the excessively pulpish title of the second book was forced on Cockrell by the publisher.

Besides going on to a successful career in academia, Amanda Cockrell has written a number of historical novels about Indians of the American Southwest in the centuries just prior to the arrival of the Europeans. I've read one and liked it, but not as much as her Roman novels. She also published a "serious" contemporary novel, Pomegranate Seed, which I have not read.

I think I probably first read this excellent novel way back when it was published in 1979; thanks to the Internet I eventually tracked down my own copy, which I periodically get down from the shelf and read again. A great novel of a Roman legion stationed in Britain and essentially forgotten by Rome. Very reminiscent of Cecilia Holland in its attention to period detail.