Customer Reviews

Marius' Mules: The Conquest of Gaul

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Marius' Mules is a good historical fiction novel that follows Caesar's conquest of Gaul, starting in 58BC. I have a little trouble with the name of the book, as it suggests the time of Marius and Sulla when something alluding to Caesar would feel more appropriate. The title is a reference to a legionary reform of Gaius Marius just before Caesar's birth, where the legionaries consolidated their personal kit so it could be carried individually on the march. Since some of the legions under Caesar's command in Gaul were born in the time of Marius, Caesar's uncle, it is a theme of the book.

The characters are believable and the historical content is quite good with lots of attention to detail that does not come at the expense of a good story. Turney does a good job of depicting the campaigns primarily through the eyes of senior legates and centurions, which of course brings people like Caesar and Labienus into the scenes without having them dominate the landscape. Labienus could certainly have played a bigger role, and as a character I would say he was grossly under-utilized.

I don't want to spoil the story by going into too much detail, and while my review focuses on some criticisms I want to stress that I enjoyed it very much. At times I found myself differing with the author's depiction of real characters and also some of the political motivations surrounding the events, but overall it is a very noble effort and I rarely read a historical fiction where this is not an issue. Having read this on the tail of Conn Iggulden's absolute garbage "Emperor" series, I welcomed the relief of discovering my trauma is not permanent and that I could enjoy a Caesar story once again.

There is one glaring problem with this book: it reads like a first draft that was not edited. We can all deal with a typo here and there, but, Marius' Mules reads like an unpolished DIY rather than a professional novel. This is really a shame because all the potential for a great book is present. There is literally a lack of editing visible on virtually every other page, from poor punctuation to double words or too many words and the occasional sentence that makes little or no sense. This makes for a very awkward read at times, and I found myself being conscious of it more than I would prefer, and I happily would have solved this problem for a free copy of the book.

A dialog of Caesar's, like, "This (money) is to be used sparingly, as it has to last, but should certainly be enough to cover these units", does not sound like the efficient Caesar I have come to know from the primary sources. A good editor would have axed "as it has to last". Or, "I can't really understand" instead of "I don't understand". Or, "I will want you commanding the cavalry" instead of "I want you commanding the cavalry" or "you will command the cavalry". I just opened the book and these jumped out at me; a few examples. Not nearly the most egregious but I wasn't taking notes.

Also, I have to say the dialog could certainly have been better, and at times it feels too modern. For example, a centurion at one point says something to the effect of, "Ours is not to reason why, it is to do or die". If I am not mistaken, this is from the Charge of the Light Brigade poem written in 1854. Perhaps it is appropriate, but something more original would be appreciated.

Overall I very much enjoyed this story, and with some extra editing it has the potential to be high quality historical fiction. On balance my complaints are minor, and I recommend people support this author by giving it a chance and hopefully he can tighten it up in the future.

I knew we were in trouble on the first page of this novel, when our hero doesn't know why Caesar is in Aquileia, reckons him a great general, has been listening to him make noises about the conquest of Gaul, is himself with the Tenth, and thinks about legionary commanders who move from unit to unit. Caesar was in fact in Aquileia to retrieve three legions which he had probably intended, before this, to use in campaigns to the northeast. Those plans had been disrupted by the decision of the Helvetii (inhabitants of what is now Switzerland) to cross the Rhone river into the Roman province in Gaul (what is now more or less Provence in southern France). The Tenth is thought to have been that 'one legion' which Caesar says was in the Gallic province when he arrived there from Rome. When this story opens, that one legion was holding the border defense against the Helvetii, which it had quickly assembled under Caesar's direction. All that before he sped back to Aquileia to retrieve the three legions encamped there. (And no, Caesar could not have been to Aquileia earlier to "check things out." He had not left Rome for nearly two years, after returning there from Spain by sea.) Prior to this spring of 59 BC, Caesar had had only one brief outing as a general, that in Spain a couple of years earlier, which had shown him capable but not among the top ten. Finally, legionary commanders were a post-Caesarian, or possibly a Caesarian, invention. He seems to have taken a significant step in that direction by assigning his legati (assistants) to such a post. Now, before our author sat down to write a series of novels about the conquest of Gaul and the first Roman forays into Britain, might he not have been wise to read Caesar's own "Commentaries," maybe a popular history of Rome, one of Adrian Goldsworthy's books on the army, and Lawrence Keppie's "The Making of the Roman Army"? This cannot be described as a historical novel of any merit or quality. It only serves to reveal the author's utter ignorance of things Roman and military.

Marius's Mules presents a meticulous attention to detail and to historic fact . But the line between fact and fiction is seamless and invisible thus offering an entertaining and unpatronising read. The characters, led by the worn persona of Fronto are supremely 'everyman' and therefore utterly believable.
Whilst one has historically been informed that Roman conquests were the result of the foresight and brilliance of men like Caesar, this book flies in the face of that concept, revealing a far more likely idea . . . that perhaps the ingenuity was in Caesar's weary officers, just as the muscle and effort came from the legions of men who fought for Rome.
Turney gives us idiosyncratic men of wry humour, with a healthy disrespect for authority and an even healthier belief that 'what doesn't kill one makes one stronger.'
The battle scenes are delivered with pace, movement and colour, full of cinematographic grandeur and laden with dust, guts and bravery.
I am ignorant of much of ancient history, but this novel offered so much information in such a measured way that it is impossible not to recommend it. Five stars.

Excellent historical fiction based on the first stage of Caesar's conquest of Gaul.
My rating would have been 5 stars, but for the apparent lack of close editing.

Marius Mules is a good detailed book in which the main character Fronto (who is the commander of the 10th Legion) is one helluva character.He is brave, brash, and does not tolerate B.S. from anyone including Julius Caesar.I relly enjoyed his fellow Legion commanders and subordinates.He would definitely be the type of leader that a soldier would be proud to follow into combat. Follow Fronto and the 10th Legion as they fight the Gauls and the Germans. My only problim with the book was the lack of editing.But overall it is one helluva book.I look forward to reading more from this author.

I am a history buff and really enjoy historical fiction by such authors as Manda Scott and Rosemary Sutcliffe. While this book was reasonably enjoyable, I was dismayed by the amount of typos in it. I can only assume that whoever proofread it used spell check and hoped it was correct, (it wasn't). My advice to the author is to proofread it yourself before book two is published because you simply cannot rely on the publisher to do it.

As for the story line, having read Caesars' "Gallic Wars" I was reasonably satisfied with the narrative, the descriptions of the Germans and Gauls was accurate as far as it went although the Roman officers seemed a little sophomoric at times, and the characters development could use a little more fleshing out.

In summary, not a bad effort, with a bit more work on the characters and a whole lot more work on the proofreading, it has the potential to be an absorbing multi-volume work of fiction on that era.

I found the previous comments on this book to be somewhat amusing. Some are hypercritical of the writing and editing. Some are effusive with praise about the story. Both are right. This book is in serious need of copy editing, as type os are riddled throughout, and I do mean throughout, up to the very end. But you know what? Who friekin cares? So it's not a 5 because you've got to skip over some type os along the way. The bottom line is that this is a really good story and I had fun reading it! The pace, the narrative voice, the action, and the characters are excellent. I personally have a different interpretation of Caesar the man, but I found this interpretation plausible, particularly as viewed from a veteran legate's perspective. The real foci of this story are the grizzled vets that won Caesar his glory, and I enjoyed them so much that I am hoping several sequals come out to take us through the remainder of Caesar's Gallic Wars and perhaps into the Civil War.

Set during Caesar's campaigns in Gaul against the Helvetii and subsequently Ariovistus, the novel primarily portrays the point of view of the legate Fronto, as well as a number of other characters to a lesser extent. However, the book reads more like a shifting 3rd-party descriptive monologue of a historical campaign, with very little character development, and therefore fails to entertain as a novel. From a purely historical perspective, a more entertaining read would be going to Caesar's own "Commentaries on the Gallic War".

Mr. Turney has obviously done his homework on the Roman military of the late Republic and for this reason alone the book has decent value, although he has inserted some errors such as describing the Crassi as patrician, which they were not.

I have never recommended a book, but Marius' Mules is entertaining from start to finish! Loaded with historic battles and lots of action. It's written in a style that reads easy and is never dull. The author uses the bond between soldiers well, and told by an officer it allows another angle of thought regarding Gaius Julius Caesar's leadership. This book includes information regarding the real characters and also explains Latin terms. I enjoyed the characters so much that I would like to read more about them. I hope Mr. Turney writes a sequel, or perhaps of another Roman action.

It was just OK.

The 1st half of the book was verrrrry slow. It picked up but wasn't anywhere near a Bernard Cornwell or Conn Iggulden novel.

The prose was fair & maybe I'm just daft but I frequently had a difficult time following his descriptions of what was going on in the story. It just seemed clumsy.

All in all it was a decent story for the price & although I will read the next book; I'll read a dozen or more other authors before returning to this one.