Customer Reviews

Rogue Sword

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You don't see many novels set with the late Roman era as a backdrop. Anderson's accurate attention to historical detail and especially the Latin West's part in the Eastern Empire's decline makes Rogue Sword a fascinating read, shedding light into an often overlooked era of history. From the covers:

"From the golden city of Venice to bloody Gallipoli, from the barbaric stretches of northern Europe to the smoldering earth of Byzantium, plundering hordes of every description hacked and tore at the once-mighty Roman Empire".

"The giant of the world was faltering, bleeding from a thousand wounds as it tried to hold its snarling enemies at bay. These were days of savagery and splendor, when wanton fury fed men's souls and only the powerful endured".

"For Lucas Greco, the warrior rogue whose sword had become a legend in every language, the horror and cruelty of war were like daggers in his flesh, goading him from battle to battle and woman to woman in a desperate effort to wrench beauty and meaning from a chaotic world".

"In the flames of the dying Roman Empire, his flashing blade cut a bloody path to power".

A rare straight historical adventure from the master of fantasy. Don't be put off by the hilariously bad cover of the 1980 edition; although slighty old-fashioned, the story is written well and with historical accuracy.

Lucas Greco (the Greek) is the bastard son of a Venetian nobleman and a Cretan woman. Apprenticed as a youth to a wealthy Venetian merchant, he makes a lifelong enemy by cuckolding his master and escapes Venice in the service of Catalan knight Jaime de Caza, travelling with him as far as Byzantium. In 1306, after years of wandering, he returns to Byzantium where his path leads him back to the Iberian nobleman, En Jaime, his former employer. En Jaime is now a commander with the Grand Catalan Company, a band of Catalan and Aragonese mercenaries originally hired by the Emperor of Byzantium, but now in an armed standoff with the Byzantine forces after the treacherous murder of their leader En Roger de Flor at the Emperor's command.

A swaggering swashbuckler set in the Mediterranean and Eurasian melting-pot of the early fourteenth century, it's an excellent picture of the forces in power at the time- the Venetians, Genoese, the fading Byzantine Empire and the Frankish Crusader states, all struggling with each other and against the Turks for domination of vital strategic trading routes; and slashing their own blood-stained way into history, the fearsome men of the Grand Catalan Company.