Customer Reviews

The Shadow of Ararat (Oath of Empire)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Shadow of Ararat impressed me as a first novel in a genre - alternate history - that is one of my current favorites. It had many of the elements I most like in a work of epic fiction such as:

Disparate plot lines of which most, but NOT all, converge in time and space

Protagonists whose motivations can differ greatly from those individuals driving events and who come across as people, not icons, even when the details of their life story remain sketchy.

A sense of verisimilitude that convinced this reader that the events were taking place in a different place and time, not the world of today with different costumes and names.

There were elements that were not to my taste. The work is wordy in some sections, at times reading like a set description with more detail than is required about the nature of clothing worn or the texture of mud. It paints a very clear picture, but one my mind's eye could have filled in the details of from a more sparse description, and at times I found myself muttering "get on with it" when I wanted to find out where the constantly intriguing plot was going. Some descriptions gave this reader no information that aided understanding of characters or events, but only served only to this reader to establish a point of difference previously established, such as the frequent descriptions of who wore makeup and who did not.

My biggest complaint is one of personal preference only. I wanted much more of the back story of how Mr. Harlan's world diverged from our own. I expect much of this will be found in the later works of the series, but I always want to know more about the point of divergence in an alternate history novel.

All in all I recommend this work to lovers of epic fiction, military fiction, historical fiction, and just plain good yarns.

as one of Harlan's characters might say, as they seem incapable of realistic speech. Seriously, a good try for a first novel--nothing to be ashamed of--but I hope Mr. Harlan works on his characters and forbears from pushing the plot around just to get from point A to point B in his next book. We have a character introduced in a manner that suggests he's a fairly young boy, no older than 11 or 12, then we suddenly find out in the middle of the book that he's 16. 16, dammit! We have a character wondering time and again why the men under her command accept her as a leader, but golly, they just do. We have a character who gives no hint of his ability to stand up to the major supreme meanie on the block, but he almost does, not once, but twice. His attempts seem to cause more harm than good by the way--and just how does his body end up back within city walls when he falls outside them in single combat, surrounded by the enemy? A few other things that happened off-stage took me quite by surprise. Oh, I also hope he eases up on the fashion show. I was getting to the point where one more description of a plain tunic with stitching at the collar and cuffs would have had me hurling the book across the room. And it's a library book. That wouldn't have been nice.

Shadow of Ararat is book 1 (of 4) in what is shaping up to be an epic in today's fantasy/sci-fi genre's.

The author does an extremely fine job of detailing all surroundings, no matter how trivial, so as you can paint the best possible picture in your mind. The varying landscapes of this novel are a joy to read.

The characters, for the most part, are interesting, and you soon take on a few favorites. However, some (not all) are very cliche, the same type you see over and over again in these types of novels. And a few of the names are hard to pronounce (because of thier heritage). Lastly there are soooo many characters to keep track of, it may get confusing at times who is on who's side, and who is related or connected to someone else.

The novel itself is good, but what makes this very interesting is that there are multiple stories going on concurrently, and one overall 'big picture'. I found that the introduction of the book was fun and showed a lot of promise, but soon the story takes on a more lethargic tone, and it seems to take forever. Only until the last 100 pages, where once again the book picks up in action and resolves some plot lines. This is where the book is made, and now I MUST buy the second to see how things pan out.

I personally would have liked to see much more involvement of the Egyptians, both in characters and in landscape. Though this is a book about the Roman Empire, a large portion of the book does not take place anywhere near Rome or Egypt, but Persia.

Overall this 510 page book, probably could have been just as good, or better, by cutting out some non-essential occurences (maybe they were meant to flesh out chracters) and bringing it down to 350-375 pages.

I am interested in Rome and Byzantium, which is why I bought this book. I respect this author's technical knowledge, and he excels at description...but about 1/3 of the way through I ran into problems. First of all... my understanding is that 'alternate history" should provide some kind of 'branching point in history" which caused this world to evolve differently from our own. In this case, there was no Christianity and no split between the Eastern and Western Empires. That's 2 branching points already. In addition, the empires seem to have been spared the massive migrations of people which caused the real Rome to be swamped by 'barbarian' invasions. So I guess the Huns, etc. were simply Nice Guys in this book and never bothered Rome?

OK. Moving on to the real problems of this novel: though I tried very hard, I felt no identification with the protagonists. The author does a wonderful job of describing what they wear, what they look like and the landscapes through which they pass. But as for what makes the people tick--nothing. No word of their pasts, their griefs, joys, thoughts, beliefs. Nobody falls in love or even really has sex. One character encounters the Queen of Palmyra; the next time we see them they are apparently lovers, though we never see how they interact and reach this state. To me, that's a fatal error. An author can get away with blah characters in a short novel, but in a book of this length it quickly becomes deadly--especially since I really didn't care that much about the Roman Empire's victory over the Persians. In fact, I found myself rooting for the underdog Persians.

In addition: I quickly lost track of what the characters were doing and why. Scenes seemed to be thrown together at random. I realize that this book is part of a series--nevertheless I regard it as a critical weakness when one book of a series can't 'stand alone". Tolkien got away with it--but since I did not feel satisfied at the end of this book, there's no way I'm going to read the next one.

Two stars for technical excellence.

Even if it weren't a debut novel, the sheer prodigious immensity of The Shadow of Ararat would be stupefying. And I'm not just talking about length, either; jillion-word fantasy epics are ten-a-penny these days. First-time novelist Harlan has brought nearly two decades of experience creating historical war games, as well as an obvious lifetime of love for ancient history and archaeology, to this sweeping story set in an alternate ancient Rome, which, in Harlan's milieu, still exists well into the 7th century C.E., and where magic plays a prominent role. If awards were handed out solely on the basis of excellence in astonishingly detailed and researched world-building, we could just hand Harlan his lifetime achievement award now and save time. But there are other elements to fantasy novel writing just as important, and it's in these areas Harlan shows he could use serious improvement. Although the scenes of military conflict--that is, any of the scenes in which Harlan brings his prodigious knowledge of military history to bear--are rousing, the fantasy elements fall flat on their collective faces, as Harlan simply does not make them make much sense for the reader. Harlan is a fabulous historian, but a dreary storyteller. There are many things about his story that Harlan fails to make clear, and this flaw literally suffuses the book from beginning to end, despite the obvious hard work that Harlan put into realizing his alternate ancient world for us. At no time did I ever have a clear grasp of the nature of the magic in Harlan's milieu. There is an "unseen world," apparently, from which forces both good and evil called be called forth. Necromancy plays a big part; both the bad guys and Maxian raise men from the dead to assist them (Maxian raises no less a personage than Julius Caesar, here called Gaius Julius, a potentially staggering plot element that Harlan does a dazzling job of nothing with). But none of the rituals or methods that mages employ in Harlan's world make much sense; I never had a clear understanding of what Maxian was up to throughout the whole book. At one point in the novel we are suddenly treated to Maxian and his cohorts in an iron foundry in Constantinople, building an enormous mechanical flying machine for no apparent reason other than it will get him to the front lines of battle quickly! Whoa! Where did Maxian's knowledge to build this come from? If the technology to do this exists at all, why aren't the skies of Harlan's Empire chock full of these things? That is just one example of Harlan's slipshod plotting. The book is filled with intriguing ideas that Harlan introduces early on only to seem to have forgotten hundreds of pages later. For example, this curse on Rome. Where did it come from? So many questions that Harlan leaves unanswered. For instance, a potentially suspenseful plot element in which Maxian tries to figure out the deaths of several well-to-do merchant families that may be a clue as to the nature of the curse (one of the families has invented movable type) literally disappears from the story. We never learn why these particular families were killed, nor what they had to do with anything at all that transpires later in the novel! Still, it's true that Harlan's deeply sloppy plotting may go unnoticed by fans of alternate history and historical fantasy who will rightfully be impressed by Harlan's research and skills at world-building. No doubt about it, the man knows his stuff. But then, even here, I found a much more prosaic problem with this book. To be blunt, it's just plain boring. Only in the book's last 200 pages or so (out of the paperback's 793) does the story offer up some of its most stirring sequences, particularly in its battle scenes. This kind of sweeping, epic storytelling would be insanely ambitious even for veteran authors the likes of James Clavell or Wilbur Smith; for a debut novel, well, Jeez...you have to admire Harlan's cojones, but that the whole thing is crushed under its own weight ultimately doesn't come as much of a surprise. A guy can't reasonably expect to write his very first novel and have it turn out to be War and Peace, any more than a first-time film director can expect to make Lawrence of Arabia.

Being the latest in a long line of reviews I only want to add that the complex mix of history and mythology made for a wonderful read. Although a little slow at the begining, the story soon picks up to an exciting pace. I found myself turning page after page excited to see what would happen next.

I've read the entire series...and on the whole I liked it. The setting is set up historically so that not much time is spent on it...at least not on the Roman part. The maps were both helpful and puzzling. I may just be less adept at reading battle maps. But the world maps were good, and I learned things from both the map and the story that I'd never known before. I learned about Nabateans. There were other things, but most were things that I already knew. I think it's great when you can learn real world facts from fiction. However, as I said, the reader must commit to reading this series. There were times when the detail or the slowness of plot or even the lack of interest in a character would make me want to quit. I,at least, had to come up for air to clear my head many times...and I found that even though I was not crazy about some of the topics (necromancy, in particular), I was interested enough and invested enough to finish. I'm just glad that I had all 4 books at the time, or I probably wouldn't have completed the series. It's both interesting and irritating. I love to read very long books if they are well-written... as this is in most parts. I'm not usually that interested in alternative history...but I gave it a chance and I'm glad that I did. I felt like I'd accomplished something by the time I finished this book because at times it felt like real work. It wasn't all difficult...and I really did end up liking most of it...and I did conquer.

Thomas Harlan's The Shadow of Ararat is an engrossing tale of a Rome that survived into the 7th century with the help of magical thaumaturges, and it's struggles from without and within. For once, all of the major characters are interesting, as well as many of the minor ones. The battle scenes are done well, as is the historical imagery. I also thought the magic was done well enough. And I like the way he didn't explain everything that was going on, that way we'll keep guessing until we get the next book.

However there are some things that bring down enjoyment somewhat. For one thing, Harlan never explains why the Empire has survived, other than perhaps Rome's "curse". History up until when Rome should have fallen stays exactly the same except the absence of Christianity, even with the introduction of magic. I think Caesar would not have been half as docile as presented in the book - although the resurrection may have changed him. And is he paid by the word - this book is HUGE, when it could have been cut down significantly. Not that there are large boring parts, but I had the feeling he could have gotten on with it.

I stayed away from this book for a long time due to bad reviews, which is unfortunate since it IS good. Just don't expect the next Lord of the Rings here. I eagerly await the next one, in paperback.

This book is awsome. i rarely read novels but Thomas Harlan knows how to write a book. Using so many characters and uniting the plot was brilliant. I'm still not done but I'm about to order the second book in the series. I recomend this book for any history buff to just kick back and enjoy the glory of war.

Not a bad attempt for a new author, it had an interesting concept and lots of well thought out details with the battles but it could certainly have been improved. One of my main complaints with this books is that I hardly felt sympathetic to any of the characters at all. They didn't interest me very much and the actual plot didn't seem to be going anywhere. Of course it was, it is just that it was hard to follow and the different story lines didn't seem to fit together very well. There should, perhaps, have been more detail in the story its self because it seemed to move far to fast and not give enough attention to things that would have been interesting and should have been paid more attention to. I am usually a pretty harsh critic and I tend to point out all the bad things in a book and make them seem a little worse than they usually are. So I guess that even with the flaws in this book it was still worth the time I spent on it and I shall be looking forward to the next novel even if I might not buy it in hardcover.