Customer Reviews

Tros of Samothrace Volume 1: Tros (Vintage Avon S303)

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This volume, "Tros: The First Book of Tros of Samothrace," is part of a four-volume paperback edition of a long historical novel. "Tros of Samothrace" has two shorter, but still substantial, sequels, which are sometimes listed as additional volumes of "Tros" in paperback reprintings.

(There is a real island of Samothrace. Its local cult attracted attention in Hellenistic times, possibly because it offered initiates protection from drowning, certainly because it found outside patrons looking for a propaganda platform. "Samothrage" is a repeated error, probably a simple typo which has become embedded in catalogues and web pages, and complicates searches.)

The story opens with Julius Caesar planning his invasion of Britain, and deciding that some pious Greek emissaries from the Mysteries of Samothrace to the Druids of Gaul will make good hostages, and the son of their leader a perfect spy on the Britons and their Druids. He has yet to take the measure of Tros of Samothrace, who, with a scrupulous regard for his sworn word, still turns the situation into a personal war with Caesar, which ranges all the way back to Rome, and, in the sequels, across the Mediterranean to Egypt.

The seven stories on which the novel is based originally ran during the course of a year in "Adventure" Magazine in 1925-1926, concluding with a three-part serial, and the 1934 revised version in hardcover reached 949 pages. Understandably, mass-market paperback editions have so far broken it up into several volumes.

A four-volume paperback edition of this long novel, was published by Avon Books in 1967, beginning with "Tros: The First Book...," and followed by "Helma: The Second Book...," "Liafail: The Third Book...," and "Helene: The Fourth Book..." (Helma and Helene are two of the women in Tros' life. Liafail is the name of the ship he builds, which for some reason is named "Stone of Destiny" -- not the best omen, one would think, and in the wrong Celtic language besides!)

These editions all had lovely covers by Douglas Rosa, which somewhat made up for the nuisance of having to get four slim-to-standard-size (150 to 250 pages) volumes instead of one rather fat one. (Three are reproduced on the 1967 page of R.T. Gault's "The Absolute Elsewhere" site; see http://www.cafes.net/ditch/F67.htm ). The same titles were used on a similar set published in Britain a few years later by Universal-Tandem, with new cover art. The volume divisions followed the old story breaks, with two tales in each "Book," except for the three-parter which made up the last volume.

The same titles were used on a similar set published in Britain a few years later by Universal-Tandem, with new cover art. The Avon volumes were followed by similar editions in 1969 and 1970 of the book's sequels, "Queen Cleopatra" (1929) and "The Purple Pirate" (1935). The cover art for these was not credited at the time. They are described as "Tros # 5" and "Tros #6" on the covers and in many listings, although strictly speaking they should be Two and Three in the series.

(Note that Mundy's "Caesar Dies" involves the Emperor Commodus, and is not part of the Tros series.)

"Tros" was repackaged in paperback by Zebra Books (Kensington Publishing), in 1976-1977, in three volumes instead of four. In that version, the story appeared as: "Lud of Lunden," "Avenging Liafail," and "The Praetor's Dungeon," with "The Purple Pirate," and "Queen Cleopatra" dropped in as continuations, or listed as part four and five of the set, in 1978 (note the reverse order!). These are generally regarded as examples of inept book production (although the Tom Barber wraparound covers were rather nice), with unreliable texts, besides scrambling the sequels -- one critic calls the Zebra edition "abysmal." They also add to the confusing array of titles for one novel, and the problem of how many books to look for.

I have treated "Tros of Samothrace" at greater length, and surveyed in more detail its complex publishing history, and that of the sequels, in a review of the 1995 Buccaneer Books hardcover reprinting of the one-volume text of "Tros." I also cover there a little about the author's complicated life, and the occult interests reflected in "Tros," with a bit about Mundy's influence on fantasy and science fiction from the 1920s to the present.

My advice to the interested is that the Avon (and Tandem) editions are worth reading, although likely to be rather high priced for mass-market paperbacks, while the Zebra editions are, at best, a fallback. If you are lucky, a library will have the hardcover editions available, at least through inter-library loan.

A full reprinting of the three novels in trade paperback, at a reasonable price, is highly desirable. I'm suprised that no publisher has offered one so far.