Review: Shield of Thunder

Excellent 2nd book

The war of Troy is looming, and all the kings of the Great Green are gathering, friends and enemies, each with their own dark plans of conquest and plunder. Into this maelstrom of treachery and deceit come three travellers; Piria, a runaway priestess nursing a terrible secret, Kalliades, a warrior with a legendary sword, and Banokles who will carve his own legend in the battles to come. "Shield of Thunder" takes the reader back into the glories and tragedies of Bronze Age Greece, reuniting the characters from Lord of the Silver Bow; the dread Helikaon and his great love, the fiery Andromache, the mighty Hektor and the fabled storyteller, Odysseus.

The Shield of Thunder is the follow up to Lord of the Silver Bow and just as good. It takes a about 200 pages before we are reintroduced to the characters of Lord of the Silver Bow, but this works out amazingly well. Gemmell takes his time introducing runaway priestess Piria and two renegade Mycene warriors: Kalliades and Banokles. Especially these two Mycene are characters you can't help but grow to love. Banokles even provides a little comic relief in a book that has it's fair share of battles and bloodshed. These new characters are so well done that we don't even have to miss the ones we got to know in the first book. Later in the book the storylines interweve and we get a perfect set up for the third book: Fall of Kings.

We are also introduced to other new characters. Most notably Achilles, the legendary hero of Thessaly, who burns to show his skills of war against Hektor, Prince of Troy. His first confrontation with Hektor makes for one of the interesting moments in the novel.

History fanatics who can't stand authors who take 'liberties' with events as they supposedly took place, will probably not appreciate this book. Gemmell remixed Homer's tale and made it more of an alternate history than a realistic retelling of the original legend. But that doesn't make it any worse - in fact it reads like a blockbuster movie. For some this may be a reason to dislike the book and the complete trilogy; for me it was a reason to love it.

8,5 / 10