The Rendition Experience

Finally! I got to read book three of David Gemmell's Troy. I read the other two way way before I started this blog so tough... No review! This novel was incomplete at the time of D. Gemmell’s death and was completed by his wife (I couldn’t really tell much difference in writing style from the other two). It is a great shame to know that there will be no more.

This is the conclusion to the trilogy of David Gemmell's interpretation of Homer's Iliad. Just out of curiosity, Iliad is now on my “to read” list. Although due to the genre I imagine it is written with a lot of epic-ness (I made this word up). The third book is the story of the siege of Troy.

With the assumption of Iliad being all for epic-ness, I think David Gemmell's interpretation is at his usual style of humanizing the characters.
We see the heroes' fears, doubts and flaws. He shows us how there are no bad sides and how war turns the best of men into animals and despite all the horrors committed by the characters, you still empathize with them. In fact, Helikaon (central character), as the torturer, the burner, the ruthless, is portrayed as a caring father and husband (and in my own little imagination, a pretty hot one too).

The war scenes are full of gory scenes with amazing attention to detail that kept me glued to the book until the early hours in the morning (4.30 am to be precise... I had to stop as my other half lovingly decided the light needed switching off as it was annoying...). I knew the story inside out and yet I could not put it down sneakily glancing at the book whenever I could just catch a glimpse of the next few lines.

I loved the Trojans and their allies and their enemies and their enemies’ allies because they were all just men fighting for a cause. Even Agamemnon the Mikene King shows all the weaknesses and insecurities that make him to want to destroy the golden city of Troy.

When I first picked up the first volume of Troy, I had my doubts that the Troy trilogy would live up to the likes of “Legend”. I wasn’t ready for the fact that it would exceed my expectations by a mile and the melancholy that would come to me at reading Fall of Kings knowing it would be the last of David Gemmell’s genius.

Despite his death, he will live forever, like Odysseus the storyteller, as long as his stories survive.

V.