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Customer Review
history springs into life
This book is fantastic, and I'd recommend it to anyone who likes historical fiction, or has studied ancient history or classics. Actually I'd recommend it to anyone who loves a stirring read, but if you belong to either of those groups I know you'd love it. I'm a post graduate classics student, and I love this book (the whole trilogy actually) because it brings Alexander's whole world to life in a way nothing else can. Fire from Heaven tells the story of the boy, adolescent, and young man who would go on to become Alexander the Great, ending just at the death of his father, when he becomes king and leaves that earlier life behind. Ms Renault captures perfectly the unique influences and stresses that shape him into the adult he becomes, and she succeeds in making him a human and sympathetic character. She does the same for most of the other characters too, creating a cast of real people, all with genuine feelings, inescapably trapped by who they are: Alexander's warring...
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January 5, 1999
| Helpful Votes: 35 | Rating: 5
Product Description
“Written with her usual vigor and imagination...Mary Renault has a great talent.”–The New York Times Book Review
Alexander’s beauty, strength, and defiance were apparent from birth, but his boyhood honed those gifts into the makings of a king. His mother, Olympias, and his father, King Philip of Macedon, fought each other for their son’s loyalty, teaching Alexander politics and vengeance from the cradle. His love for the youth Hephaistion taught him trust, while Aristotle’s tutoring provoked his mind and Homer’s Iliad fueled his aspirations. Killing his first man in battle at the age of twelve, he became regent at sixteen and commander of Macedon’s cavalry at eighteen, so that by the time his father was murdered, Alexander’s skills had grown to match his fiery ambition. Top to learn more
"Fire From Heaven" a tale of hero-worship
Mary Renault's Alexandriad begins with "Fire From Heaven," a novel that encompasses the childhood and youth of Alexander the Great, King of Macedon and Persia. Alexander's character has fascinated historians and novelists from the time of his conquest to the present day. Currently, a movie is in the works that is said to owe much to Ms. Renault's work.Mary Renault's love of ancient Greek culture was displayed in her previous novels, "The Last Of The Wine" and the Theseus duology, "The King Must Die" and "The Bull From The Sea." Her admiration for Alexander is also on display. Most authors of historical fiction are fond of their subjects, but the reader can tell Renault adored her chosen hero and found in him an ideal that may have been more imagined than real.Still, Renault's work is superb. She was a master of language and craft, and her novel touches the key points of the Alexander legend without turning them into precious showpieces. (I particularly enjoyed the...
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December 13, 2002
(Phoenix, AZ USA) | Helpful Votes: 85 | Rating: 4
History brought vividly, and accurately, to life.
Mary Renault was one of the most successful historical novelists of the 20th Century and her Alexander novels were her masterpiece. "Fire From Heaven" is the first of the trilogy that includes "The Persian Boy" and "Funeral Games", and tells us the story of Alexander the Great, one of the most fascinating and complex characters in all history, from early childhood to the age of twenty, when he succeeded his father as king of Macedon. Renault brings us into Alexander's world and presents us to him in all his multifaceted personality: his all-consuming ambition, his sensitivity, his insatiable drive for excellence, and his love-hate relationship with his father (hate inexorably, and inevitably, won out) which was so influential in shaping his character and the course of his life. Renault also brings us into the lives of Alexander's family, especially his mother Olympias, one of the most ruthless and devious characters in ancient history; totally wrapped up in her son and willing to...
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May 17, 2002
| Helpful Votes: 30 | Rating: 4
