Clash of Eagles

Oh, this book grabbed my attention from page one and refused to let it go! Such a unique story with the best characters that I've ever read about. Alan's writing style is just perfect, not overruling with details but clear enough that you could even smell everything that happened. And can I just say how awesome the cover is?! Wow, just fabulous!

However, there were many (many) issues that contradicted my morals and actually caused me to stop reading in the height of action, much to my utter dismay. From the very beginning of Clash of Eagles, the smaller cuss words were present (dam, hll etc..) and not very frequent, however quickly escalating as the book went on. The gore and action is decently high, containing vivid scenes of maiming as well as killing in the war scenes. However, the reason for my actually putting the book down and refusing to read on belongs to the unnecessary sex scene and the using of the “f bomb”. Those two things pretty much “crossed the line” and I could not bring myself to finish the book, despite its obvious potential.

So it hurts me to give Clash of Eagles by Alan Smale 1.5 (2 for sites that don't except halves) out of 5 stars because of all of the unnecessary content, and I warn all of my followers to beware of this author in the future.

“I received this book via NetGalley for the purpose of this review. All comments and opinions are my own.”

You can read this review, as well as many others, on my blog at http://acceleratethejesusmovement.wordpress.com

This lack of story and development from the perspective of the Native American characters also severely limits the potential themes that could have been explored in this novel. It is easy to understand the ideas that Marcellinus puts forward; they have been thoroughly explored and expounded upon by Classics scholars for years, and will continue to be explored and expounded upon by Classics scholars for many more years to come. But giving the Native American characters their own plot lines and their own character development would have created an opportunity for additional thematic complexity. It could have, for example, opened up avenues for tackling themes related to imperialism and colonialism ??? topics which would have been relevant in the world of the novel, but more importantly are relevant to the real world itself, given how Native Americans struggle to hold onto their culture and their land (for example, the issue regarding the Standing Rock pipeline).

Full review here: http://wp.me/p21txV-Ep