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Title: Fortune's Favorites by Colleen McCullough, Michael York ISBN: 0-671-04439-7 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 01 November, 1993 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.98 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.88 (24 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Not as good as the earlier books
Comment: According to the author's note, Fortune's Favorites is a stand-alone book. However, I think she says this because the novel really doesn't measure up to its predecessors.
Fortune's Favorites is not a bad book. However, it pales in comparison to The First Man in Rome and The Grass Crown. It lacks the clever turns of phrase scattered through the preceding two books, and it also lacks a concrete villain.
I have yet to read the next books in the series, but it seems to me Fortune's Favorites acts as a bridge between plot changes. Although Caesar kicks lots of pirate butt, and helps put down the Spartacus slave revolt, there really doesn't seem to be a great, climactic moment. I really would like to have read more about the enemies of Rome. The preceding books focused upon foreign threats, like Mithradates and Jugartha, but Fortune's Favorites somehow seems safer, despite the pirate, Spartacus, and ongoing Mithradates problems.
What really does work in this novel are the sad bits. Although Sulla is a truly horrid piece of work, I felt great pangs of remorse when he finally died. Colleen McCullough masterfully made me love a wholly unloveable character.
Rating: 5
Summary: Two fortunate lives
Comment: For the first time in this series we experience the charm and brilliance of its real subject, Caesar, close up and personal. As McCullough mentions, she has far more historical sources to work with now, and indeed the two new heroes were master propagandists. I enjoyed this book more than the first two. McCullough goes far toward weaving a totally convincing sense of patrician majesty and paternal authority in fortune-favored Roman lives like Caesar or Pompey the self-styled Great.
This is a transitional novel, covering the end of the Marius-Sulla conflict and the first stirrings of the rivalry between Pompey and Caesar. The "problem" with such books is aggravated because McCullough is hewing so close to history rather than inventing characters and episodes that will lead to some great climax after 900 pages. While McCullough's prose is skillful it does not soar, and the reader does need to work hard to keep track of the parallel stories taking place on a jiggered timeline in Italy, Spain, or Anatolia.
This volume begins with a 21 pp synopsis of the preceding two books, vital to understanding the long list of characters who pop in and out (many of whom bear very similar names due to Roman naming customs; geneological charts might have been a useful addition to keep them straight). McCullough's steadfast focus is elite politics and strategy: no vignettes of life in the legions, among the urban plebs, or on Latin farms. On the other hand, her 80 pp Glossary is a frank mine of information entertainingly supplied that supplements her earlier glossaries. Drawings of the main characters enliven the text. Have a magnifying glass handy if you read the paperback, for the many maps are microscopic.
Rating: 4
Summary: Not a Favorite
Comment: Fortune's Favorites is definitely the weak link in McCullough's Masters of Rome series. That is not because it is a *bad* book; it is, in fact, quite good. However, it lacks the direction and focus of the other books of the series.
Fortune's Favorites begins with Sulla's return to Italy from the East, and ends with Pompey's and Crassus' first "retirement" in 69 B.C. In between, we're presented with Sulla's dictatorship and debauched death, Sertorius' guerrilla warfare in Spain, the Spartacus revolt, and lots of minor incidents too many to mention. The focus constantly jumps around from Sulla, to Pompey, Caesar, Cicero, Spartacus, and a dozen lesser lights.
As usual, McCullough gives us her own spins on history, spins that are entirely her own yet pleasingly plausible. Here, McCullough takes advantage of the lack of information about Caesar's early career to team him up with Crassus years before the Cataline conspiracy. She has Crassus select Caesar as an aid against Spartacus - and why wouldn't Caesar have been involved in the putting down of the revolt? From Caesar's association with Crassus comes his role as go-between between Crassus and Pompey. Again, we know historically that Crassus and Pompey, bitter rivals, reached a rapprochement in 70 B.C. - why wouldn't have been Caesar who arranged it? A simple, yet brilliant conceit that beautifully sets the stage for the First Triumvirate.
Those who are on the fence about reading this one, be warned that at times McCullough tries to write a history book. There are endless pages of Sulla expostulating about his reforms, and still more endless pages about efforts to destroy them. The prose is, as always, dry and uninspired. But the overall concept is brilliant, and McCullough beautifully fleshes out Caesar's youth, Pompey's rise, and the rapidly growing decay of the Senate. Those who enjoyed the first two books in the series should absolutely continue on.
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Title: The First Man in Rome by Colleen McCullough ISBN: 0380710811 Publisher: Avon Books Pub. Date: 01 August, 1991 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Caesar: A Novel (Masters of Rome Series) by Colleen McCullough ISBN: 0380710854 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 March, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.50 |
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Title: The October Horse: A Novel of Caesar and Cleopatra by Colleen McCullough ISBN: 0671024205 Publisher: Pocket Books Pub. Date: 01 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: I, Claudius : From the Autobiography of Tiberius Claudius, Born 10 B.C., Murdered and Deified A.D. 54 (Vintage International) by Robert Graves ISBN: 067972477X Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 October, 1989 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Morgan'S Run by Colleen McCullough ISBN: 0684853299 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 29 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $28.00 |
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