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The Shattered Horse

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The Shattered Horse

By: S. P. Somtow
Narrated by: Napoleon Ryan
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About this listen

S.P. Somtow's classic sequel to The Iliad

Firmly rooted in modern archaeological discoveries about Bronze Age cultures, The Shattered Horse paints a vivid picture of a decaying golden age seen through the eyes of the survivors of Trojan War. At the center of the story is Prince Astyanax: heir to the Trojan kingdom, marked for death as a child by the Greek conquerors, escaping, perhaps by divine intervention, and doomed, perhaps, to repeat history.

An astonishing panoply of mythic characters come to life in this book, called by Gene Wolfe "in the true sense, a work of genius."

©1986 Somtow Sucharitkul (P)2012 Audible, Inc. Fiction Historical Fiction Ancient Greece Ancient History Royalty
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This book is interesting, the writing is compelling but the story is severely lacking. Logic would indicate that a story about Astyanax, Prince Hector’s only son, who for the sake of the story survived the the Trojan war, would be a story of vengeance. A need for a son and grandson to avenge his family. But it’s not that it’s more like the Odyssey, but done badly. The author really wants to tie in archaeological evidence with myth and it doesn’t really work. Mostly because the archaeological artefacts he his referencing are older than the myths, so they don’t quite fit. Now, if you hated the concept of gods and goddesses from the Greek mythology then this is the book for you, basically all goddesses are the evil “snake mother” and the gods are related in some way to always good if distant “sky father”. Although, if you are a god son of sky father you get your own personality apparently. Also the author has Astyanax follow a narrative that would fit better with a son of Paris, it would require incest but that would fit well with Greek mythology. The author tried to incorporate Egyptian mythology as well but focused only on the concepts put forth by Akhenaten, which means more “sky father” concepts. Basically the author only wanted one god and goddess, but if there were god sons they have their own forms and personalities, other goddesses are not allowed. Overall not a very good story, the performance is fantastic but that’s the only highlight.

If you like Homer, stay away

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