Sharrukin's Palace

The Dark Earth (Book Six of Empires of Bronze) by Gordon Doherty

Overall Rating: **** (4 stars)

The Dark Earth is the sixth and final volume of Empires of Bronze, Gordon Doherty’s historical fiction series set in the ancient Hittite Empire. In the last volume (The Shadow of Troy) Mr. Doherty gave us his version of the Trojan War. This tale goes one better (or one worse): it’s set amid the Bronze Age Collapse itself.

The Dark Earth breaks with earlier books in the series, most obviously in that the central character is no longer King Hattu, but his son and heir, King Tudha of the Hittites. Climate change, civil war, and foreign invasion have whittled the once-mighty Hittite Empire down to a pale shadow of its former self. When Tudha rose to the throne, it was foretold that he would revive the kingdom’s fortunes. Unfortunately, darker prophecies dating back to his father’s youth are also in play. Tudha has very little left with which to face the challenges of his time: murder, betrayal, and a massive invasion of the so-called “Sea Peoples.”

If you know the history of this period, the end of the story will be a foregone conclusion: Tudha’s struggle will be in vain, and the Hittite Empire will fall at last. The Dark Earth works best as a story about fighting against impossible odds, and yet refusing to give up hope for the future.

Mr. Doherty continues to work well with the historical sources. This story uses a number of odd details from the final years of the Hittite kingdom – most notably, the one time that we hear of the inland-centered empire having a navy and campaigning at sea. Some elements of the story did strike me as being a little implausible, most notably the sheer size of the Sea People armies. I suspect Mr. Doherty is engaging in some exaggeration there, in order to tell a rousing blood-and-guts adventure story of almost mythical proportions.

The story has a genuinely surprising conclusion, one which escapes from the strict historical narrative to give the reader a sense of hope at the end of the journey.

Mechanically, the novel works reasonably well, although the formula of the earlier books begins to feel a little worn here. Unfortunately, Mr. Doherty got a bit careless with copy-editing in this final volume of the series. Flaws in the prose style weren’t quite enough to pull me out of the story, but after the good editorial work of the last few volumes they were a little disappointing. Workmanlike, but not remarkably so.

Readers should be aware, as always, that the story is set in a brutal and violent time. Descriptions of human cruelty and violence are common and very explicit.

I enjoyed The Dark Earth, and although there don’t appear to be any more stories planned for this series, I’m certainly likely to go looking for more of Mr. Doherty’s work. Recommended as a dark, but in the end hopeful, recounting of one of history’s worst disasters.

The Shadow of Troy (Book Five of Empires of Bronze) by Gordon Doherty

Overall Rating: ***** (5 stars)

The Shadow of Troy is the fifth volume of Empires of Bronze, Gordon Doherty’s ongoing historical fiction series set in the ancient Hittite Empire. This volume is a watershed for the series. Everything that has gone before now collides with one of the world’s great narratives: the story of the Trojan War.

The Shadow of Troy continues to follow Hattu, now king of the Hittites. In the previous novel, The Crimson Throne, we learned how Hattu defeated his wicked nephew and seized the Hittite throne, as a divine prophecy had long predicted he would. Unfortunately, the struggle decimated the Hittite army, and the once-powerful kingdom is barely able to defend its own borders. Worse, climate change and the movements of barbarians beyond the edges of civilization are beginning to threaten every great kingdom in the Bronze Age world.

It is at this moment that King Hattu receives a desperate cry for aid from an ancient Hittite vassal, the city of Troy. A Trojan prince has offended the powerful kings of the Ahhiyawans across the sea, abducting one of their wives and bringing her back to Troy. Long greedy for Troy’s wealth, the Ahhiyawans have come across the sea with a thousand ships, and the Trojans have called for their Hittite overlords to defend them.

Hattu has no army to spare, but he is honor-bound to answer . . . so he comes alone, with no one to support him but his son and heir Tudha, along with a few of his veteran comrades-in-arms. He may not have an army, he may not have much hope left, but he has decades of experience as a warrior and captain in one bitter struggle after another. The Ahhiyawans will not be wise to take him lightly!

Throughout this series, Mr. Doherty has consistently done a good job of working with what few original sources are available to us. In this story, he has nothing less than the Iliad to work with, along with the other works of the so-called Trojan Cycle. In The Shadow of Troy he does masterful work, weaving together familiar bits of myth and heroic narrative while telling the story from a foreign (that is, Hittite) perspective. For example, if you’re familiar with the Iliad, you’ll recognize a lot of very specific bits of action in the battle scenes.

The novel does interesting things with the mysteries of the narrative. Why did the Achaeans come to attack Troy – was it truly over something as simple as an unfaithful wife? Troy was almost certainly a Hittite vassal state, and in this story the Hittite king comes to support Troy in the war . . . so why does the Iliad say absolutely nothing about the Hittites? What was really going on with the Trojan Horse, and the final fall of the city?

Most of all, Mr. Doherty does something remarkable with the preordained conclusion of the story. Throughout the series King Hattu has never lost a war, even if his victories have come at terrible cost. He is clearly the hero of this story . . . and yet it’s a foregone conclusion that Troy will fall in the end. How The Shadow of Troy ties up all these threads is a treat to watch, even (or especially) if you’re already familiar with the Greek sources.

Mechanically, the novel works on several levels. The plot is tight, even though it has a few more twists and reversals than usual. There’s more moral ambiguity in this story than in the previous volumes – there are brave heroes and foul villains, but for once it’s not always clear which is which. There’s a superb subplot involving Hattu and his son, in which both characters get plenty of development as sympathetic protagonists. The prose style is very clean, with no copy-editing or other errors to pull me out of the narrative. In all, a very workmanlike job.

Readers should be aware, as always, that the story is set in a brutal and violent time. Descriptions of human cruelty and violence are common and very explicit.

I very much enjoyed The Shadow of Troy. I understand there will be one more book in the series, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing what Mr. Doherty does to wrap this story up. Very strongly recommended – an action-packed and bloody retelling of the Trojan cycle and what comes afterward.

The Crimson Throne (Book Four of Empires of Bronze) by Gordon Doherty

Overall Rating: ***** (5 stars)

The Crimson Throne is the most recent volume of Empires of Bronze, Gordon Doherty’s ongoing historical fiction series set in the ancient Hittite Empire. In this volume, Mr. Doherty continues to weave a superb action-adventure story out of the scraps and tatters of documentary evidence from the period.

The Crimson Throne continues to follow Prince Hattu, a member of the Hittite royal house. After his victories over the Egyptians during the Kadesh campaign, Hattu returned to his homeland to find that his brother had died under mysterious circumstances, and his brother’s son had taken the throne. He soon learned that the new king, called here by his original name of Urhi-Teshub, was responsible for his own father’s death.

Prince Hattu despises his nephew for his treachery, but the young king has many allies, and he holds Hattu’s beloved wife and son as hostages. Hattu therefore tries to remain a loyal servant of the Hittite throne. At the beginning of The Crimson Throne, he has been sent as a diplomatic envoy to the court of King Priam of Troy. Later, he returns to the Hittite capital, only to be confronted with his nephew’s corruption and misrule. Soon enough, he begins to consider rebellion – but the path to the Hittite throne will not be an easy one for the war-weary prince.

Mr. Doherty continues to do a fine job of working with the original sources. Students of Hittite history will recognize many of the references here. Prince Hattu, his wife Puduhepa, Urhi-Teshub, a renegade named Piya-maradu, all of these are well-known in what few documents we have from the time. Troy is also becoming central to the plot of the series, and here the story draws from the familiar Greek myths. I can attest that pulling all of these disparate threads of history and myth together into a coherent narrative is a challenge, one that Mr. Doherty meets with aplomb.

In this volume, the plot continues to be tight and plausible – the minor stumbles in the plot of the first two volumes of the series are no longer visible here. There’s not a lot of moral ambiguity in this blood-and-guts story. I found myself rooting for Prince Hattu as he struggled his way through danger and hardship, and hissing at the malevolence of the villains. As I’ve come to expect from this series, the prose style is clean, with very few copy-editing errors.

Readers should be aware, of course, that the story is set in a brutal and violent time. Descriptions of human cruelty and violence are common and very explicit.

I very much enjoyed The Crimson Thone and am looking forward to the next books in the series – especially now that the Greek heroic age is being woven into the plot in some detail! Strongly recommended, as an action-packed story of treachery and rebellion set in ancient times.

Thunder at Kadesh (Book Three of Empires of Bronze) by Gordon Doherty

Overall Rating: ***** (5 stars)

Thunder at Kadesh is the third (and at this writing, last) volume of Empires of Bronze, Gordon Doherty’s ongoing historical fiction series set in the ancient Hittite Empire. In this volume, Mr. Doherty has produced a powerful rendition of the earliest well-documented military campaign in human history.

Thunder at Kadesh continues to follow Prince Hattu, the younger brother of the Hittite king Muwatalli II. In the years since the previous story, Hattu has become case-hardened by a life of violence and loss. Now the war he has long dreaded is about to begin: an epic conflict against New Kingdom Egypt under its new Pharaoh Ramesses II (one day to be known to history as “Ramesses the Great”).

Ramesses intends to destroy the Hittite kingdom, and he may have the army he needs to do that. On the other hand, under Hattu’s leadership, the Hittites have spent years building up their own army, including innovations in tactics and technology. They gather all of their allies – including some well-known names from their vassal-kingdom of Troy – and march to meet Ramesses.

As always, Mr. Doherty’s careful research pays off here. He has done a careful study of the Kadesh campaign, and of the critical battle itself, based on the most recent research in several disciplines. This novel offers plausible solutions to some of its outstanding mysteries, while still telling a suspenseful story of military struggle and sacrifice.

The plot of Thunder at Kadesh is a bit tighter and more believable than that of previous volumes of the series. The stakes of the conflict are clear, as are the identity and motives of the antagonists. Prince Hattu and his supporting characters deal with their challenges with intelligence, determination, and iron discipline. Even the villains of the piece are more nuanced and well-developed than we’ve seen so far. Only at the very end of the story is there a sudden reversal, setting up a conflict for the volumes to come. As I’ve come to expect from this self-published series, the production is of very high quality, with very few copy-editing errors.

Readers should be aware, of course, that the story is set in a brutal and violent time, focusing on one of the greatest battles of the ancient world. Descriptions of violence are common and very explicit.

I thoroughly enjoyed Thunder at Kadesh and am looking forward to the next books in the series.  Strongly recommended for readers who might enjoy an action-packed war story set in ancient times.