allisonmacias
4/5
Six. Long. Years. For Six long years, Artorius has longed for revenge. His older brother, Metellus was brutally murdered at Teutoburger Wald by Arminius and his men. Men who were supposed to be loyal to Rome. Now of age, Artorius joins the Roman Legions. And now Rome and Artorius are bend on revenge. But Arminius is cunning and he isn't going to bow before Rome and her legionaries.I have read a lot of books about Rome, but none about her military conquests. Rome's military might is (in)famous, and was a force to be reckoned with. Rome was the military gold standard.The characters in this book were good. Althought Artouris' main goal was revenge, he wasn't one dimensional. His mental and physical development matched his character development. The material in this book is VERY dark and gritty at some places. The brutality is almost overwhelming, but it is accurate. This isn't fictionalized drama. Mace doesn't gloss over the harsh realities faced by Rome's legionaries. I found the high contrast between Germania's roughness and Rome's silkiness fascinating.This was a great book, and I found myself engrossed despite the "manliness" of this book. I also read the sequel to this book, Soldier of Rome: The Sacrovir Revolt. I will review this book on Wednesday! I will probably find myself reading the rest of theses books after I fulfill some other reading obligations.
Before I go further into reviewing this book, I am going to say, it’s a “guys” book. No fancy schmancy romantic war ideas, no going back to a tear stained love interest who was waiting for him to come back home or silly sappy love drama to make you cringe, etc etc you get the hint. This is full on brutal war descriptions, with the emphasis on brotherhood and fighting together against all odds.The author did a really good job with his homework in making this book as historically accurate as possible, even providing footnotes, and where he got them from. I liked the amount of historical detail put into this book so every little moment was easily pictured, and descriptions of Roman military tactics, their weapons, and how they fought was well written. The plot was simple, and although it has been done before, it still served as a good basic story to introduce Artorius to the reader. His development as a soldier was well done, although one could only assume the worst as it seemed that Artorius just got more angrier throughout the novel. The other characters in the book served as just supporting cast, although I wish there was more to them - although some had distinct personalities (Valens with his women, Magnus and his Northern ancestry) I wish there was just more development with them as I wanted to know more about these other characters too. It is a brutal book, battle scenes are written with extreme detail and the amount of violence is high. Although realistic because war is never something to be taken lightly, the sheer brutality of it described in this book may deter the readers from reading this. The only other criticism I could see, is some readers might thing the testosterone level in this book really reaches its’ limits. It might be a turn off for some, I didn’t mind as it did seem obvious this book does cater to the male demographic. (Let’s just say, Artorius turns out to be a very very frustrated man, har har). I thought it was very well done, and I want to keep reading the rest of this series. I’d like to know what happens next! I greatly recommend this to others who are fond of military history, or who love a good book about Ancient Rome.
readafew
4/5
In Soldier of Rome: Legionary we meet a young man who joins the Legions in order be a part of the force sent to punish the German barbarians for the Teutoburger Wald massacre. They had wiped out 3 Roman legions including the one his older brother had been attached to. We follow Artorius as he joins the legions as a recruit, is trained to be a Legionary and finally marches with army to extract vengeance upon the barbarian hoard.This book happens primarily after the death of Caesar Augustus and Tiberius has taken over. An interesting and popular time for Roman historical fiction. This book tells a good story, though while a little on the gruesome side (not a lot, but periodically he goes into details) the author has his favorites who you expect to come through mostly unscathed. All the bad things happen to others. This is not a dig against the book (and my wife prefers stories that work like that!) but it’s kind of like the Western where you know the goods guys are going to win, or even a David Eddings book and not everyone enjoys that kind of story. I did enjoy the book and I do plan to acquire at least the next one in the series if not all of them.
