Call number
FIC REN
Collection
Genres
Publication
Pinnacle (1988)
Description
“Renault’s best historical novel yet.... Every detail has solid historical testimony to support it.”–New York Review of Books After Alexander’s death in 323 B.C .his only direct heirs were two unborn sons and a simpleton half-brother. Every long-simmering faction exploded into the vacuum of power. Wives, distant relatives, and generals all vied for the loyalty of the increasingly undisciplined Macedonian army. Most failed and were killed in the attempt. For no one possessed the leadership to keep the great empire from crumbling. But Alexander’s legend endured to spread into worlds he had seen only in dreams.
Subjects
User reviews
LibraryThing member saturnloft
This book, the final volume in Mary Renault's Alexander the Great trilogy, covers the events right after Alexander's death. Without Alexander's powerful personality to provide unity and focus, his astonishing empire is quickly deteriorating into a mess of intrigue and entropy.
Funeral Games kind of
Funeral Games kind of
Show More
suffers from the same problem. Without a strongly-rendered main character to provide focus and cohesion it just doesn't have the same enthralling quality as the first 2 books. As a novel with an ensemble cast, it isn't bad, and you get a decent picture of the historical happenings that the fictional story is built on... but it just seems a bit superfluous. Show Less
LibraryThing member michellegarrette
My favorite book of the trilogy. This was the one that felt the most historical and the least fictional. What a time to live through.... or to try to live through.
LibraryThing member krasiviye.slova
Somewhat dissappointing. Renault uses multiple third person narrators instead of the single first person narrator used in The King Must Die and The Persian Boy. The novel fails to create the emotional resonance of the other two -- partly because of the change in narration and partly because so few
Show More
of the characters are truly sympathetic. Show Less
LibraryThing member LisaMaria_C
My introduction to Mary Renault was The King Must Die, the first of two novels about Theseus--it was actually assigned reading in high school. What impressed me so much there was how she took a figure out of myth and grounded him historically. After that I quickly gobbled up all of Renault's works
The first book of that trilogy Fire from Heaven, is about the young Alexander of Macedon before his famous conquests, ending with his inheriting the Kingdom of Macedon. I was fascinated by the portrait drawn of him and his family--and his teacher--Aristotle. It also draws vivid portraits of his "Companions" who helped him conquer much of the civilized world surrounding the Mediterranean and divide it between them after his death. The second book, The Persian Boy, is Alexander seen through the eyes of one of his lovers, Bagoas, the "Persian Boy" of the title and covers the period of this conquest, and is every bit as remarkable. I thought Funeral Games a bit of a disappointment after those first two, but it missed a lot with Alexander's absence, dealing with the aftermath of his death.
The first two of the trilogy were books that cemented my love of historical fiction and fascination with Ancient Greece. If I have any criticism of those first two books, it's that Renault's Alexander is too much the paragon. You get the feeling Renault was more than in love with her Alexander. But that wasn't a criticism that occurred to me while I was reading them--given how fully I was under Renault's spell. But there's just no character central here that has anything near Alexander's appeal. I do get that's rather the point. Without Alexander, the center cannot hold. It may be that this suffered from reading the books of the trilogy one after another. As with the death of Caesar in McCullough's book, it's just so much of a wrench after what had gone before. Of Renault's works of historical fiction, the first two books are among my favorites, but the last of the trilogy is my least favorite of any of them. Still worth the read.
Show More
of historical fiction set in Ancient Greece. The two novels about Theseus and the trilogy centered on Alexander the Great are undoubtedly her most famous of those eight novels.The first book of that trilogy Fire from Heaven, is about the young Alexander of Macedon before his famous conquests, ending with his inheriting the Kingdom of Macedon. I was fascinated by the portrait drawn of him and his family--and his teacher--Aristotle. It also draws vivid portraits of his "Companions" who helped him conquer much of the civilized world surrounding the Mediterranean and divide it between them after his death. The second book, The Persian Boy, is Alexander seen through the eyes of one of his lovers, Bagoas, the "Persian Boy" of the title and covers the period of this conquest, and is every bit as remarkable. I thought Funeral Games a bit of a disappointment after those first two, but it missed a lot with Alexander's absence, dealing with the aftermath of his death.
The first two of the trilogy were books that cemented my love of historical fiction and fascination with Ancient Greece. If I have any criticism of those first two books, it's that Renault's Alexander is too much the paragon. You get the feeling Renault was more than in love with her Alexander. But that wasn't a criticism that occurred to me while I was reading them--given how fully I was under Renault's spell. But there's just no character central here that has anything near Alexander's appeal. I do get that's rather the point. Without Alexander, the center cannot hold. It may be that this suffered from reading the books of the trilogy one after another. As with the death of Caesar in McCullough's book, it's just so much of a wrench after what had gone before. Of Renault's works of historical fiction, the first two books are among my favorites, but the last of the trilogy is my least favorite of any of them. Still worth the read.
Show Less
LibraryThing member sonofcarc
Self-consciously valedictory. Renault completists should keep an eye out for a cameo appearance, near the end of the book, by Alexias, the hero of her first historical novel, The Last of the Wine.
LibraryThing member lorax
The first two novels in Renault's Alexander trilogy, Fire from Heaven and The Persian Boy, were outstanding. Funeral Games, however, lacks the strong narrative voice or central character of the first two; not only does Alexander die early in the novel, but the point of view shifts throughout the
Show More
novel, following various characters as they scheme to hold onto as much as they can of Alexander's empire. Characters are introduced or brought back onstage from the previous books, grasp for power, and are murdered, but the restrictions of historical events make this more of a sequence of events than a coherent plot. It's not a bad book, but not a great one. Show Less
LibraryThing member ritaer
Alexander's death sparks rivalries for power over his empire.
LibraryThing member Huba.Library
Ms. Renault's third & final volume of her Alexander the Great trilogy. More of her same engaging brilliance in this great history-based Alexander trilogy.
LibraryThing member RobertOK
A historical novel that dramatizes the struggle for control of the Macedonian Empire after the death of Alexander the Great. Created by a stunning string of military victories and alliances, Alexander's empire stretched from Greece to Egypt to the border of India. The book is well-plotted as it
This is the final book in Mary Renault's Alexander trilogy, following "Fire From Heaven" and "The Persian Boy," neither of which I've read.
Show More
covers the major battles, murderous demises, and power plays in the dozen or so years after Alexander's death. However, the writing is sloppy, sometimes to the point of confusion, the style is overly formal, and the book is full of typos. Despite that, it's an exciting story that demonstrates just how extraordinary Alexander was to both have created his empire and then managed to hold it together.This is the final book in Mary Renault's Alexander trilogy, following "Fire From Heaven" and "The Persian Boy," neither of which I've read.
Show Less
ISBN
1558171525 / 9781558171527