Rating: 
Summary: fairly good but crowded
Review: How to balance the number of characters needed with giving the audience enough information to entertain and educate? This is a tricky question in McCullough's work. Her series set in ancient Rome does a good just for the non-specialist in Roman history, I wasn't offended or annoyed often. However, I did find some characters just mentioned in a page or two to be bothersome -- why are these characters here at all? And while it might seem like a good idea to write about women, it is always best, in this historian's opinion, to be inclusive whenever possible.
Rating:
Summary: As usual, well done historical Fiction by the Master
Review: I can think of no other books that encompass a lost society so well than the 'Masters of Rome' series. Caesar's Women is a marvel of research from this author. Fictionalizing it must have been very difficult...but then again, how could it not be. But reading it one feels like the author was the proverbial fly on the wall over 2,000 years ago. Amazing! Caesar's Women focuses on the powerful roles that the ladies during Caesar's rise played in the formation of things to come. Aurelia (his mother) is undoubtedly the strongest of these, as is Servilia (Brutus' mother and Caesar's lusty wanted and dangerous woman). Julia, Caesar's daughter, plays a pivotal role as she is swept away from Brutus --- whom she was betrothed to --- and then given to Pompey (who is as happy as a clam since he sees her as a goddess figure and a way into the Julii line). My only problem with this portion of the story was that Pompey fell head over heels for Julia but never seems to see the political significance of it (for the Caesars). Pompey is a very powerful man with much dignitas and wealth. Surely he must have noticed how quickly Caesar agreed to break Julia's betrothal to Brutus and give her to him. But there is no mention of this, and the story only tells us how in love the two became. Pompey wasn't a fool. That being said, I think Caesar's Women is a triumph for the history of the women of that time. They are always seen as insignificant to the arena and times, since men dominated. But Mrs. McCollough shows us the back rooms behind the Senate and the Plebian Assembly. Women were pivotal. And Caesar's Women doubly so. Extremely intriguing. Of course, now it's on to Caesar --- the last book in the series thus far (at least to my knowledge). The build up of Clodius, Brutus, and Cato leaves a tingling in one's spine as you realize what is to come. The dagger! Oh god...where is that next book! I've got to start now!
Rating:
Summary: Too long!
Review: I found this book too long and sometimes difficult to understand. However McCullough has a very good style to recount historical facts and one can learn a lot from this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, though bogged down with politics.
Review: I have greatly enjoyed the series thus far, but this book seemed to have hit a snag. While I enjoyed reading it, I felt like there was too much focus on the politics of Rome, even the most miniscule, boring aspects of it. I greatly enjoy Roman history and have learned a great deal of it from Colleen McCullogh's books, but I found myself getting bored with the going's-on in the political arena. There were moments when the politics were interesting and I like the view of Caesar as thinking he was a perfect being, whereas almost every single one of his opponents thought THEY were the perfect being. His attraction to Servilia is confounding, but their relationship was quite interesting. When I had purchased Caesar's Women, I thought that the focus would be on the women, but they seemed to have taken a back seat to the politics. The title is a little misleading. I did feel like I had been transported back to ancient Rome and no one brings Rome to live more than Colleen McCullogh, but this book was the least interesting of the series so far. I still read every single page,however! ---Jerry Gerold, Author of "Hat Shaker's Chip"
Rating: 
Summary: as historical novels go, little short of miraculous
Review: I have never read a better series of historical novels than Colleen McCullough's "Masters of Rome." As both an enthusiastic fiction reader and a doctoral student in history, I stand in awe. To recreate a historical period in the kind of living detail McCullough provides is a daunting task; to do it and to make it riveting is little short of miraculous. I discovered these books recently and out of order, and immediately had to buy all five; when "Caesar" ended after the battle of Pharsalus, I promptly got online to find out when the next book was coming out, and was very relieved to discover that I have only two months to wait. It seems a very long time. All intelligent readers of historical fiction owe Ms. McCullough a debt of gratitude for producing art of this caliber.
Rating:
Summary: as historical novels go, little short of miraculous
Review: I have never read a better series of historical novels than Colleen McCullough's "Masters of Rome." As both an enthusiastic fiction reader and a doctoral student in history, I stand in awe. To recreate a historical period in the kind of living detail McCullough provides is a daunting task; to do it and to make it riveting is little short of miraculous. I discovered these books recently and out of order, and immediately had to buy all five; when "Caesar" ended after the battle of Pharsalus, I promptly got online to find out when the next book was coming out, and was very relieved to discover that I have only two months to wait. It seems a very long time. All intelligent readers of historical fiction owe Ms. McCullough a debt of gratitude for producing art of this caliber.
Rating:
Summary: YAWN!!
Review: I have read the first three books in this series and found them to be excellent in every way, but this one was tough. It's loaded with political intrigue, and I think the author got carried away with the minute details of the personality clashes between Caesar and the "boni", and the seemingly endless political infighting of the Senate. As I approached the end of the book, each chapter became more monotonous than the one before it. The author was obviously trying to present Caesar as the penultimate politician, who would stop at nothing to achieve his goals. In this she has suceeded, several times over. I have not yet read the fifth book "Caesar", but I intend to. I only hope that the drudgery that I endured for "Caesars women" painted enough background to allow the historically great Julius Caesar to take center stage. I also look forward to the characterization of Vercingetorix, a barbarian who was at least Caesars' equal in intellect and military prowess.
Rating:
Summary: This seris is being too easy on Caesar
Review: I have read this series up to this book; I haven't read "Caesar" yet. I found all of them excellent: as far as I can tell, very accurate, and creating larger-than-life but extremely convincing characters: I found Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Crassus, Cicero and even Clodius remarkably interesting and consistent; I felt I knew them. Like others, though, I felt her portrayal of Caesar himself to be too positive. In this book one saw him becoming more arrogant and impatient with "lesser" men, and I was convinced that "Caesar" would develop this further, showing him as the complex man he surely was. Certainly was at least as complex as Marius, Sulla and Pompey - all extremely able men, none of them completely "good" or "bad". But from what I've read in comments on "Caesar", the author seems to have shown an all too favourable interpretation of Caesar's motives and actions. That is a pity. The Scottish author Allan Massie has written a similar series of books, "Augustus", "Tiberius", "Caesar" and "Antony". They are not as well researched as Mrs. McCullough's books, and his "Caesar" has at least one very serious mistake, making Octavius his nephew instead of grand-nephew. But I found his portrayal of Caesar more convincing - a genius, yes, but totally convinced that he knew and deserved better than everyone else; charming and manipulative, unable to regard anyone as his equal (except, partially, Pompey), and perhaps even a psychopath.
Rating:
Summary: Masterly Written Novel
Review: I have to recognize that the first time I picked up this book I thought that this was going to be another romantic-erotic story about an ancient famous historical personage but for my surprise I found a very serious historical novel.
This book relate a time period of Julius Caesar life, his early politician career (68-58 B.C.) as a diplomatic, criminal lawyer, quaestor in Hispania, aedile, pontifex maximus and consul senior in Rome, ending this story the time before his conquest of Gaul and Egypt.
Through it pages, Ms. McCullough mixed Caesar's private life portraing him as a loving father with his only child Julia and a womenizer telling us his multiple romantic affairs with patrician women and his political intrigues and complots to destroy his oppositors and gain absolut control of the Senate with the help of Crassus and Pompey (First Triumvirate)and theirs multiple clients with the purpose of declare dictator of Rome, also the writer give us a lot of details about the Roman law and legislations, internal and international policy, senatorial intrigues, religious rituals and customs of the Roman society.
Rating:
Summary: Where are the women?
Review: I haven't read the others in this series, but I bought the book because I expected it to have a view of Rome from the women's perspective--sort of like Marion Zimmer Bradley giving the women's view of the Camelot legend. In this I was disappointed. If you don't have some knowledge of Roman life and government, you're going to find yourself struggling in a few places. The book isn't BAD, but neither was it as engaging as I thought it would be.
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