The Last Legion

Rating:
Summary: Action Packed
Review: I thought it was a great book. Second best of Valerio Massimo Manfrdi only to his Alexander Triology (I count all three as one book). I couldn't put the book down. The ending will make you put the book down very pleased. I would recomend this book to anyone who enjoyed any of Massimo's other books.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty good historical fiction.....
Review: If what you're looking for is a profound, meaningfull novel, with extreme depth in the characters, this is not for you. Manfredi is not (and does not try to be) Joyce, or Dickens, or García Márquez.

As simply a piece of historical fiction, as is also Alexander (trilogy by Manfredi), I think this is a pretty good read.

The story is mainly narrated by a druid, who, years after the action took place, wants to leave testimony of how things happened. It is the year 476 AD and a handfull of legionaries, belonging to the last existing roman legion, accompanied by a couple of quite picturesque characters, embark in a very intense adventure. They continuously find themselves in life threatening situations, which they sort out in diverse and imaginative ways.

This is a story full of of adventure, fraternity, honor, loyalty, love, and even magic, which is difficult to put down. I consider it to be just fun, relaxing reading. At the end, you are left with a warm, satisfying feeling. You will not however, be left pondering the meaning of your own existence....

What makes this novel unique is in my opinion, the amount of research that went into it. It ties up nicely to historical and common mythical events, which makes it worth your time. I guess it is to the reader's advantage that Manfredi is not only an archeologist, but a highly regarded and reknown history professor.

As with other Manfredi books, the plot is interesting, and the book is very well written, even though one is to assume something is probably lost in the translation from Italian.


Rating:
Summary: A great romp
Review: In complete contrast to the previous reviewers I found the book an exciting and captivating read. As our great warriors treked across Europe I could visualise every battle and landscape.

It reminded me of "Raiders of the Last Ark". I think it will make a great film one day.

An excelllent piece of escapism.

Rating:
Summary: A Historical version of Matthew Reilly
Review: The Last Legion is a fast paced historical action story and as such there is hardly a moment to rest between battles and sword fights. This certainly makes the story exciting and indeed in turn makes it hard to put down, but, unfortunately the constant action and superhuman death defying feats of the main heroes does not pause enough to let the reader breathe as much as I would like, and can be quite tiring for the casual reader.

A main flaw with the story lies in the characters who are mostly too busy performing death defying acts in the face of barbarian hordes, rather than give much time to develop their histories and give them any believable character development. The main character Aurelius is the only one who is given much inner conflict but this seems to be thrown in as filler more then adding anything to the story, much like the rather cheesy romance that he experiences with the leading female (there is only one). For the others there was little time to get attached to them and what little dialogue they had was not in anyway beneficial to their own character development.

This being said, the story itself is quite clever and successfully blurs the lines between Celtic Myth and Roman history in a way that is rather believable and clever if you have even the slightest knowledge of Celtic Legends.

I recommend this for history buffs and action junkies.

Rating:
Summary: Horrible
Review: the only reason i gave it a one star is because that is the lowest amazon offers. seriously this book was horrible. NO character development at all, the way they talked was cheesy and at times completely moronic. A 13 yr old could have come up with a better story. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES BY THIS BOOK. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Rating:
Summary: Competent but not brilliant
Review: Valerio Massimo Manfredi explores the figure of Romulus Augustus, the last Roman emperor. The story is well researched and the plot of the book is interesting. However, the writing never manages to be really compelling and I never cared too much about the characters, so the results are not completely satisfactory. There is much action, though, so it never gets boring.

By the way, the synopsis in the Editorial Review section has obviously been written by someone who has not read the book, since many details are embarrassingly wrong.