Rating: 
Summary: Destined to be a classic!
Review: Pressfield's "Gates of Fire" is the best battlefield novel I have ever read, and is my all time favorite book. This is one of those novels that unfold like a movie. Except I doubt that you could ever capture this epic story on screen and do it justice. Pressfield's also gives his characters a chance to develop instead of being one dimensional like other adventure novels. That is what makes this story so much more tragic due to the emotional involvement you feel for these brave men.
I also should mention Frank Miller's graphic novel "300" which is a brillant story about the battle for Thermopolye in its own right.
Rating:
Summary: Exceptional even for a Greek
Review: To be honest, I sincerely doubted whether any non-Greek would be capable of grasping the motives that led a handfull of Spartans (as compared to the immense Persian Army) defend the straits of Thermopylae knowing that they would eventually perish. The reader may refer to the poem by C. Kavafy who describes best what we mean in Greece by saying "he is defending Thermopylae". Surprise, surprise!!! The book is one of the most moving pieces of literature I have ever read about ethos, heroism, integrity and battlefield comradery. Its battle narrations may become gruesome at times, but isn't war like this?
Thank you Mr. Pressfield... Every time I drive through Thermopylae (which is not a narrow passage anymore, after all these millenia of river activity)and see Leonidas' statue I will have thoughts which were ignited by your excellent book.
Rating:
Summary: One of the greatest books of all time
Review: Pressfield's work is a inspiring retelling of this heroic tale. if you are interested in any kind of warfare at all, or even if you aren't, read this book. I had to visit the monument at Thermopylae after reading it. I reccomend that anyone that has a chance to go to Greece read this and visit the site where the battle took place. You may have some difficulty finding Thermopylae today, but it's worth the trip.
Rating: 
Summary: A great book.
Review: Steven Pressfield produces a book of the battle of Thermopylae which borders on the classic. It's very well written with plenty of depth throughout. I like the start where it describes the narrator as a Persian historian for Xerxes the great King and the interrogation of Xeones a squire of Dienekes a remarkable Spartan commander.I think that Pressfield did a great deal of research to bring this historical battle to life, probably the greatest last stand in history, of a small Spartan 300 strong unit and their allies numbering in all about 4000 against the numerically superior Persian army, said to be up to 2 million men by Heroditus. This army was led by Leonidas the Spartan King. The Spartans chose their ground well by making use of the confined spaces in the pass of Thermopylae which did not allow the Persians to take advantage of their numerical superiority and surround their small opponent. Nonetheless a Greek traitor gave away another track along the pass so that the Persians could eventually come upon the Spartans from both sides, thereby ending the battle. The book itself does not concern itself with the battle immediately but rather builds up the background story of the squire who is retelling his tale to the Persian historian after having suvived the battle, although by no means in a healthy state. What I really liked was the humanity of the characters as you find out about Xeones the loss of his parents in war and his love for Diomache his cousin a girl at the time some 3 three older. Xeones maintains his love and one feels that in fact she is the one he loves and would ever love throughout his life. We get to meet quite a few of the characters involved in the battle such as the King Leonidas, his `peers' Dionekes, and Knights Polynikes as well as others. The book removed some preconceptions with regard to the Spartans who I thought were known for being highly disciplined warriors but stolid and lacking humanity. This was totally changed by Pressfield's ability to make the Spartans very human indeed, the men posessed great fear and great courage as well as expressing love and wisdom. The martial arts taught in Sparta are tough yet human nonetheless and at the same time ensure the warrior is as egoless as he can be. The warrior undergoes his training from an early age in the `agoge' for 13 years, surely nothing compares to this except possibly the code of the Samurai. There are other similarities as well given the understanding of the essence of being a warrior through a kind of harmony reached by few, only the seeking after enlightenment of the great Japanese and Chinese masters truly exceeds this (eg sword, archery, Zen etc). Probably a typical example of this approach is the question asked of Xeones by Dionekes as to "What is the opposite of fear" and of course this answer is love. Strangely, so few people nowadays know what this really is, apart from the normal parental love given while they were children many people don't experience the kind of love which can totally encompass the world and completely defeat fear. Some see a little of this in the love of another but fail to reach high enough, this the expansion of love for all that is is what Dionekes is talking about, something rarely experienced in any person's life even for a moment. This also brings to mind, probably the greatest war film I've yet seen which is "The Thin Red Line", there are moments in this film when such expressions of love exist such as when the American soldier is about to die surrounded by Japanese soldiers or when one of them asks questions about the world which never occurred to him other than in the extremity of war and the closeness of your own death which hangs mere breaths away. This, I believe, is why soem men seek war in order to bring out of themselves this possibility of truth and love, something which is not necessary for women who have other means to access this zone as Dionekes so aptly notes when he says that of the few men who have possessed the sort of courage required to reach this state his own wife and some women already possess this courage. Leonidas himself chose the 300 men because of this courage inherent in the wives of these men and his knowledge that it would be they who, through their displays of courage, would hold Sparta and Hellas together. A great book.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible.
Review: I first read Steven Pressfield's Last of the Amazons, then got interested in his other works and found Gates of Fire. In my opinion Gates of Fire is better book between the two, which is already saying a lot because I enjoyed Last of the Amazons tremendously. At a glance, Gates of Fire might appear to be all about battles and exploits of Spartan warriors. However there is so much more to it than that. It is about being a friend, lover, soldier, husband, father, son, and more, which all lead you to one main theme, being a man.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Popular Historical Fiction
Review: This book is one of the best historical reads I've stumbled across in a long time. The "voice" is right, never once slipping into anachronistic modernisms and supplying a truly "transparent" medium, easily accessible to moderns, which yet conveys the immediacy of historical time and place. The tale is not plotted in any formal sense but proceeds in flashback, a hackneyed but effective mechanism here, as we see the story unfold, both on the level of a life remembered by a fallen Spartan warrior and through the eyes of the Persian court in the midst of their final Greek campaign. The battle scenes are redolent with all the misery and gore of real warfare, too, yet reverberate with the mystery of transcendence -- the real stuff of living and, of course, dying. There is both an earthiness and a metaphysical element to this finely told tale of heroism in the face of overwhelming odds in a place and time which changed the flow of history as we know it. The characters, too, are as real to us as the flesh and blood we see burning and wallowing in death upon the fields of Thermopylae. And we care about them, which, in the end, is what a book like this must be about. I did note that, while the final denouement resonates powerfully long after the last drop of blood has been spilled, the characters themselves did seem to fade a bit and some of the derring-do seemed a bit outlandish to be believed, even in the throes of the adrenalin-driven combat Pressfield describes. But, on balance this was an excellent addition to the corpus of historical fiction and well worth all the praise Pressfield garnered from it. -- SWM
Rating: 
Summary: Loved it!
Review: This is a great adventure yarn based on the historical defense of Greece by Sparta at Thermopylae. It was extremely well done, and the author was able to convey the Spartan spirit very well. Told through the eyes of an outsider and newcomer to Sparta, someone who eventually serves at Thermopylae, you get a real sense of the importance of this battle to history. I really enjoyed this book.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad... but not all that great either.
Review: Without haveing to think about it, the only selling point on this book is in it's epic battle scenes. I have never read anything that quite compares to the battles described by Pressfield in this book... however! this book is not one long battle scene. The first 200 pages are tedious to say the least and the ending isn't all that spectacular after all.
That being said, i think it is fantastic how the Spartans are portrayed as well as the Persians. Pressfield does them both with dignity and accuracy. At the end of the day, it's a good book, but i wouldn't call it an epic.
Rating:
Summary: Another point of view on the facts
Review: Just finished reading this book and I compared it with all the historical data we have in the internet as well as in public libraries of Athens. It is indeed an excellent book utilizing historical truth with great objectivity. I have been many times in Thermopyles and have seen the battle field . It must have been indeed terrible massacre and a great heroism to know that one way or another there is no hope to survive. But all this summarized in Spartian's quote: "With the shield or over the shield", that is "soldier come back with the shield of the enmy as a winner or dead on your shield".
However, I would like to know why the author does not state the reasons Spartians did not send any other forces. In addition, why the fleet of Athenian gave the last decisive stroke to Xerxes fleet in the battle of Salamina . This war was finalized and won by the forces of Athenians . There must have been some political conflict in Spartes...
Rating:
Summary: AMAZING. An Instant Classic
Review: I have read this book over a dozen times already this year and it still grips me the same way as the first. Where can one start? The amount of research Steven Pressfield must have done seems staggering. I am an avid history buff, especially of the classic period, and a picky one at that. After having finished this novel, I was convinced that it should replace any related textbooks in universities. From the microscopic to the macrosopic, from the most esoteric to the most practical aspects of life, this book has captured the essence of its subject so absolutely, one wonders whether mr Pressfield owns a time machine. The interpretation of the Spartan psyche is masterful, the accompanying discussion on the "opposite of fear" will shame 100 generations of philosophers, and, of course, the titanic battle scenes are far more impressive than anything Hollywood has yet to offer. This novel is destined to be a classic. Read it, if its the only book you wil read all year. (and before the movie comes out!)
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