Rating: 
Summary: Fortune favoured . . . who?
Review: A wonderful piece of fiction, although it lacks the structure and form 'The First man in Rome' and 'The Grass crown' had. Read the beginning of 'Fortune's Favorites', then the end, and it's next to impossible to make a link between them - it's more a record of historical events than a story - but nonetheless, historical events wonderfully written. Surprisingly, there was little emphasis on the rise of the career of Pompey the Great, considering these years were 'his' if they were anybody's, this is rather puzzling. It seems that the first part of the book is exclusively Sulla's, the second part is Caesar's and anyone else is an afterthought. McCullough also has strong opinions about the 'bad' and the 'good' - throughout, it is clear who she 'likes and dislikes,' as it were. The book is undeniably worth reading, but is very much caught in the middle. 'The First Man in Rome' and 'The Grass Crown' deal with the first direct threats to the Republic, the latter two books with the last threats, and Fortune's Favorites seems to have trouble deciding which way to lean. McCullough does not hesitate in setting the stage for 'Caesar's Women' - it is amusing to read of the mischevious children - Clodius, Antony, Brutus - in this book later becoming the young men who terrified the city, and eventually being destined for different - if horrid - ends. An excellent read, but one that you would have to use every once of concentration for in order to fully understand. I must confess that for my own part, I find the first two and latter two superior.
Rating:
Summary: Not as good as the earlier books
Review: According to the author's note, Fortune's Favorites is a stand-alone book. However, I think she says this because the novel really doesn't measure up to its predecessors.Fortune's Favorites is not a bad book. However, it pales in comparison to The First Man in Rome and The Grass Crown. It lacks the clever turns of phrase scattered through the preceding two books, and it also lacks a concrete villain. I have yet to read the next books in the series, but it seems to me Fortune's Favorites acts as a bridge between plot changes. Although Caesar kicks lots of pirate butt, and helps put down the Spartacus slave revolt, there really doesn't seem to be a great, climactic moment. I really would like to have read more about the enemies of Rome. The preceding books focused upon foreign threats, like Mithradates and Jugartha, but Fortune's Favorites somehow seems safer, despite the pirate, Spartacus, and ongoing Mithradates problems. What really does work in this novel are the sad bits. Although Sulla is a truly horrid piece of work, I felt great pangs of remorse when he finally died. Colleen McCullough masterfully made me love a wholly unloveable character.
Rating:
Summary: A lengthy midpoint in the arc of an amazing story
Review: Against a backdrop of impending collapse and incipient Empire- Lucius Cornelius Sulla has ended Rome's civil wars but at horrific cost, and King Mithridates of Pontus is gearing up for hegemonic war in Asia- Colleen McCullough paints an engaging portrait of two men who in the next decades would be first rivals, then allies and finally deadly enemies- Gaius Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompey (called "The Great"). McCullough uses "Fortune's Favorites" as something of an entr'acte in her series, inking in the outlines of Caesar and Pompey as young men on the rise. And by and large, it works. Though Pompey comes off as an incorrigible upstart and Caesar as an unbending aristocrat, each is drawn sympathetically in his own way. The detail of everyday Roman life is as always excellent, and the military history well-written and researched. That said, "Fortune's Favorites" bogs down a bit where its predecessors "The First Man in Rome" and "The Grass Crown" did not. A touch of the romance novel creeps in here; sexual dalliances, for which Caesar was certainly known, are dwelt on at greater length and in more detail than before. But these parts of the story are inconsequential and easily skipped. It's already easy to see in this novel the partisanship for Caesar that becomes central to McCullough's later novels in this series. However, she paints him as such an upstanding and infinitely correct character that it's hard not to agree with her. The absolute historical accuracy of the story cannot be ascertained 2,100 years after it happened- but it does make for a read that is pleasurable, even if slightly guiltily so.
Rating: 
Summary: More!!!!!!
Review: Although Fortune's Favorites is not quite as cohesive or seamless as the first two books in the Master's of Rome series, you will be impressed at the level of understanding of the period that McCullough displays and imparts to the reader. You'll be left glad to know that there are more Master's of Rome works to sink your teeth into.
Rating: 
Summary: Better than the second, but not the first.
Review: At first this book seemed like it was going to be teh worst of the three I have read (The Fist Man in Rome, The Grass Crown, Fortune's Favorites), but it has turned out to be the second best. It is really a touching book and seems like it could have been what actually happened, to the word! Although my favorite book so far is still the first one (First Man), this one is a close second! I can't wait to read Caesar's Women. And I am only 15 years old, and am having the hardest time understanding the latin in this book. Regardless, Colleen Mccullough is the best Author and I will always be willing to read her books!
Rating: 
Summary: This is not what you'd expect . . .
Review: Colleen McCullough has done a fine job of recreating the Roman world in her "Masters of Rome" series, but her flaws show in "Fortune's Favorites." More on those later. For those expecting the rich characterization of "The First Man in Rome" or the emotional punch of "The Grass Crown": You're going to be disappointed. McCullough truncates the civil war between consuls Carbo, Cinna and Sulla to the final few months, but what she gives us in return is meager. Her portrayal of Sulla's last years is the book's biggest disappointment. Part of Sulla's glamour is his incredible physical presence and charisma; by making him repulsive, she robs him of any attraction save for some rubber-necking curiosity over what new monstrosities he'll commit. Sulla just doesn't connect here, which is a shame for a character who was vivid and alive in her previous two novels. The only time he's enjoyable--when he isn't wreaking havoc in people's lives--is when he's playing off young Pompey's breathtaking self-centeredness. (Breathtaking, by the way, is the word. Wait until you read Pompey's letter to Sulla from Africa. If you don't get the joke, just read Sulla's answer). "Fortune's Favorites" jolts the reader back and forth between Pompey, young Julius Caesar, Quintus Sertorius, Spartacus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus. While it is refreshing to see Crassus portrayed as a decent family man at heart (in spite of his greed), the other portrayals are disheartening. Pompey was easily led, immature, fond of believing what his flatterers said about him, and willful, so McCullough hits the mark (even though her broad portrayal of him makes him seem clownish rather than charming). And Sertorius retains some sympathy through his attachment to a particular white fawn. But McCullough's bias for Caesar is undisguised, and some readers might find her portrayal of him to be too much of a "superhero" cast. And her treatment of Spartacus is, in my opinion, implausible and unnecessary, unless her publisher told her to avoid any comparison with the Kirk Douglas film of the same name. In that case, why not tell it completely from the Roman point of view? For its flaws, "Fortune's Favorites" isn't all bad. Some parts of it are entertaining; I refer to any encounter between Sulla and Pompey, and Sulla's dealings with the Senate. Yet when it comes to her characters, McCullough fails to create solid, believable women; while Aurelia remains McCullough's premier heroine in this series, no other woman comes close to her. McCullough's women are just not as well-drawn and, often, not as interesting as her men--which is a shame. McCullough has polished two flaws into glaring annoyances. The first is her mastery of the information dump--whole pages of exposition litter "Fortune's Favorites," with no relief in sight except to skip through the book and hope a conversation or a letter breaks out. The second is her lavish use of anachronistic language throughout the book. It's jarring and it breaks the flow of the story. One final quibble: Whoever commissioned the Harlequin-reject cover for the paperback edition should be forced to live in a room papered all over with the covers from Regency Line romances. If nothing else, the nauseating presentation is a perfect reason to spend more money and buy the hardcover edition.
Rating:
Summary: This is not what you'd expect . . .
Review: Colleen McCullough has done a fine job of recreating the Roman world in her "Masters of Rome" series, but her flaws show in "Fortune's Favorites." More on those later. For those expecting the rich characterization of "The First Man in Rome" or the emotional punch of "The Grass Crown": You're going to be disappointed. McCullough truncates the civil war between consuls Carbo, Cinna and Sulla to the final few months, but what she gives us in return is meager. Her portrayal of Sulla's last years is the book's biggest disappointment. Part of Sulla's glamour is his incredible physical presence and charisma; by making him repulsive, she robs him of any attraction save for some rubber-necking curiosity over what new monstrosities he'll commit. Sulla just doesn't connect here, which is a shame for a character who was vivid and alive in her previous two novels. The only time he's enjoyable--when he isn't wreaking havoc in people's lives--is when he's playing off young Pompey's breathtaking self-centeredness. (Breathtaking, by the way, is the word. Wait until you read Pompey's letter to Sulla from Africa. If you don't get the joke, just read Sulla's answer). "Fortune's Favorites" jolts the reader back and forth between Pompey, young Julius Caesar, Quintus Sertorius, Spartacus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus. While it is refreshing to see Crassus portrayed as a decent family man at heart (in spite of his greed), the other portrayals are disheartening. Pompey was easily led, immature, fond of believing what his flatterers said about him, and willful, so McCullough hits the mark (even though her broad portrayal of him makes him seem clownish rather than charming). And Sertorius retains some sympathy through his attachment to a particular white fawn. But McCullough's bias for Caesar is undisguised, and some readers might find her portrayal of him to be too much of a "superhero" cast. And her treatment of Spartacus is, in my opinion, implausible and unnecessary, unless her publisher told her to avoid any comparison with the Kirk Douglas film of the same name. In that case, why not tell it completely from the Roman point of view? For its flaws, "Fortune's Favorites" isn't all bad. Some parts of it are entertaining; I refer to any encounter between Sulla and Pompey, and Sulla's dealings with the Senate. Yet when it comes to her characters, McCullough fails to create solid, believable women; while Aurelia remains McCullough's premier heroine in this series, no other woman comes close to her. McCullough's women are just not as well-drawn and, often, not as interesting as her men--which is a shame. McCullough has polished two flaws into glaring annoyances. The first is her mastery of the information dump--whole pages of exposition litter "Fortune's Favorites," with no relief in sight except to skip through the book and hope a conversation or a letter breaks out. The second is her lavish use of anachronistic language throughout the book. It's jarring and it breaks the flow of the story. One final quibble: Whoever commissioned the Harlequin-reject cover for the paperback edition should be forced to live in a room papered all over with the covers from Regency Line romances. If nothing else, the nauseating presentation is a perfect reason to spend more money and buy the hardcover edition.
Rating:
Summary: Tedious writing style, but pretty good historically
Review: Far below the quality of the first two books. I read it mainly for the historical details since McCullough does seem to get her facts straight, but by the tenth time she used the phrases "Fortune's Favorite" or "favored by fortune" I was ready to puke. If only Robert Graves' skill at writing could be combined with McCullough's interest in historical truth!
Rating:
Summary: Should have focused on Sulla
Review: For some reason McCullough skipped over Sulla's Eastern campaigns. I don't understand why as the Grass Crown had so much Mithridates in it that you would expect him to be a major figure in this book. But he just kind of disappears, and we get very little describing Sulla's efforts in breaking his power. I think if the book had stayed with Sulla's story, subordinating the other characters (Pompey & Caesar especially) to this story the book would have felt much less "disjointed" as other reviewers have noticed. It almost feels like McCullough ran out of Sulla material to finish the novel. We get a great deal of detail about his early life, his rise to power, his struggles with the Marians, and his eventual ascendency to the dictatorship (essentially making him Rome's first Emperor) in "First Man in Rome" and "The Grass Crown." There was every reason to expect that "Fortune's Favorites" would continue with his story. But...he vanishes into the East to return a shrivelled old man. Huh? Maybe there's a lack of information about his campaigns and his "divde the world" deal with Mithridates. Sulla's autobiography has unfortunately been lost. It would have made great reading. This may explain the odd gap in McCullough's Master of Rome books which up until this installment seem to have been a fairly continuous history of the late Roman Republic. Crassus, Pompey, Lucullus, Casear and their various struggles to become the next Sulla would have made great reading for the fourth book, here they detract from Sulla's story. As soon as Caesar takes the stage, everyone else is eclipsed. Sulla, whose late career was complex enough to carry this entire novel, should have been the star. If this book had stretched itself out enough to cover the Eastern campaigns, given us a bit more Lucullus, and ended with Sulla's death, it would have claimed the fifth star given to the previous two. ----
Thank god there appears to be a new cover! I could never understand why they didn't just get the same guy who did First Man and Grass Crown. Those covers were visually stunning. Fortune's Favorites' was a bad joke. A sword and a rose?
Did somebody die in the Art Dept? Anyway, more Sulla, less everybody else. Of all the major characters in Masters of Rome (and there's a lot of them) Sulla is by far the most fully realized. So why skip over his Greek campaign? The siege of Athens alone could have carried a quarter of the book. And who wasn't looking forward to the showdown between Rome and Mithridates that McCullough had been building up to for so long? So where is it? Maybe on the Extended edition. Had this book kept its focus, and been called "Sulla, the Dictator" it probably would have been the best in the series. As it is, it's probably the worst. After Sulla dies, McCullough isn't able to get up to steam on any other plot thread. And as others have pointed out, it's just too early in history to start setting off the Caesar fireworks. Ok, I forgot Lucullus. There should have been more of him too. A legendary Roman general who's a secret pedophile (ok, ephebophile, as he liked little girls) and who ends his career as a drugged-out wreck. Bound to be a good story there. At least a better one than skipping hither and thither between Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, and god knows who else.
Rating:
Summary: Two fortunate lives
Review: For the first time in this series we experience the charm and brilliance of its real subject, Caesar, close up and personal. As McCullough mentions, she has far more historical sources to work with now, and indeed the two new heroes were master propagandists. I enjoyed this book more than the first two. McCullough goes far toward weaving a totally convincing sense of patrician majesty and paternal authority in fortune-favored Roman lives like Caesar or Pompey the self-styled Great. This is a transitional novel, covering the end of the Marius-Sulla conflict and the first stirrings of the rivalry between Pompey and Caesar. The "problem" with such books is aggravated because McCullough is hewing so close to history rather than inventing characters and episodes that will lead to some great climax after 900 pages. While McCullough's prose is skillful it does not soar, and the reader does need to work hard to keep track of the parallel stories taking place on a jiggered timeline in Italy, Spain, or Anatolia. This volume begins with a 21 pp synopsis of the preceding two books, vital to understanding the long list of characters who pop in and out (many of whom bear very similar names due to Roman naming customs; geneological charts might have been a useful addition to keep them straight). McCullough's steadfast focus is elite politics and strategy: no vignettes of life in the legions, among the urban plebs, or on Latin farms. On the other hand, her 80 pp Glossary is a frank mine of information entertainingly supplied that supplements her earlier glossaries. Drawings of the main characters enliven the text. Have a magnifying glass handy if you read the paperback, for the many maps are microscopic.
|
