The Gryphon's Skull

Rating:
Summary: delightful ancient historical novel
Review: About three centuries BC, the merchants Menedemos and Sostratos sail the Aphrodite across the Aegean Sea from Rhodes to deliver cargo in Athens. Menedemos captains the vessel while his cousin Sostratos handles more of the scholarly side of the business. Of course the two bicker over everything with Sostratos being a back seat driver and Menedemos a pseudo intellect.

On this particular journey, the argumentative duo obtains the skull of a strange looking bird that Sostratos believes is a gryphon, which proves the existence of the mythical beast. Menedemos dreams of receiving plenty of loot at an auction as he figures the philosophy schools will compete to buy the gryphon skull. As the relatives argue, fuss, and fight over the bird, they must also deal with the typical hazards of the open sea ranging from pirates to warring countries to spoiled aristocratic relatives, but mostly they contend with one another.

THE GRYPHON'S SKULL is a delightful ancient historical novel that brings to life Greece through the eyes of a strong cast, especially the delightful lead characters. The story line is action-packed, filled with real tidbits and persona, but also contains much amusement especially when the cousins bicker, banter, and bother one another. Fans will relish this trek and want to read the combatant cousin's first novel, OVER THE WINE DARK SEA.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: delightful ancient historical novel
Review: About three centuries BC, the merchants Menedemos and Sostratos sail the Aphrodite across the Aegean Sea from Rhodes to deliver cargo in Athens. Menedemos captains the vessel while his cousin Sostratos handles more of the scholarly side of the business. Of course the two bicker over everything with Sostratos being a back seat driver and Menedemos a pseudo intellect.

On this particular journey, the argumentative duo obtains the skull of a strange looking bird that Sostratos believes is a gryphon, which proves the existence of the mythical beast. Menedemos dreams of receiving plenty of loot at an auction as he figures the philosophy schools will compete to buy the gryphon skull. As the relatives argue, fuss, and fight over the bird, they must also deal with the typical hazards of the open sea ranging from pirates to warring countries to spoiled aristocratic relatives, but mostly they contend with one another.

THE GRYPHON'S SKULL is a delightful ancient historical novel that brings to life Greece through the eyes of a strong cast, especially the delightful lead characters. The story line is action-packed, filled with real tidbits and persona, but also contains much amusement especially when the cousins bicker, banter, and bother one another. Fans will relish this trek and want to read the combatant cousin's first novel, OVER THE WINE DARK SEA.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: A bone to pick with The Gryphon's Skull
Review: The last time I engaged in a negative review of a book written by an author still living...he wrote to me himself to encourage me to read on with the trilogy I had begun. Nevertheless, I am going to plow ahead and give a negative review to this book as well...

Earlier in the fall of 2004, I wrote a review of H.N. Turteltaub's 'Over the Wine Dark Sea' which I *enjoyed* but didn't love....I criticized the over-use of the 'peafowl' as humerous interjection....and the repetition of solution to pirate attacks by the dual protagonists, Menedemos and Sostratos.

Here....I have a few more bones to pick...

First off....the horribly, horribly anachronisitic dialogue in this book had me rolling my eyes from about page 7....and while I was of course not alive in the 300 BC era, I doubt phrases like 'you've got a bargain, pal' were commonplace. True, the dialogue is accessible in THIS day and age, but back then? Come on....if you are going to write an historical novel...and fill it with period detail, like the author has...then why such modern coloquialisms? I expected the two main-character cousins to be calling each other 'dude' by the time the story ended, and advertising the emeralds they have for sale on this voyage as bling-bling.

Secondly....while the author made good use of a myriad of facts about the sea trade and time period of Classical Greece...it is delivered in the same 'pedestrian' writing style that I loathe in modern literature...choppy, stinted dialogue, just to throw in a fact or two...that has nothing to do with story-propulsion, pacing, plot, etc...it's just to stick in a 'guess what I know?' piece....and to make a comparison to Mary Renault on the dust-jacket....I dare to say she spun in her grave when that was done. Mary Renault knew how to weave in her vast knowledge of Classical history to the story in such a way as it never appeared 'out of place' to the storyline. The author could take lessons from that ability if he intends to continue on with more than four books in this genre.

I am not a Classical Scholar...I am an average person with a passing interest in Greek history and mythology...and a great love of historical novels dealing with the subject matter. But this...was less than enjoyable...it's much the same as the first novel in the series, where the bickering cousins leave the island of Rhodes for their annual merchant trade season, and along the way encounter the same types of foes, the same married women who appeal to Menedemos, and the same dialogues between the cousins and the crew, and those they encounter along the way. Its basically the same plot as the first book, but with the skull of the mythical gryphon substituted for the peafowl of book one...virtually everything else is the same here...

I finished the book in the hopes that it would improve, and because I really hate to put a book down once I am involved in it....but I hesitate to say that I will investigate novels 3 and 4 in this series....I may as well save my money and just read the first one over and over again....