Rating: 
Summary: literate, intelligent alternate history
Review: Mary Gentle takes her in-depth knowledge of Renaissance history and weaves it into a staggeringly plausible and intelligent fantasy/alternate history. Her characters swear (soldiers do), they get drunk and have bad sex (ditto), they also stick together, learn from their mistakes and try to do the right thing, even when they don't know what that is. Gentle's habit of slipping tenses from the past to present and back again takes a bit of getting used to (but yeah, you do get used to it) and her decision to skip 'olde worlde' speech and make her mercenaries talk like modern-day grunts is effective (if not completely original.) Read this book and then read the others. You won't regret it.
Rating: 
Summary: Finally, a good fantasy novel
Review: Most fantasy novels are sugar-coated re-tellings of the same old castle and dragon stories, with half-baked characters and stories, that rely on crutches like fancy art covers, neo-celtic themes, and fervent praise from well-known authors. Thanks goodness their are authors like Gentle who give us cutting edge novels. I really enjoyed this book. It has a non-fantastical realism that really grabs. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Overly detail-oriented, but still good...
Review: One of the reviews below is a lengthy series of criticisms and whines about this series. I'll admit, many of them have a basis in fact, but i disagree with the intensity of the complaints. The books are _very_ detail oriented, and yes, the descriptions of armour do get rather tedious by the end. Some of the characters are rather two-dimensional, and the military aspects of the story rather predictable. What kept me reading through all four books was the alternate-history aspect. When i first started the series, i hated the little e-mail sections. They didn't even become important in any way until the end of the fourth book. However, if you want the end of the fourth book to make sense, you shouldn't skip over these sections. I am still of the opinion that the story could have survived without this aspect of the plot, and perhaps even the e-mail and eventual conclusion could have been independant, with an Ash trilogy and then the implications thereof in a seperate volume. All in all, the series is definitely worth reading, especially if you like the female-warrior lead character, and don't mind some carnage (it is a war, after all). Parts are slow, and sometimes painfully predictable, but i don't feel the time spent reading this series was at all wasted.
Rating: 
Summary: Coarse and childish.... and an incomplete story at 424 pages
Review: Reading S.M. Stirling's review on the cover, "One of the best fantasies I've read in 15 years, bar none", I couldn't wait to read this book. I was so disappointed. It read like it was written for live-at-home (in the basement) young adults. There was no flow to the story, it was choppy and badly strung together. There was no development of any relationship between Ash and her officers. The author tries to hook the reader with a gratuitous sexual violence scene in the first five pages that I found boorish, foul, and unnecessary, especially as it concerned an eight-year old girl. The e-mail's inserted were stupid and extremely distracting to the story, not adding but detracting. And the ending was nonexistent.... this is nothing but a serial in a magazine, an unsatisfying read to say the least. Very imaginative idea, but badly written.
Rating:
Summary: confusing in its intentions but a nice captivating read
Review: The concept of this novel is puzzling in the way that it remains wholly unclear as to whether it wants to be fantasy or distorted or alternate history. Are the E-mails at the end of each section atually wrote by the people that appear at the heading or by Mary Gentle herself? it is apparent that what you expect and what you get are entirely different things. another thing- at the header at the top of the E-mails appear dates such as 4/12/00. this is in the future. it has not happened yet. i wonder whether the author is making a subtle joke about the separate history theory put forward so confusing by Isobel Napier Grant in one of the E-Mails. aside from this the underlying intentions of the book, it makes a good read and offers a refreshing change the average -'ye olde' rubbish. I say buy it. good book.
Rating:
Summary: Great fantasy
Review: This book is really the first quarter of a complete novel. Be sure to pick up parts 2, 3, and 4 for a complete story. You won't regret it. Ash skillfully intertwines the story of Ash in 1476-77 with the modern story of a man researching Ash's life and writing a book about her. Other readers complain about the email portions of the novel, but don't listen to them. The "modern story" is as important as the historical story, each one supporting the other. Mary Gentle manages, in her historical story, to create a world that is dirty, ugly, realistic, and extremely fascinating. Here, there's no off-stage indoor plumbing or laundry facilities. People live rugged, and often short, lives. Battles are messy and bloody, with little heroic action, only a desire to survive. And out of all of this, comes an absorbing story. Skip that "Wheel of Neverending Boredom" stuff and read Ash instead.
Rating:
Summary: I wish I could meet Ash
Review: This book or series of books was very thought provoking. After I finished it I immediately reread it because I felt that in my first reading I had missed a lot of the details that became important later. What also made this a definite repeat read is the complex layers upon layers of events and the genre transcending plot. This is not just a fantasy novel, nor it is completely science fiction, there is history and alternate history, loads of military history, a bit of time travel, and a gutsy heroine that stands out amid the blood and gore. This book is broken into four part in the US the are, A Secret History, Carthage Ascendent, The Wild Machine, and Lost Burgundy. The first book had a particularity beautiful cover with a mesmerizing female warrior in silvery armor that reflected a landscape.
The books are presented as the work of a scholar that decided to do a book on the history of Ash, a fifteenth century female mercenary. Using a series of e-mails the scholar communicates with his publisher about the bizarre things that are happening. The manuscripts he based the book on either mysteriously disappear or just as mysteriously get reclassified from history to romantic fiction. He continues to write his book but amid questions about the authenticity of his work. Then suddenly archaeologist discover a ruin of "Carthage" in the sea off Africa in an area that has always been barren. This Carthage shows signs that it existed until just five centuries ago contradicting the historical fact that Carthage was destoryed by Rome over two thousand years ago. But it is exactly where the Ash manuscripts say it is. So who is this Ash? We meet her at the age of eight as she kills two men who rapes her. This earns her the attention of the captain of the mercenary band she is with. As she grows up in mercenary camp the reader starts to realized that the world she lives in is not quite the one we know from history. The people worship the green Christ, and the city of Carthage is still a power base in Africa. After an encounter with a lion in the forest, Ash believes she is blessed by it. As evidence she hears a voice that tells her military strategies that helps her win battles. Before she even turns twenty, Ash was already commanding her own mercenary army.
Suddenly Carthage launches an all out assault on Europe and quickly conquers most of Europe. Ash realizes that her voice is really that of a machine in Carthage that seems to be behind the attack. And riding at the head of the invading army is a women that looks exactly like Ash, and she hears voices too.
Strangely the machine insists that Burgundy Must Die. Why Burgundy? What is the machine's Agenda? Who is Ash, really?
These questions and the questions of the reappearing artifacts in modern Africa are answered in the subsequent books. The plot is too complex to explain in a review but it is very intricate and at times confusing. The author has a degree in War Studies and she uses her knowledge well in crafting believable battle scenes and gives an un-glorified account of the battlefield conditions as well as the conditions of a city under siege.
The character of Ash is perplexing. She is strong and practical to the point of ruthlessness. She is at times vulnerable emotionally but has such mental focus that it is scary to see her plan an attack while standing the bodies of her sliders. There is so many layers to her that with every reading you'll discover something new.
I absolutely loved this book. The scientific questions it raises at the end are very interesting and Ash is wonderful to see in action. There is little romance but there are relationships that are explored galore. What is also plentiful is gore filled battle scenes that might be too much for some. So stay out of the way of the spurting arterial blood if that is not your thing, but otherwise pick up the one volume British edition or all four US editions.
Rating:
Summary: Part 1 of a brilliant fantasy novel
Review: This is part 1 of "Ash: A Secret History" - an excellent fantasy novel by UK author Mary Gentle. The novel describes the life of Ash, a Joan of Arc-like mercenary leader. Ash is a young teenager, living in mercenary army camps at the end of the 15th century. She starts hearing voices in her head, giving her tactical advice on battlefield situations. When she becomes a successful battlefield commander, she forms her own mercenary army and gets involved in the protection of Burgundy against an invasion. This novel gives a very gritty, realistic view of life in the 15th century. Right from the start the reader is confronted with the mud, blood, sweat and pain of the life of a soldier. Gentle is not afraid to hurt or kill her characters. Even though the story is brutal and often horrifying, it is always a compelling read. "Ash: A Secret History" is presented as the translation of a manuscript, complete with footnotes explaining some of the archaic terms. The correspondence between Pierce Ratcliff, the fictional scholar who is translating the work, and his editor Anna Longman, is inserted between the chapters of Ash's life. This correspondence adds an entirely new dimension to the story, explaining some of the anachronistic expressions and some of the differences between Ash's version of history and our own. Another reviewer called this novel a combination of fantasy and scholarly mistery. Mary Gentle, an accomplished scholar herself, acquired an MA in War Studies as part of the writing process of this novel.
Rating:
Summary: Absorbing Alternate History/Fantasy
Review: This is the first installment of an impressive new novel (or novel series) by Mary Gentle. In brief, it's the story of a female mercenary captain, Ash, in the 1470s, at the time of the fall of the Duchy of Burgundy. (By coincidence, these events occur at about the same time as yet another unusual alternate history/fantasy, John M. Ford's The Dragon Waiting.) The Book of Ash purports to be a straight-forward translation of a few contemporary manuscripts about Ash's life, and indeed there is a frame story consisting of letters and email between the translator and his editor. As such, they start out seeming to be "normal" historical fiction, with a very realistic and believable portrayal of Ash's childhood as a mercenary camp follower, then jumping to portrayal of her role as the Captain of some 800 mercenaries at the age of 19 or 20. All this is presented starkly: Ash's rape at the age of 8, and her subsequent killing of her attackers; the filthy conditions in her camp; the blood, pain, and discomfort of battle. Throughout, we get very nice details of such things as what sort of armour was worn. But slowly we realize that the world described doesn't seem to be part of our own history. At first, we notice little details, such as the voices Ash hears, or the references to a different-seeming variety of Christianity, involving the "Green Christ", or the odd mention of Carthage and the Eternal Twilight. As the book goes on, we learn that somehow Carthage has survived into the 15th century, or has been re-established, and, more strangely, that the Sun never shines in the area of Carthage. Before long, we are encountering robots (Stone Golems) used as weapons of war, unusual speculation about parallel worlds, long-term breeding projects, and other decidedly fantastical (or perhaps even science-fictional) devices. But the centre of the story remains Ash, a charismatic character, wholly believable as a leader of her men, wholly sympathetic but thoroughly a professional killer, harrowed by bitter personal questions about her identity, her lust for a man she cannot abide, her affection for a man whose love she cannot return, her loyalties to all her company. I found this book terrifically exciting, with well-described battle scenes, fascinating weird background concepts, and a compelling overarching story-line. Besides the exciting adventure plot, the characters in these books are very well done: their motivations are real, they face difficult decisions and don't always choose rightly, they seem reasonably true to their time. Even the villains are believable, and by no means thoroughly evil. The 15th-century milieu is realistically presented. And the revelations of the secrets behind the scenes are made with great cleverness and subtlety. Here the frame story, as well as footnotes, are used to very good effect. I am eagerly awaiting the final three installments.
Rating: 
Summary: A different type of fantasy novel
Review: This novel was very different than other fantasy novels I enjoy - for the genre was alternate history fantasy, whereas my favorite fantasy novels have been Eddings, Jordan, Tolkien. What makes this novel special is the 15th century environment Mary Gentle has placed the reader in. Her main character is Ash, who seems to be based on the Joan of Arc type character. The story follows Ash's campaigns in leading her mercinary company of warriors. Gentle goes into vivid detail about war strategy, battle equipment and terminology. At times I felt like I was reading medieval historical non-fiction, as opposed to fantasy. Be warmed though, this novel can get very graphic and I would not recommend this novel for someone under 12 years old. As I write this review, I'm currently on the 3rd book. I think that this novel's storyline takes a little while to really take off - and that is probably due to the fact that when this book was originally published in England, all 4 novels were a single novel. Take heart though, the story becomes more intriguing in later books...
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