Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow
by David Gemmell
Published by Del Rey Books
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Reviewed by Bob Pike, CSP, CPAE
Can a hero be a villain? It depends on who's telling the story. In Lord of the Silver Bow master storyteller David Gemmell presents many heroes, heroines, and villains--and often their faces are the same.
Some of the deeds are heroic: going overboard during a storm to save a ship's boy from certain death, risking one's life to prevent a maiden from being abducted, giving one's life to prevent an assassination. Other deeds are despicable: burning a town to the ground and hanging the heads of fifty men from the walls, forcing a queen to watch her son, the boy king, murdered and then being raped.
The lives of four people are intertwined in this story loosely set in now extinct Troy:
The first is Helikaon, known to many as the Golden One, who gave up a throne to ensure peace in his land, and who has a savage side that once aroused, requires blood to be satisfied.
Then there is Argurious, a Mykene Follower who has sworn to kill Helikaon, yet as a matter of honor, defends and protects the man he has sworn to kill. The third is Andromache, a princess with a beauty, strength and warrior powers that few understand, who is betrothed to a person she has never met and she falls in love with his best friend, whom she knows.
And finally there is Hektor, a possible heir to Troy's throne who has gone missing in a battle and whose absence upsets the balance of power in Troy and sets in motion plots within plots to assassinate King Priam and seize the throne.
Gemmell expertly weaves the lives of these four and their friends into a seamless tale of deceit and treachery, honor, sacrifice and redemption, and ultimately good triumphing over evil.
Armchair Interviews says: There are villains you will love to hate, evil that you will enjoy seeing punished and true love that will ultimately sort out relationships with honor.