Back to Blog
Gates of fire book5/25/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() No one is more amazed than I that Gates of Fire has sold a million copies. No one will be interested in this except me. ![]() It’s about a battle nobody has ever heard of, that they can’t spell, can’t pronounce–and it was fought by a nation nobody knows anything about and doesn’t care. Then I thought, Wait a minute, this idea is even crazier than the idea for Bagger Vance. Brilliant writing in this rather spooky and very sexy first novel. sweeping mystical enlightenment, compelling characters. I’d read this passage before, as I said, but this time it leapt out at me. Chamberlain 4.20 44 ratings7 reviews 'Three young Americans smuggle a million hits of LSD into India for Reasons both idealistic and venal. Dienekes, however, quite unfazed by the prospect of dueling such multitudes, remarked only, “Let the Persians hide the sun we’ll fight them in the shade.” So vast were these myriads, the scout declared, that when they fired their volleys, the mass of arrows blocked out the sun. It is said that on the eve of battle, a native of the district appeared in camp spreading alarm by his report of the numbers of the Persian archers. ![]() Gates of Fire was on the Commandant of the Marine Corps' Reading list. Although extraordinary valor was displayed by the entire corps of Spartans and Thespians, yet bravest of all was declared the Spartan Dienekes. Gates of Fire is a 1998 historical fiction novel by Steven Pressfield that recounts the Battle of Thermopylae through Xeones, a perioikos (free but non-citizen inhabitant of Sparta) born in Astakos, and one of only three Greek survivors of the battle. ![]()
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |