Christian Cameron
(1962 – )
aka Miles Cameron, Gordon Kent
Christian Cameron was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1962. He grew up in Rockport, Massachusetts, Iowa City, Iowa, and Rochester, New York, where he attended McQuaid Jesuit High School and later graduated from the University of Rochester with a degree in history.
After the longest undergraduate degree on record (1980-87), he joined the United States Navy, where he served as an intelligence officer and as a backseater in S-3 Vikings in the First Gulf War, in Somalia, and elsewhere. After a dozen years of service, he became a full time writer in 2000. He lives in Toronto, Canada with his wife Sarah and their daughter Beatrice.
Signed Limited exclusive edition (Click to buy)
Book Description
Arimnestos of Plataea has already lived through several lifetimes’ worth of adventure, from being a rich man’s slave in Ephesus to winning glory at the battle of Marathon against the might of the Persian Empire. But the gods – and the Persians – aren’t finished with him yet. As an experienced sea captain – his enemies might say pirate – he has a part to play in the final epic confrontation of the Long War between the Greeks and Persians, the Battle of Salamis. It is a battle where many debts of blood will be repaid, ancient grudges settled, fame won and treachery exposed, where the Greeks must finally bury their differences and fight as one – for against them Xerxes, the Great King, has assembled the greatest fleet the world has ever known, his sworn purpose to brutally extinguish the flame of freedom and make every Greek his slave.
Review
The Long War is the second series from Christian Cameron, this prolific writer manages to keep writing tales of such epic beauty and quality its hard to imagine that this is already book 5 of the Long War. His lead character Arimenstos of Plataea is to coin a phrase from the title of the original book a “Killer of Men” a man forged by the sum of his life and the heat of battle.
Arimnestos has been a blacksmith, a slave, a warrior, a captain, a friend, a pauper, a rich man, a legend and so much more. A life filled with every extreme and normality that can be lived, and Christian Cameron has a way of making you experience every step and every emotional moment of his life’s journey.
Salamis is the latest of many battles, the latest leg of the aptly named long war. The great king has come, despite the epic sea battle of Artemisium, the loss at the Hot gates has opened Attica to his huge army and Plataea and Athens are at his mercy. Will the league fight? can they win? of course this is history and we know the answer, but with every page of this book it feels new and the outcome feels in flux. So many people from Arimnestos past make a return in this book, a convergence of his past and his present, but while you would find in many books this replays old issues, Arimnestos has grown, matured and this colours every interaction, making the book so much more realistic and so new.
Salamis has everything a reader like me could want, epic battles, battles brought down from the broad spectrum of hundreds of ships to the immediacy of a single boarding and hand to hand combat. Yet that wasn’t the best part of this book. I had just made it through the adrenaline emotionally charged battle of Salamis, and then Christian threw in a race for love, a time of reflection and self realisation, families coming together and a nation being a nation instead of city states.
Salamis is a book that challenges the spirit as well as thrills the mind, leaving the reader wanting to be a better person, to excel at the things you do, and even now 24 hours later i’m still basking in that glow.
Its not my favourite book in the series, but i think its the most emotive and powerful, and very highly recommended.
(parm)
Series
1. Tyrant (2008)
2. Storm of Arrows (2009)
3. Funeral Games (2010)
4. King of the Bosporus (2011)
5. Destroyer of Cities (2013)
6. Force of Kings (2014)
1. Killer of Men (2010)
2. Marathon: Freedom or Death (2011)
3. Poseidon’s Spear (2012)
4. The Great King (2014)
1. Castillon (2012)
2. Venice (2012)
3. Constantinople (2012)
4. Rome (2013)
5. Rhodes (2013)
6. Chios (2013)
1. Tom Swan and the Siege of Belgrade: Part One (2014)
2. Tom Swan and the Siege of Belgrade: Part Two (2014)
3. Tom Swan and the Siege of Belgrade: Part Three (2014)
4. Tom Swan and the Siege of Belgrade: Part Four (2015)
5. Tom Swan and the Siege of Belgrade: Part Five (2015)
6. Tom Swan and the Siege of Belgrade: Part Six (2015)
7. Tom Swan and the Siege of Belgrade: Part Seven(2015)
2. The Long Sword (2014)
God of War (2012)
1. The Red Knight (2012)
2. The Fell Sword (2014)
3. The Dread Wyrm (2015)
1. Night Trap (1998)
aka Rules of Engagement
2. Peace Maker (2000)
3. Top Hook (2002)
4. Hostile Contact (2003)
5. Force Protection (2004)
6. Damage Control (2005)
7. The Spoils of War (2006)
The Falconer’s Tale (2007)
