Nick Brown

270 ADRome has ruled Syria for over three centuries. But now the weakened empire faces a desperate threat: Queen Zenobia of Palmyra has turned her Roman-trained army against her former masters and the once invincible legions have been crushed. Arabia, Palestine and Egypt have fallen and now Antioch, Syria's capital, stands exposed. Cassius Corbulo is a young intelligence agent fresh from officer training. He has been assigned the menial task of rounding up wounded legionaries but then urgent new orders arrive. He is the only ranking Roman officer left in the line of the Palmyran advance. He must take command of the fort of Alauran, the last stronghold still in Roman hands, and hold it against the enemy until reinforcements arrive. What Cassius finds at Alauran would daunt the most seasoned veteran, let alone a nineteen year old with no experience of war. A mere scattering of divided and demoralised legionaries remain, backed up by some fractious Syrian auxiliaries and a drunken Praetorian Guardsman. With the Palmyrans just days away, Cassius must somehow find the discipline, resourcefulness and courage to organise the garrison, save Alauran and secure Rome's eastern frontier...

The Soldier's Gene cleverly fills a gap between factual history books and the general historical novel. Tracing the passage of genes for nearly 850 years through the descendants of one man, is an interesting departure from the norm and adds an intriguing slant to what remains a novel. The mixture of facts of the various battles fought by the British Army during those years, and the fictional descriptions of the experiences of the soldiers, in battle and otherwise, has been skilfully written and little imagination is needed to make the reader feel as if they are there with the soldiers. The characters experience the vagaries of war on a very personal level and recount their different tales at first hand although not all are willing soldiers. They fight for different reasons and differing causes both in their homelands and foreign fields. They are not always on the winning side and some don't come through unscathed. Some don't come through at all.

Having betrayed King Darius, Miltiades a duplicitous Athenian renegade on the run from the Persian Empire, is forced to make for the churning instability of new democratic Athens. He has to convince the hostile, frightened Athenians that if they don't fight the Persians then, like him, they are doomed. Athens seethes with enemies who want him dead and the only person he can trust is his Luck Bringer the ungovernable teenaged Mandrocles. Against a background of treachery and violence Miltiades fights his battles in the courts and councils while Mandrocles fights his in the streets, theatre, bars and brothels. As the Persian threat grows and the danger within threatens Miltiades chooses to fight at marathon where the ragged citizen army, including some of the greatest figures in the ancient world faces the overwhelming might of the Persian Immortals in 24 hours that changed history.