Iron and Rust (Throne of the Caesars, Book 1)

By: Harry Sidebottom

Narrated by: Colin Mace

Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

From the best-selling author of Warrior of Rome comes the first book in a new series set in third century Rome, a dramatic era of murder, coup, counter-rebellions and civil war. In a single year six Emperors will lay claim to the Throne of the Caesars…Spring AD235 Dawn on the Rhine. A surprise attack and the brutal murder of the Emperor Alexander and his mother ends the Severan dynasty and shatters four decades of Roman certainty.

Military hero Maximinus Thrax is the first Caesar risen from the barracks. A simple man of steel and violence, he will fight for Rome.The Senators praise the new Emperor with elaborate oratory, but will any of them accept a Caesar who was once a shepherd boy? And in the streets of the eternal city, others merely pray to escape imperial notice.

In the north, as the merciless war against the barbarians consumes men and treasure, rebellion and personal tragedy drive Maximinus to desperate extremes, bloody revenge and the borders of sanity.

Iron & Rust, the first book in a major new series, creates a world both sophisticated and brutal, yet firmly rooted in history; a world of intrigue, murder, passion and war, a world where men will kill to sit on the Throne of the Caesars.

©2014 Harry Sidebottom (P)2014 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic reviews

"Sidebottom's prose blazes with searing scholarship" ( The Times)
"Superior fiction, with depth, authenticity and a sense of place" ( TLS)
"A storming triumph…wonderful fight scenes, deft literary touches and salty dialogue" ( Daily Telegraph)
"Explosive action and knuckle-whitening drama"( Guardian)
"Sidebottom knows how to keep readers hooked from first to last" ( Daily Express)
"The latest in this series of novels on Rome's Persian Wars, Lion of the Sun, is, like the first two, a book to keep you up well past your bedtime. It's all about war and killing; I loved it"( Evening Standard)

Great voice reading and writing but weak in other

I liked Mr. Sidebottom's "Warrior of Rome" series more as it had more "lively" plot and characters while this book is a longer version of the primary sources on the era it describes. I would certainly like more revisionist approach to this subject. though in technical sense the writing is still good.