Emperor: The Gates of Rome

[alaterdate]

The Gates of Rome is the first book of Conn Iggulden's Emperor novel series. It imagines a fictional history of Gaius Julius Caesar's early life and childhood. In truth there is very little known of Caesar's early life, so Iggulden really had free reign on this. He took off with it. And I didn't mind.

I didn't mind AT ALL. In fact I really loved it. He made Julius and Brutus the same age and best friends from childhood (Julius was actually like 15 years older than Brutus. They were definitely not childhood best friends lol). Which is amazing considering we all know what happens between them later. I love the level of angst this is bringing in to the story. Julius and Brutus' friendship is one of the best things in the book.

Brutus has amazing characterization. Book 5 unfortunately toned him down a lot in favor of making Octavian and Mark Antony the stars, but he really shines in this first book. He's actually my favorite in this book (and the second book). Julius is a little boring in comparison (he's quite soft lol), but we'll see how he develops as the series continues. Most of all, I'm REALLY excited for the battle of Pharsalus. Julius' pardoning of Marcus Brutus (historically because Brutus' mother Servilia was Julius' favorite mistress, but no doubt in Iggulden's series because of their brotherly love) is hopefully going to be very angsty especially since Brutus cited the incident in Blood of Gods as something he couldn't forgive Julius for. MAYBE I'm putting too much stock in the incident to hope for, but I'm excited nevertheless.

I have to say this every time, Iggulden's writing is just so good. It's 3POV omniscient, which I don't see much of these days and it's fantastic. The writing is so smooth and detailed perfectly. His dialogue is some of my favorite too.