David Gemmell shines when he writes warriors, no two ways about it. Lord of the Silver Bow is an adventure story set in and around Troy, before the Trojan war. Our protagonist is called Heliakon, a merchant (he doesn't like his first name, Aeneas), and we follow him through his life, often filled with hardship and hope and principles and dirty tricks. I liked this book a lot – its deviations from the Iliad are many, and they are fluent and consistent and fun.

On my reading list, this book had the note "Big heroic classic fantasy", and that's exactly what it is. Big damn heroes doing heroic things. The aging hero coming back one more time, the hopelessly besieged city, the … young fated couple: This book has it all. I haven't read any other Drenai Saga books, so take this review with a bit of salt:

Second part of the Troy series, and I'm a bit less impressed (but still happy to read on!). Three new main characters are thrown into the mix (Andromache's lover, plus Kalliades and Banokles), in addition to the already established Helikaon and Odysseus. Through their eyes, we also get more information about Hector and Achilles.

Solid, but also rambling and less tight than the previous books. More nods towards names you already know, but that didn’t add too much in themselves, more as a nudge-nudge, wink-wink, like having one of the women in last-minute bow-training called Penthesilea. I don’t know. It’s a good book, but it doesn’t reach the epic beauty of the first one. Each individual bit is good, but the pacing is less tight than I had hoped for. Still a great take on the Trojan war, and a worthy conclusion to a very impressive trilogy.