Rach's Reading Club

My second book for January is Harry Turtledove’s Over the Wine Dark Sea. The book is a historical novel set in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Hellenistic era (between 323 BCE and 30 BCE). It follows the trading adventures of cousins Menedemos and Sostratos, members of a powerful Rhodesian trading family.

I’ve always been a fan of Turtledove, and especially his Agent of Byzantine, which would make my top list of books of all times (going to have to do a blog entry on a top nook list at some time).

Agent of Byzantine is alternate history, so I knew that Over the Wine Dark Sea would be a different type of story. Still, I felt the latter did not live up to the standard set by the former. For one thing, there was a little too much gratuitousness in Over the Wine Dark Sea. I’m not talking about out gratuitous sex scenes (though there were those). But I often felt that some historical details, rather than woven into the story, were thrown in with a “Hey, did you know that” kind of air.

Don’t get me wrong, it was still a good read, but it wasn’t the great read I was expecting.

A product review will be forthcoming, as soon as I feel I can write one that doesn’t overly reflect my enthusiastic optimism being deflated.