Strategos - Rise of the Golden Heart by Gordon Doherty

After leaving Apion in a very, very dark place at the end of Strategos: Born in the Borderlands, I often wondered not where I would take him next, but where I would find him when I returned to the story to write this second volume. The cliff-hanger ending to the first volume was a tempting place to pick up again, but I quickly realised that Apion's story demanded something different.

 

Indeed, having read David Gemmell's classic 'Midnight Falcon', I marvelled at how the author had effortlessly stepped several years ahead from where the previous volume, 'Sword in the Storm', left off. Much had happened in the intervening years. Richly painted and seemingly iron-willed characters had been demoted to mere background figures. The world had changed. But had the author made that choice, or had Connovar and Bane chosen for him?

 

I knew that Apion had to be closer to the tumultuous event around which the trilogy pivots: Manzikert. When, on the first day of my research into this period, I saw the announcement that Michael Attaleiates' History - an eyewitness account of Manzikert and the campaigns of the preceding years - had been translated into English, I sensed the hand of fate on my shoulder. I devoured Attaleiates' History in days, reading of the rise of an emperor who many thought could restore Byzantium to greatness, and of his perilous campaigns into Seljuk Syria. So it was, then, that Apion's destiny was to become entwined in this brutal and treacherous period . . . "

More about the book: http://www.gordondoherty.co.uk/writeblog/strategosriseofthegoldenheart

Buy the book

Future Fans of Gordon's books, or those interested in the history of the Britons, the Rigante, The Macedonians or the Trojans might also be interested in these posts on this blog: 

Legionary and Strategos: Viper of the North

Strategos by Gordon Doherty

Parmenion, Helikaon, Kalliades, Connovar, Bane...all of David Gemmell's characters live long in the memory weeks, months and even years after I have followed them in their quest through troubled lives and epic sagas. I never totally love them, I never quite dislike them but I always empathise with them and want to stick by their side right to the end. Then, when the end comes I feel like I've lost a good friend.

Why? Because Gemmell spiced each of his characters with something that simply 'clicks' with the human psyche. His characters don't just develop; they evolve, and rarely as they might want to. It is the choices that they make at the most intense and troubled times that truly shape their character. As any person knows all too intimately, nobody makes the right choice every time. Nobody is perfect and any reader can to empathise with that.

There are many fine authors out there who have crafted strong and memorable characters and some may well have been inspired by Gemmell's work. Indeed it is the tales of the Rigante, the Trojans, the Macedonians and the Britons that have inspired me to write of the Byzantine boy Apion in 'Strategos: Born in the Borderlands'.

Apion's life is riven in the most brutal fashion, his parents slain in a Seljuk night raid before his eyes. Orphaned, he struggles to survive in the volatile borderlands between the Byzantine and Seljuk Empires in an age where war is imminent. Then, when an old Seljuk farmer takes him under his wing, Apion is presented with a choice: to let go of his dark past and seek a happy future, or to track down the truth, knowing that it will bring conflict and pain on those he loves most.

That is where the journey begins; he will face choices in his life that will define not only his own destiny, but that of the Byzantine Empire itself...

Buy the book: 

Blog link: 

www.gordopolis.com/writing