El otrora todopoderoso Imperio romano se encuentra en sus años finales. Perdida la virtud y la potencia militar que lo hicieron grande, gobernado por meras sombras de los gigantes de antaño y acosado en todas las fronteras por hordas de feroces bárbaros, tan sólo un hombre se interpone entre Roma y su casi segura destrucción: el veterano general Paulino Gayo Máximo. Curtido en las duras batallas ante el Muro de Adriano, Máximo comanda la legión encargada de defender la peligrosa frontera del Rin. Más allá del río, naciones enteras afilan sus armas, acuciadas por el hambre y los sueños de la riqueza del Imperio. La esperanza de la victoria hace mucho tiempo que se perdió y a Máximo sólo le queda retrasar la inevitable derrota; sólo le queda vivir con honor y morir con la espada en la mano. El águila en la nieve es sin ningún género de dudas la mejor novela sobre la caída del Imperio romano. Wallace Breem despliega su considerable talento para trazar un relato de los días postreros del mayor imperio que el mundo ha conocido, y de la desesperación y el heroísmo de sus últimos defensores. El general Máximo, protagonista principal de la novela, sirvió junto con muchos otros detalles de este libro como inspiración para las escenas iniciales de la premiada película Gladiator de Ridley Scott.

I do not recall exactly how I heard of this book--some stray mention on the internet somewhere--but I'm glad I was influenced enough by whatever it may have been to buy it. I read it a few weeks ago and recall the overwhelming sense of futility and the heroism (?) in the face of it displayed by our Maximus. The prose is not showy, almost flat in fact, but it reads quickly. A previous reviewer mentioned logistics; yes indeed. Most of the battle scenes are light on description but the preparations are given loving attention, and this aesthetic/thematic decision of Breem's puts this book for me in whatever genre Buzzati's The Tartar Steppe is in. I "liked" the book on those grounds. It pushed the reader forward. It put the reader plausibly in the mind of a pagan Roman soldier facing his inevitable death in a cold land not his own. It created in this reader something like understanding of a discipline-born fatalism I do not share, and my own pretension and imagination did the rest. Memento Mori.

That said, Breem is not Buzzati. Rated accordingly.

If it is true, parenthetically, that Ridley Scott was influenced by this book for his film Gladiator, only the protagonist's name remains as evidence. ( )

Gripped me at the start, but I lost interest towards the end, because of obvious historical inaccuracies right out of bad medieval movies, plus the lack of any likeable characters. ( )

I have no memory of buying this book. But I obviously did at some point, because it was sitting on my shelves as I browsed looking for something to read. And I'm not sure why I picked it up to read this time as I thought I was looking for something more light-hearted. A quick read. Still, this was the one I picked, a classic historical fiction first published in 1970 telling the story of "General Maximus and Rome's Last Stand". It is not quick read.
But it is a very good one.
General Maximus is our narrator, he is telling the story of his own life, and that of the end of the Roman empire. It is a quite a dense book, and at first I will admit I thought that I'd made a mistake and that I wasn't going to enjoy it at all. It seemed on the dry and dusty side, but as I read on I realised that it wasn't at all. It is never going to be an in-depth look at the characters or full of stirring heroics. At least not in an overt way. But the writing manages to make you care about this general and his unwavering sense of duty.
I often have issues with historical novels set in the Roman empire, especially when they tell the tales from the Roman POV. I know that the Roman Empire did many great things, ((thank you Monty Python's Life of Brian)) but it was also an empire founded on blood on conquest, and a belief that the Roman way was the best, the only way. I object to that, and also to the dismissal of all other people's at the time as "barbarians".
Eagle in the snow does have a Roman general as it's first person narrator, so of course it is going to give that Roman point of view, but Maximus' perspective does allow for some recognition of the barbarians as people, and he certainly is not above criticising the empire and its corruption.
It is a book all about soldiering, but not the sword and sandals sort, this is the tactics and the actual management of men. Yes, battles feature, but so too does the important of quartermasters and supplies. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would and would recommend it to anyone who has an interest in historical fiction.
As I said, it's style isn't one I often enjoy, but Breem's writing did more than enough to keep me entertained in the whole story. ( )

I have read the negative reviews and the positive. The build up for this story leading to its tragic ending is a slow grind to say the least. But I honestly believe that this what the author was going for. Several reviews point out the lack of characterization of the soldiers. Well. If you can imagine it..then this was probably exactly the way they saw each other. These men knew each other extremely well on the line. But outside of that, which is an area that really did not exist because none of them had much a life to return to, having been away so long. I guess you can call it being institutionalized in warped sort of way. I see many references to Pressfield's Gates of Fire. An exceptional book in itself. But the comparisons are a little too tight to be of much relevance. The story is about one thing....Honor and lack of it. ( )