The Legions of Fire is sort of an alternate history, fantasy novel that is set in ancient Rome except that magic and all sorts of monsters exist. The basic premise of the story is that there is a wizard who is an advisor to a senator in Carce, a Roman city, who is trying to bring about the ruin of the world by calling forth a group of gods from a different plane of existence. There are four people related or acquainted with the senator who together and separately are trying to stop this from happening.

This novel gets off to a terrible start. Apparently, this author never heard the advice that the number one rule as a fiction author is to hook in the reader from the very start of the story. Not only does the author not accomplish this, but nothing whatsoever of interest happens for the first hundred pages or so. Eventually, there are things happening, but by that point in the novel, I had totally lost interest and could never gain interest because the author had lost me. Another problem I had was that the four main characters all go on adventures to different planes and they all fight off various types of monsters. This made the novel both repetitive and confusing. It was hard to tell who was doing what because they were all embarking on the same type of mission with the same type of storyline.

The book had a lot of monsters and a lot of sex, even if it was at completely inappropriate times. Here is the world on the brink of destruction, but the main characters manage to have sex frequently. Talk about gratuitous. This was a novel that is not worth reading, and you won’t have a hard time finding better options.

Carl Alves - author of Two For Eternity ( )

While this was supposed to be a romping fantasy, several items really detracted from my enjoyment of it.

1: This was a Lord of the Isles remix[which I loved by the way], with several character types and personalities mixed around a bit and a very blase badguy. I was hoping for something original, but it felt like David Eddings The Tamuli, formulaic regurgitated rehash.

2: several sexual situations that added nothing but titillation to the story. They weren't necessary and it really felt like the story became gutter worthy because of them.

3: Snappy thoughts/comebacks. Too much, too many all the time. Nobody is always clever. Nobody.


So I can't really recommend this series unless you are in love with Drake and his style of writing fantasy. If you are in love with him, you'll probably eat this up and ask for more... ( )

Pros: great characters, excellent world-building, interesting plot

Cons: a few distracting word choices

The magician Nemastes takes advantage of the superstitious senator Saxa and casts a spell in the man’s house. That spell interrupts the poetry reading of Saxa’s son Gaius Varus, and turns the young man into an unwitting pawn of Nemastes’s enemies. Also pulled into the spell’s influence are Varus’s sister, Alphena, who practices swordplay, even though it’s not a womanly art; his new, young stepmother, Hedia; and his best friend Publius Corylus, who grew up on the border of the barbarian frontiers of Germania.

The four players are pulled into other worlds, worlds in which creatures of myth are real, and where a group of evil men are planning the destruction of the world.

The author begins the book with a forward explaining that while the book is based on the history of ancient Rome (called Carce in the book to help keep the distinction), it is not historical fiction. He also points out that all of the gods and mythological creatures he references are things people in the past believed in.

It was really cool reading a book that referenced a lot of old mythology as if it were real. There were some expected creatures and a lot of unexpected ones as well. And while the main setting is Carce, Egyptian, Norse, and other belief systems make appearances.

The four principle characters are well fleshed out, as are a few side characters. I really enjoyed the developing relationship between Alphena and her close in age stepmother - the mix of anger Alphena feels towards the woman as well as her grudging respect. Hedia meanwhile is a surprising woman: on her second marriage with few illusions about the world. She enjoys sex and knows how to use her looks to advantage. She’s also quite intelligent with regards to the danger posed by Nemastes and honestly wants what’s best for her new stepchildren. I felt kind of sorry for Varus, who wants to do great things but just doesn’t have the necessary abilities. I was impressed by his actions in the climax. Corylus has a grab bag of skills that come in handy during the trials he faces. He doesn’t grow as much as a character as the others, but he’s a fascinating character to read about.

The plot takes a while to get going, but the characters are so interesting I didn’t mind. And when it does pick up, things go quickly.

A few word choices irritated me, specifically the use of ‘knight’ for a position in the Carcian army instead of the Roman title and ‘hell’ referencing to the Christian version of the afterlife (which didn’t exist as we think of it at the time) rather than the terms/meanings people back then would have used for the afterlife). But those are pretty minor complaints and didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book

This is the first of a four book series but though there’s a teaser for book 2 in the epilogue, all of the plot points are resolved and it can be read as a standalone novel.

If you like mythology and Roman fiction, give this a go. ( )

In brief: Drake creates a fantastic world of feel-it-in-your-bones magic, a great, great sphinx duel, and some quite interesting characters atop a richly layered, well-researched, might as well be speaking Latin it's so authentic ancient "not Rome". First in a series; fantastic cover artwork of Trajan's column (plus... bonus surprises). ( )