Well-researched, solidly grounded novel struggles with pacing, conflict
Michael Curtis Ford has surely taken to heart the old chestnut - what's the most important attribute of a historian? An iron butt. This joke is a testament to the solitary, grueling craft of history - grinding through the source material until your eyes water and your rear goes numb.
The same is true for the best historical fiction - a good entry into the genre must be solidly grounded in the period. Otherwise, the book is fantasy.
Ford has clearly done his research - while many writers of historical fiction are content to jump from battle to battle (the battles are the easy part to write), good historical fiction makes a bygone era come alive with accurate-yet-riveting depictions of a bygone era. Colleen McCullough's "Masters of Rome" series achieves this end, as do the action-packed books of Steven Pressfield and Bernard Cornwell.
This novel is ostensibly a sequel to "The Sword of Attila," Ford's excellent take on Attila and his march against Rome. "The Fall of Rome," however, struggles. This is in many ways understandable. Rome did not fall in a single cataclysmic event like Atlantis getting swallowed by the sea or Luke Skywalker blowing up the Death Star. Rome died a death by a thousand cuts. This makes the event no less interesting, but it does create problems for the writer seeking to create a sense of drama.
As a result, "Fall" takes place over several decades as the heirs to Attila (who died shortly after he failed to conquer Rome) vie for power. If Ford had written a "Shogun"-sized epic of several hundred pages, "Fall" might have worked. But instead he wrote a novel of a bare 300-odd pages. Accordingly, there are huge jumps between chapters of several years and hundreds of miles - and the novel loses all flow and cohesiveness. Also, the ostensible conflict between hero and villain suffers as the two men - Orestes (villain) and Odoacer (hero) don't interact for close to thirty years.
"Fall" reads kind of like a Cliff Notes version of the novel, highlighting key passages but leaving much of the meat off the page.
Ford is an enjoyable writer, and his research is impeccable. This novel simply smacks of biting off too much for the size of the planned novel and not being able to make it into the true epic it deserves.
Ford's Best Unit
This is by far one of the best historical fiction stories I've read so far. Ford's Ten Thousand was boring. There simply wasn't enough fighting, and Xenophon was just try'na get home. In Fall of Rome, Odoacer links the fall of the last Hunnish powers to the Fall of the Empire he failed to bring down. I found the rivalry between the cunning Orestes and more honorable Odoacer quite fun. Reading from most history books, one would have thought Odoacer was supposed to be a bad guy, but here, we see his noble intents. Like us, he is fallible, easy to identify with, and in some senses a victim of society. I think the book is inspiring, and will cause some of us to take things into our own hands instead of letting "destiny" or "God" dictate it for us...and what's more? It's a true story to boot.
Bad
Not nearly as good as other works by this author. The book is somewhat short and yet repetitive. A huge disappointment.
IMPECCABLE
Just when you thought you knew the history of the fall of Rome, Michael Ford still manages to surprise you. Who would have guessed how ironically the most fearsome conqueror of the old world died? Who would have imagined that such an austere people as the Huns held improvident and absurdly lavish burial ceremonies for their fallen king? Who would have thought that such an obscure race as the Scyri or the Heruli contributed to the downfall of an empire? But Ford shows us these things, and more - opens our eyes to a lost civilization we otherwise only catch a glimpse of in textbooks and the occasional period films.
Ford's knowledge of historical facts and period detail is impeccable. The more I read the book, the more I learned how little I knew of the events leading to the decline and fall of Rome.
With a few well-written paragraphs, Ford conjures the images of epic battles, the daunting mass and efficiency of the Roman army, the butchery of Huns with arrows and javelins and swords. And the story of betrayal and honor revolving around Odoacer was so riveting and dramatic that I could only guess which parts were factual and which parts the product of Ford's creative license.
"The Fall of Rome" is truly an enjoyable ride in historical fiction. It is the sort of novel that you expect to find once a year, if you're lucky.
Any Michael Ford fan is in for a real treat with this one.
barbarian view point
This was an interesting book, but it left me wanting more. Seeing it from one man's viewpoint, while exciting, doesn't begin to answer why the political climate allowed this to happen. Good Story.
