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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9780060892456
ISBN number: 0060892455
Label: Harper
Manufacturer: Harper
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 608
Printing Date: September 01, 2007
Publishing house: Harper
Release Date: August 28, 2007
Sale Popularity Level: 73362
Studio: Harper
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Product Description:
Five millennia ago, on the eastern bank of the river Tigris, the course of human history changed forever . . .
The people of Orak cherish their peaceful village and the life they have made. Though not proficient with the bow or sword, they possess a weapon far stronger: the ability to coax food from the ground. This is why the barbarian leader Thutmose-sin hates and fears them. As his marauding clan of bloodthirsty warriors readies itself for the plunder and the kill, the fate of the village rests with the outcast barbarian Eskkar and the woman he loves, the wise and beautiful slave girl Trella—and on a bold, remarkable, never-before-tested plan of defense. For those who have known peace must turn their hands to war, to save from the savage invaders not only their families but their way of life.
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Rated by buyers -
Okay, I really like ancient history and absolutely love to read about the beginnings of things. Especially the beginnings of great things like civilizations. This is said so that you know I am predisposed to really liking a book like this.
And I liked it very much. The book is about a time when the balance of power begins to tilt from nomads to city dwellers. It moved along at a fast clip and I found it hard to put down. It also stimulated my interest in the Akkadian empire and I can't wait to learn more about it.
I really liked the idea of the Trella character. It was fascinating to see her "civilizing" influence on Eskkar. Maybe a metaphor for the civilizing that was happening in many settlements at that time. However, her age and her wisdom seemed a bit unbelievable. At 14 I simply didn't buy that she could have anticipated some of the problems that she did. She just would not have had the life experience. She's a bit too flawless for a 14 year-old, and that makes her character less believable.
Overall, fun book! If you like historical fiction and curious about what things might have been like when barbarians faced the very first walled cities, give it a try.
Rated by buyers 
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I found this book for a dime at a garage sale and it is the best dime I ever spent. This and the follow-up are now my favorite books. I recommend them to everybody.
Rated by buyers 
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About a year ago I went through an ancient history phase in my ongoing quest to read all the good historical fiction that exists.Remembering Hypatia: A Novel of Ancient Egypt an excellent book by Brian Trent got me started on this so I ordered three books set in the past, Trent's subsequent novel about Gilgamesh called Never Grow Old: The Novel of Gilgamesh a story of Mesopotamian culture and medicine called In the Court of the Queen: A Novel of Mesopotamia by Elisabeth Roberts Craft and "Dawn of Empire."
The other reason I bought this book is the endorsement by Diana Gabaldon on the front cover because I respect what she writes and I assume that any good writer must be good at picking out good writing for reading purposes. But I just have to disagree with her here.
It took me a while to get to this book, but when I did this is what I found.
This is a novel about a band of barbarian, migratory people, who destroy villages in their wake, just about at the dawn of the Bronze Age and One of the largest villages, called Orak, which boasts around 2,000 citizens. Orak has gotten wind that the war like people (the Alur Meriki) are coming again and will be knocking at their door in a matter of months. The village has been hit before by the same tribe but because of the size of their village and the great trading relationships they have established the ruling families are hesitating about using the tried and true strategy of just packing up and leaving only to return later to a ruined village that would take years to return to its former glory and wealth. So they seek help.
The most qualified man in the village (since the captain of the guard took the best men and horses and split in the night after finding out about the situation) is a man named Eskkar, a former member of the Alur Meriki who no one trusts or respects and who now sells his sword to anyone willing to pay him for food, wine and women. But he's the best Orak has and because of this he somehow manages to pull himself out of a stupor and over night become a great leader who has the whole village eating out of his hand because he came up with a plan of resistance-build a wall and withstand a siege.
To help him in his defense of the village Eskkar is given a slave girl named Trella who was once the daughter of an educated household-to help him "reason" things out. She, seemingly overnight finding she has tender feelings for the man she's obligated to sleep with, grooms her man for leadership, tutors him in the ways of power, becomes powerful in her own right in the village and falls in love with her master and has him fall in love with her.
Ninety percent of this book is preparing for the battle at the end of it. This wouldn't have been so bad if something was going on during the rest of the novel except endless preparations for war, training and small disputes over power which Eskkar always wins because he threatens to leave the people who basically used to despise him for being a barbarian unless they do exactly what he says. Going with his strategy and the title of the book one could say that a dictatorship is the dawn on empire.
The whole novel is one long power trip for Eskkar with all of the characters acting in ways that never make sense, and in spite of the fact that the whole book is leading up to a huge battle, there really is no climax because there is no real plot. You would assume that saving the village would be a plot, but no-it just doesn't come off as one because of the lack of suspense in the writing and because there is so little written from the viewpoint of the coming invaders. And unless you count the whole angst thing about what will become of Trella and Eskkar when the battle is over there's no conflict either.
Sure there are occasional battles, minimal descriptions of life in the Bronze Age (and I do mean minimal-with the two anthropology classes I have under my belt I could have done better descriptions) thrown in and some half-written sex scenes which I assume were supposed to read as romantic. But in general reading this novel was just a chore. I kept counting pages to see how many were left to read and when that happens it's always a bad sign about the book.
Maybe I'm not cut out to read books where the main focus is the battle (I understand this is a fairly large historical sub-genera heavily favored by men) or maybe I just like characters who have enough character to make me care about them. To be frank I'm amazed I finished this book at all
It's really a shame someone gave me the sequel as a gift because I don't think I'll ever be up for reading anything by this author again.
I realize my review is outside the box but I just didn't see anything worth-while in this novel. But clearly it appeals to some people so I suggest reading many reviews before making a decision about this book. Or getting ... Read More
Rated by buyers -
Dawn of an Empire is an amazing adventure into a time long ago; the Bronze Age. I read to escape, with this book I fell in, I was there inside of eight pages, and stayed there until the last page. What a great story, the very first walled city in humankind coupled with an unusual love story of a brilliant girl and self discovering barbarian. I am impressed.
I started this book on the morning of a doctor's appointment; by the time I had left I had told two of the staff members and my doctor about it. The story works, pure and simple because you grow to care about the characters and the city itself. Watching the barbarian grow reminds me of discovering things of myself as I grow older in life, intentional changes I have made to grow and become a better person.
The girl, she is intelligent beyond her years and her time in history. My daughter at 17 at time seems to know more then me, so the possibility of Trella being as capable as she is was believable.
Those that disparage the book here in some of the reviews surprise me, have you no heart? Who cares if a name is from the wrong area, the weapons not quite right by another point of view? Or the girl that decides this is the best choice for her in her circumstance...? I found it profound that she made the choices' she did make despite what had happen a few months before, didn't you read the book? Her father prepared her and she applied all she had learned if only in the beginning to just survive.
This does what a book should do, it captures you, it drags you in, and it entertains and in places can touch your heart and your head.
Rated by buyers 
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Barone's book misses the mark and misses the point. Suspending disbelief is easy, as someone said : The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it. Conveying human responses accurate for their time and place is a much more difficult task, one undertaken well by Robert Harris and Jean Auel as examples. Readers of historical fiction do not want mere storytelling. The frenetic activity level does not compensate for substance. Witness the numerous reprints of authors like Mary Renault, who wove into the fabric of her story actual settings she had personally observed as well as classical mythology. Barone cannot dispute the points raised in earlier reviews that his details are inaccurate, names of dubious origin, and other anachronisms. He hasn't read the wellknown epic from the ancient Mideast (the Gilgamesh) and relies instead on sweat and soft porn to carry the day. Other reviewers have spotted the flaws and lack of epistemology inherent in this fiction. I bought a used copy and it can fortunately be recycled.
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