Over the Wine-Dark Sea

Asked friends for historical fiction recommendations and was told that Harry Turtledove did a great job of rewriting history. I decided to give one of his books a try. Had a hard time getting into this book, slow beginning. The writing style turned me off from the start. I felt like I was reading a......more

A dull, annoying read. The main problem is the dialogue, of which there is far too much. Worse, there's a lot of expository dialogue. Much of the word count is the two main characters endlessly going back and forth, retreading the same ground. Turtledove tries to solve the admittedly difficult probl......more

I had a love/hate relationship with this book. First of all, I have to say that Turteltaub did an amazing job of researching this book. It portrays the daily life of a third century grecian in a vivid and realistic fashion. Many of the characters and all of the places in this book are historical, as......more

An excellent and satisfying historical fiction read......more

This is the second time I've read this book, the first time being nearly 20 years ago when it first came out. A few key bits had stuck with me, like Menedemos' womanizing and a battle at sea. But after 20 years, most of the details had faded, so it was almost like reading it anew. As a history geek,......more