When they noticed, people kept asking why I was reading about Attila. It's to balance out all the Glee and Project Runway shows I have to watch. Ah, the things I do for family.

Though the book is titled Attila, it began with Arapovian and Knuckles, two men in the Roman Army and later Aetius, the last of brave and honorable Roman. With Attila committing such atrocities in this book it was difficult to make him the hero.

The book is bloody BLOODY. It's beautiful in its own way and it's written wonderfully. And written for probably a not very mainstream audience.

But I feel lucky to have bumped into this book shedding some light into a monumental time period in the fall of the Roman Empire. ( )

Spotty trilogy. From me it’s been four stars—five stars—two stars. But I gave one star free to the first for potential, and perhaps I rob a star from the third for dissatisfaction.

Late in this book, very late, we see into Attila’s mind: by that time he’s defeated and mad. Until then we don’t. No inspirational speeches, as in the second; nothing until mad speeches in the lead-up to his death. Until then he directs a war but he doesn’t talk to us. Our first passage of his thoughts is on p. 395. Where has he been? It’s too late by the last fifty pages, and not even quotes from King Lear can console me. What do I care if Attila’s mad and talking in Shakespeare? In this book he has been bad Attila but we didn’t see him go bad. We heard, ‘Attila’s bad now’ from witnesses. It’s not the fact he went bad I object to, but it’s as if self-explanatory: going out to conquer the world changes him to evil, but last book he was inspirational. Can we have a slow decay, or a bit of an inside story?

Gamaliel turns up again, but the author apologises for his fantasy life in the first book: ‘the old liar doesn’t claim to have known Aristotle, these days’. He’s just a physician. Like China: China isn’t mentioned until Attila’s mad, on p. 541. Whatever happened to, ‘First we take Rome... [sing] then we take Beijing...’ It may be unhistorical but it was his vision in the second. Was William Napier told, ‘Look, for God’s sake, write a conventional action/adventure’, because that’s pretty much what he did. Quotes from Yeats are few. Battles go on forever, technical, with only soldierly banter to freshen you. Knuckles and an Armenian aristocrat are cartoon soldiers. I didn’t care about Aetius either in this third, and felt the story opportunity—two noble enemies who didn’t want to have to meet in fight—was squandered. Attila ain’t noble no more, for a start, and has nothing to say to Aetius when they come face to face. Neither figure had the greatness I saw in them in the second. The end of Rome theme I thought more grandly painted in the first, and importantly, I never had fits. He wrote hilarious pages in One and Two.

The best was this, for a sample, near the end, but there wasn’t enough of it:

[Aetius] He pressed his finger and thumb into his eyes. At times he could come close to cursing God. He felt as if he was about to be torn apart. Everything was in ruins, the world was sick, and yet above he could hear the sound of heaven laughing. He felt on the brink of hysterical laughter himself for a moment. The messenger moved uneasily. But when Aetius opened his eyes again, there was that stolid Germanus before him, and Tatallus just behind. They saluted. He could have clung to them like a drowning man. The sense of illimitable horror faded a little. ( )

Napier finishes his fictionalized telling of the life and times of Attila the Hun in an action-packed book of epic battles and devastation on both epic and personal scales. Attila, bent on destroying all of the Roman Empire, first focuses on the east, but is stopped at the great fortress city of Constantinople by his former playmate Aetius. Heading west, Aetius accumulates remaining Roman troops at Ravenna. Outnumbered by a factor of 10 at least, he knows this will be an exercise in futility. Attila, however, swung north, attacking settlements on the Rhine and when Theordoric, King of the Visigoths, looses his beloved daughter at the hands of Attila's Vandal allies, he agrees to throw the might of the Visigoth nation along side the remaining legions for a desperate attempt to stop Attila. The result was both the Huns and Rome were effectively destroyed at the battle of Cataulunian Fields. Attila would die at the hands of a new young wife, Aetius at the command of his emperor, and the Empire would fall after a few more ineffective rulers, unable to withstand an assault by the Ostrogoth Odoacer, who proceeded to dissolve the empire and declare himself King of Italy.

A large portion of this book concerned itself with the Siege of Constantinople, and the use of "Greek fire" to burn the Vandal fleet. Napier sketched this as a trilogy from the start, and in spite of this being the longest of the three books, the end was rather rushed. We don't hear of Attila's reason for not moving against Rome after Constantinople -- the Visigoths never would have been a factor. Napier leaves it to rumor that he the Gothic leader Alaric's legacy -- he died 6 days after sacking Rome, dissuaded him from a direct result. The epic concluding battle was also covered less in depth than others, in spite of it's legacy as a turning point in history.

Napier's research behind the book was sound, he really just needs to work on the pacing and consistency of his story telling to become a first-rate historical novelist. I do look forward to reading more of his stuff. ( )