The Amazon Chronicles: An Historical Novel

by Jane E.M. Robinson

Book by Robinson, Jane E.

401 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1994

Reviews

[TammyJo Eckhart · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been studying the legends and folklore about Amazons from antiquity for decades now, so even though Robinson doesn't list her references, I could recognize them. What is odd is where she deviates from those stories unnecessarily adding in an soap opera quality of romance, threat, and conflict where it was unnecessary and often confusing. The mid-13th century BCE world she created is hyper-detailed and yet not all of the details are historically accurate, which distracted me at times. The details in and of themselves were often overwhelming taking us from the story and plot for pages at a time. Oddly, the lesbian nature of the Amazons, which I do not have a problem with, is downplayed, perhaps this is a function of the decade in which this was published and it's more conservative era, but I've read lesbian fiction from the 1990s and I know it can be erotic and descriptive. Instead, this tale of Penthesilea seem more of an allegory for that decade that an exploration of the ancient stories about Amazons.