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Simon of Gitta #2
The Gardens of Lucullus
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 4, 2018
Richard L. Tierney's Simon of Gitta cycles reaches its chronological end (technically, one short story comes after this, to be found in the collection Scroll of Thoth) and again reads like a superior Sword and Sorcery work, in a modernized style of Robert E. Howard, with its roots firmly in Lovecraft's Mythos. The setting is Rome during the rule of Claudius and Messalina, his third wife, supposed wanton, and the first of his wives to attempt his assassination. The historical detail and accuracy are very rich and really add to the attractiveness of this novel. The authors take a number of locales and events that are real/really did occur and do a brilliant job of weaving an alternate explanation. Rome itself is a character; this is not the gaudy, perfect Eternal City of Cecil B. DeMille or Ridley Scott, it is the real city, with the splendors of the forum contrasted against its rickety tenements, overtaxed septic system, volatile mob and private security forces. The city comes alive under the authors' pens.
Swordplay and sorcery, and a great take on the cult of the Magna Mater is interwoven with the scheming, plotting and intriguing of a kind popular in the novels of the classical world itself. In the end, however, unlike the author's more ambitions (although less successful, IMO), magnum opus "The Drums of Chaos", this is paced like a classic S&S novel -- swift, breathless and fairly short, which makes the ending come a bit too swiftly and neatly. I am giving it five stars for what it is trying to do, and its role in the overall saga of the character -- telling us how Simon of Gitta became the gnostic Samaritan heretic Simon Magus. As a stand-alone work, I would give it four.
Swordplay and sorcery, and a great take on the cult of the Magna Mater is interwoven with the scheming, plotting and intriguing of a kind popular in the novels of the classical world itself. In the end, however, unlike the author's more ambitions (although less successful, IMO), magnum opus "The Drums of Chaos", this is paced like a classic S&S novel -- swift, breathless and fairly short, which makes the ending come a bit too swiftly and neatly. I am giving it five stars for what it is trying to do, and its role in the overall saga of the character -- telling us how Simon of Gitta became the gnostic Samaritan heretic Simon Magus. As a stand-alone work, I would give it four.
January 19, 2022
When the renowned mage of the ancient world, Simon of Gitta is brought back to Rome in chains for daring to aid some of the tribes of the wild frontier of the North against the Empire, he is set free by the powerful, somewhat benevolent, and absent-minded emperor, Claudius. But there is a catch; in return for his freedom, he must root out and expose the party behind a particularly nefarious Goddess cult that is using Rome as its plaything and seeking to bring back into power a monstrous, demonic deity of the prehistoric world……
The Gardens of Lucullus continues the saga of Simon of Gitta and was published by the Sidecar Preservation Society in 2001. It is a book that is somewhat rare and pricy nowadays, but I lucked out on getting my copy used and in good condition at a reasonable price a few years ago. This is actually a novel-length work about Simon of Gitta and not a short story, and it is a real treasure to read. In it, we are drawn back into the ancient world of Simon Magus, into Rome in particular, where there abounds copious amounts of thievery, murder, villainy, violence, and magic of the darkest sorts.
The character of Simon is as interesting and engaging as ever, and this time he teams up with a hulking gladiator by the name of Rufus Hibernicus. The lean and cunning Simon and the brawling-natured Hibernicus adventuring side by side together in the dangerous, teeming city of Rome reminds one pleasantly of the stories of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser by Fritz Leiber at times. This is sword and sorcery at its best, set in a Rome that is well-researched and penned by the authors Tierney and Rahman.
It is equal parts engaging, thrilling, humorous, scary, and adventurous as well as engrossing, and the ancient world comes alive within, as does the threat of darksome supernatural menace behind Rome. There is plenty of espionage, brawls, and swordplay here, as well as intrigue and character. I enjoyed this work immensely, and feel it is a must-read for any fan of the Simon of Gitta tales or the genre of sword and sorcery for that matter. Rome comes alive in all its ancient, decadent glory in this novel, and not even the seedy squalor of its shadowy corners are left out. This is a rollicking sword and sorcery adventure the reader won’t soon forget, and I hope it is reprinted soon so more readers can get access to it.
I give The Gardens of Lucullus by Richard L. Tierney and Glenn Rahman a 5 out of 5.
The Gardens of Lucullus continues the saga of Simon of Gitta and was published by the Sidecar Preservation Society in 2001. It is a book that is somewhat rare and pricy nowadays, but I lucked out on getting my copy used and in good condition at a reasonable price a few years ago. This is actually a novel-length work about Simon of Gitta and not a short story, and it is a real treasure to read. In it, we are drawn back into the ancient world of Simon Magus, into Rome in particular, where there abounds copious amounts of thievery, murder, villainy, violence, and magic of the darkest sorts.
The character of Simon is as interesting and engaging as ever, and this time he teams up with a hulking gladiator by the name of Rufus Hibernicus. The lean and cunning Simon and the brawling-natured Hibernicus adventuring side by side together in the dangerous, teeming city of Rome reminds one pleasantly of the stories of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser by Fritz Leiber at times. This is sword and sorcery at its best, set in a Rome that is well-researched and penned by the authors Tierney and Rahman.
It is equal parts engaging, thrilling, humorous, scary, and adventurous as well as engrossing, and the ancient world comes alive within, as does the threat of darksome supernatural menace behind Rome. There is plenty of espionage, brawls, and swordplay here, as well as intrigue and character. I enjoyed this work immensely, and feel it is a must-read for any fan of the Simon of Gitta tales or the genre of sword and sorcery for that matter. Rome comes alive in all its ancient, decadent glory in this novel, and not even the seedy squalor of its shadowy corners are left out. This is a rollicking sword and sorcery adventure the reader won’t soon forget, and I hope it is reprinted soon so more readers can get access to it.
I give The Gardens of Lucullus by Richard L. Tierney and Glenn Rahman a 5 out of 5.
June 13, 2013
The Gardens of Lucullus, by Richard Tierney and Glenn Rahman, is a trade paperback published by Sidecar Preservation Society in 2001. I was able to find a copy with diligent scouring of the internet; my copy was signed by the authors. It is a handsome production. There is a nice painting of a Roman court on the front; unfortunately I couldn't figure out who did it. The book was printed "xerographically." Page count was 275. Although it is a good production I am not so sure about the long term durability of the materials. My copy must have been sitting on Shockline's shelves since the original printing and I found a very faint beginning of yellowing around the edges; the same thing is happening to my copy of Dead But Dreaming. The introduction is by the ubiquitous Robert Price. Mostly it is OK, although as usual he managed to really irritate me, this time by writing that this novel is "much better than it needs to be." What, Bob? Are the authors a pair of hacks, or will the fans lap up any old junk? (...well, *I* will, but that doesn't mean we *all* will...)
Moving on, this is a Simon of Gitta book. I have a copy of Chaosium's The Scroll of Thoth by Tierney somewhere, although I only ever read a few of the stories in it. There is a character who is a Hibernian gladiator, Rufus Hibernicus. I think he is the creation of Glenn Rahman, and the two authors must have collaborated to bring their characters together in imperial Rome.
The novel reads like a superior Sword and Sorcery work, with obvious antecedents in Robert E. Howard. What is different is the setting, in ancient Rome during the rule of Claudius and Messalina. The historical detail and accuracy are very rich and really add to the attractiveness of this novel. (At least, I think the detail is accurate. My vague understanding of ancient Rome comes from movies like The Robe, 5 years of high school Latin and watching I, Claudius...). The city comes alive under the authors' pens. The saga is fast paced with some nice action sequences and some magical duels. Best of all is the scheming, plotting and intriguing, which are well thought out. In the end, of course, for all the involving historical tapestry, this is a S&S novel, so there is a certain lack of depth and a bit of deus ex machina in the plotting, and particularly the ending.
So how does this appeal to the Cthulhu mythos fan? Well, it turns out that Messalina and some crafty Vestals are actually priestesses of Magna Mater, and Magna Mater is actually an entity from beyond our space/dimension. She has many names, one of which is Shupnikkurat. Her idol is represented as a black male goat head with the torso of a termite queen. She/it is using human servitors to open a way for her/it or her/its spawn to cross into our world. At one point Simon is matching wits with her servitors and invokes Nodens. So Nodens confronts Shub Niggurath; how much more mythos can it be? This is where the deus ex machina comes in; the only story where an HPL protagonist was able to be rescued from an outre entity with an incantation was The Dunwich Horror. However this sort of thing happens all the time in Conan-esque stories. These eldritch things transcend gender, but Shub Niggurath is almost always represented as a female (I actually found Neil Gaiman's I, Cthulhu, to be the coolest concept of how Great Old Ones reproduce, speaking of gender) so using this as a manifestation of the Magna Mater was perfectly justified. So the plot is basically Messalina and her cronies using magic to control Claudius, while trying to invoke the Magna Mater's entry into our world. Fortuitously for the world, Simon and Rufus get drawn into the plot, and Simon has sufficient training in sorcery to recognize the dangers.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend to all fans of the REH tradition. If you like Conan I can't imagine you won't like The Gardens of Lucullus. It is an attractive book, well written, well plotted and thoroughly researched, attractively priced. However, I must say it is a light, frothy confection. Those of you who are fans of HPL instead and prefer a stronger brew can safely pass it by. It did not have the same sense of otherness or horror, the realization by the protagonist (or reader) of the insignificance of humans, the brooding influence of malevolent or indifferent aliens that characterizes the mythos for me. The use of entities with mythosian names, while not inappropriate, struck me as incidental. Tierney and Rahman could easily have substituted any other malevolent Roman, Greek, Egyptian, whatever spirit as the focal point, and would have lost nothing.
Well worth the money if you can track it down.
Moving on, this is a Simon of Gitta book. I have a copy of Chaosium's The Scroll of Thoth by Tierney somewhere, although I only ever read a few of the stories in it. There is a character who is a Hibernian gladiator, Rufus Hibernicus. I think he is the creation of Glenn Rahman, and the two authors must have collaborated to bring their characters together in imperial Rome.
The novel reads like a superior Sword and Sorcery work, with obvious antecedents in Robert E. Howard. What is different is the setting, in ancient Rome during the rule of Claudius and Messalina. The historical detail and accuracy are very rich and really add to the attractiveness of this novel. (At least, I think the detail is accurate. My vague understanding of ancient Rome comes from movies like The Robe, 5 years of high school Latin and watching I, Claudius...). The city comes alive under the authors' pens. The saga is fast paced with some nice action sequences and some magical duels. Best of all is the scheming, plotting and intriguing, which are well thought out. In the end, of course, for all the involving historical tapestry, this is a S&S novel, so there is a certain lack of depth and a bit of deus ex machina in the plotting, and particularly the ending.
So how does this appeal to the Cthulhu mythos fan? Well, it turns out that Messalina and some crafty Vestals are actually priestesses of Magna Mater, and Magna Mater is actually an entity from beyond our space/dimension. She has many names, one of which is Shupnikkurat. Her idol is represented as a black male goat head with the torso of a termite queen. She/it is using human servitors to open a way for her/it or her/its spawn to cross into our world. At one point Simon is matching wits with her servitors and invokes Nodens. So Nodens confronts Shub Niggurath; how much more mythos can it be? This is where the deus ex machina comes in; the only story where an HPL protagonist was able to be rescued from an outre entity with an incantation was The Dunwich Horror. However this sort of thing happens all the time in Conan-esque stories. These eldritch things transcend gender, but Shub Niggurath is almost always represented as a female (I actually found Neil Gaiman's I, Cthulhu, to be the coolest concept of how Great Old Ones reproduce, speaking of gender) so using this as a manifestation of the Magna Mater was perfectly justified. So the plot is basically Messalina and her cronies using magic to control Claudius, while trying to invoke the Magna Mater's entry into our world. Fortuitously for the world, Simon and Rufus get drawn into the plot, and Simon has sufficient training in sorcery to recognize the dangers.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend to all fans of the REH tradition. If you like Conan I can't imagine you won't like The Gardens of Lucullus. It is an attractive book, well written, well plotted and thoroughly researched, attractively priced. However, I must say it is a light, frothy confection. Those of you who are fans of HPL instead and prefer a stronger brew can safely pass it by. It did not have the same sense of otherness or horror, the realization by the protagonist (or reader) of the insignificance of humans, the brooding influence of malevolent or indifferent aliens that characterizes the mythos for me. The use of entities with mythosian names, while not inappropriate, struck me as incidental. Tierney and Rahman could easily have substituted any other malevolent Roman, Greek, Egyptian, whatever spirit as the focal point, and would have lost nothing.
Well worth the money if you can track it down.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews