Stirring stuff! I expect you are envisaging a book full of blood and action, where heads roll in the sand on every page. I certainly was, but actually this is not that sort of book at all. It is rather too long for its own momentum, but a fascinating account of a village planning some clever defense strategies and putting them into successful action. This probably makes it sound a bit static and unexciting, but there are battles and skirmishes during which you will no doubt be cheering Eskkar and his villagers on. Barone has a good storyteller style that sucks the reader into the story and does not let go, no mean feat considering the book’s length. What it does lack is a sense of time and place. I could have been reading a fantasy novel most of the time, something that Barone would be truly adept at writing. Apart from the odd mention of a deity, the Orakians are a remarkably secular people for the ancient world, and their manners, dress, homes and way of life belong to no particular place or period. I had been looking forward to reading about the ancient Mesopotamians, not a people featured in fiction as a rule, and was disappointed. So, read this book for an absorbing tale and head for a museum to find out about who really lived on the banks of the Tigris five thousand years ago...