Rating: 2 out of 5
It is difficult to take a series that is going well and to add to it with short stories. What characters do you choose? Who is the best to showcase in their own world? In this short story, Mr Fabbri has taken the assassin, Archias, who is known to the reader’s of “Alexander’s Legacy” and given him a story that relates to Alexander himself and the Siege of Tyros (Tyre). While this sounded like a good move, I found the story unappealing though the appearance of the “favourites” of the main series such as Eumenes was clearly intended as a hat tip to the reader.
It’s more difficult to say exactly why I didn’t like the story. There’s a lot of confusion in this, Archias tricking some people, Alexander tricking others. In all, this should make for a decent book, but the actions come out bland, and Archias’ coup-de-grace on the Tyrians also doesn’t jive with the information given previously in the story. All in all, this makes for a story that tries to highlight a rather interesting part of Alexander’s early conquests while failing to really spotlight it as it could be done.
