Books 2016 - The Persian Boy & Funeral Games by Mary Renault

I'm so sorry to have finished Mary Renault's Alexander trilogy - I loved them! My favourite was definitely the first one, even though most people seem to go for/the most renowned book of the trilogy is, I think, The Persian Boy. I liked The Persian Boy, but to be honest what I kept looking for was glimpses of Alexander/Hephaistion who'd been the focus of the first book.

In The Persian Boy, instead of continuing the story of Alexander/Hephaistion from their own perspective, we're instead given a story about Bagoas, a Persian boy from a noble family who is sold into slavery following treachery, and eventually becomes Alexander's lover. This is his story, told from his perspective, all the way through. I couldn't quite empathise with Bagoas as much as I had Alexander and Hephaistion, and I'm not entirely sure why - he seemed to be at a slightly greater distance somehow, and of course he kept the Alexander/Hephaistion story at a greater distance too, although it spanned their entire lives and Bagoas was effectively a side-event in Alexander's. It's also a less joyous book than Fire from Heaven - Alexander is in the middle of his life, his promise has come to be, and where do you go from there? - and I really felt that, too.

( Funeral Games is different again... )