Product Description

The fourth historical novel from the acclaimed author Tom Holt - an innovative, challenging and wonderfully entertaining writer of historical fiction.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #171346 in Books
• Published on: 2004-01-15
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Thomas Holt provides us, in A Song for Nero, with one of the more ingeniously unlikely what-ifs of the modern historical novel: what if the body rebel troops found and dishonoured was not that of the deposed emperor Nero, but that of his official double, Callistus? A decade later, he and Callistus's mouthy younger brother Galen are still wandering the provinces of the empire, living hand to mouth and scam to scam--in some ways, a more inventive punishment for a tyrant than any court could imagine.

Holt's Nero is a fascinating set of contradictions, a fairly likable man in recovery from the total corruption of absolute power and keen to deny his worst crimes, or at least play them down. The petty crook Galen is the ideal foil for him, someone who cannot quite believe that his companion once did those things. And then their problems start. Not everybody thinks Nero is really dead, and there are all sorts of people with a use for him.

Like Holt's other historical novels, this one combines some of the inventive wit of his fantasies with real knowledge of the Classical period and a dark sense of irony; its principal weakness--some very routine thriller plotting--does not diminish the effectiveness of this distinctive tone of voice. --Roz Kaveney

NEW YORK TIMES
`Witty, ironic … and achieves a deeply felt authenticity'

THE TIMES
'A fascinating, gripping, moving story'

Customer Reviews

Funny and Brilliant
The story of Galen, a ferret-faced middle-aged Greek with no friends except for the most hated man on the planet - Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, known to history as the Emperor Nero, who perhaps didn't commit suicide in AD69 after all.

A cross between I Claudius, The Odyssey and Catch-22, this is one of the funniest books I've read for years. I won't spoil it by outlining the plot, but it's well worth the read. This is not the story of a lantern-jawed hero - in fact it's a book without heroes - but Galen proves to be more heroic and more loyal than even he would admit. Even Nero, despite the admission that as Emperor he was almost as bad as people generally believe, comes across as a human being with some redeeming characteristics.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and I think anyone with a sense of humour will do too.

Possibly Holt's best
I've been a big fan of Tom Holt for years now, and Olympiad (the historical novel released before this one) is one of my favourite books of all time. A Song For Nero continues to demonstrate Holt's strong flair for telling incredibly funny stories in a convincingly authentic-feeling ancient Greece. The book's lead character and narrator, Galen, is a typical Holt 'hero' - self-deprecating and sarcastic - and tells the story with a sustained dry wit that rarely lets up and managed to keep a big smile plastered on my face throughout. During the course of the book, Galen and Lucius Domitius - the former emperor Nero who is trying to conceal his identity following the death of his lookalike lover - get into a seemingly endless string of scams and near-death situations which are observed through Galen's eyes with Holt's trademark dry wit. The dialogue is snappy and funny, the characters all wonderfully believable and at times the book is extremely touching. A Song For Nero is a fantastic book about how two people who can't live with or without each other, and I absolutely loved it.

Tom Holt never disapoints
I am a fun of historical novels. I always have been. So I had certain expectations from this book. Well I got a whole lot more! This guy is not just funny. He is hilarious!!! I never thought a book could be so much fun! He aproaches history in a very unique way that I thoroughly aprove. His work should be taught in schools! Everybody will be A students if they manage to keep their faces straight for a while.