Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16308 in Books
• Published on: 1999-12-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 354 pages

Synopsis
Ramses is now fifty years old. After bringing outstanding prosperity to Egypt, he could have hoped to enjoy a serene old age. But he must still continue to rule. Above all, Ramses strives to preserve Egypt's hard-won peace, in spite of many obstacles: the Hittite Emperor exhorts him to wed his daughter under the threat of a new war; the Libyans, greedy for revenge, are rebelling. When, in his old age, the time comes for Ramses to meet his final enemy, he goes to sit in the shade of the western acacia to prepare for his last journey. Only then can the scribe Ahmeni, who has faithfully served his sovereign for the 67 years of his reign, lay down his brush.

Customer Reviews

Brilliant Book For Egyptian Fans
I was brought this book to go on holiday with. Not actually have read the first four books, I was disorientated on what was going on. But after reading the book, I wanted to get the other four. Even though I made sense of what was going on.

Theres backstabbing and love, intrigue and curiosity.

I found this book brilliant, and after reading Wilbur Smith's three books of his Egyptian Epic, I could not put this book down. I would recommend this book to all my family and friends.

Fifth of Five
Enjoyable, if a little light-weight. Having said that, the previous books in the series were not exactly heavy going.
I found the balance between historical fact and novel writing to be fine. Illustrations (or even photographs) of relevant archeological remains/discoveries would have helped, as would more detailed land maps. But I suspect, the inclusion of such things would have been further than the author intended to go.

I suppose if you've read the first 4 you have to finish it
Jacq should be a short-story writer. He writes episodes very well, but can't string them together into novels. This one in particular has no real plot at all, because it covers the period by which everything interesting in Ramses' life had already happened; it's basically just a rehash of episodes he used to pad out the earlier books. And baddies have to be ex-followers of Shanaar to give themselves a motivation, despite the fact that that overstretched plot died with Shanaar himself in the 4th book. (As Ramses' real elder brother, about whom we know the square root of sweet FA, died before Seti, it took a large and unnecessary distortion of history to keep him going that long.) The need did not exist to pad Ramses' life out to five volumes. Four or even three could have covered it if Jacq were less sloppy.