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Title: Black Ships Author: Jo Graham Rating: Not available Avg. Score: 5 Submit Comment Hits: 27

Review of Black Ships

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Comments for Black Ships

• Posted on 2008-06-30
  Riviting Read
  
  It doesn't matter if you pick up the book thinking it's about Troy, NY--read the book. The first chapter pulls you into a long-ago world where gods had a real, day-by-day impact on the affairs of men and a young girl grows from a victim of history to a maker of history. The level of suspense carried through the book is amazing and the writing is superb. All this, and it fits into the narrative of Virgil's Aeneid extremely well. (OK, one shift of location from Carthage to Egypt, but it makes sense historically.) Gull is an intelligent, sympathetic voice and a great viewpoint for the action of the book. You can make up your own mind as to whether the voices and visions are real or imagined.
  Score: 5
• Posted on 2008-05-30
  Cross the wine-dark sea with Gull--you won't regret it
  
  There's nothing I love so much as sinking into a big fat book that combines the sweep of history with a dash of magic. This book is an adaptation of the Aeneid, from the point of view of the Sybil who, in the poem, guides Aeneas through the underworld.
  
  She's a lot more fleshed out here. Her name is Gull, later known as Linnea and as Pythia, and jumps off the page from the very beginning of chapter one with a self-introduction that reminded me a bit of Phedre's at the beginning of Kushiel's Dart. The wording and the voice are different, but it's the same sort of introduction: This is me. This is who I am. Take me or leave me--and if you take me, I've got a damn good story to tell you.
  
  Gull is the daughter of a Trojan slave. When she is crippled in an accident, her mother realizes she'll be seen as a useless mouth to King Nestor. She takes the girl to be apprenticed to Pythia, an oracle and priestess of Persephone, the Lady of the Dead. In time Gull succeeds to the role of Pythia herself, and it seems that she will spend the rest of her life prophesying from her remote cave. Fate, however, has other plans.
  
  Aeneas and his ragged band of refugees from Troy arrive to raid Nestor's palace, and Gull's life is forever changed.
  
  (Oh, I should explain that Graham posits two separate Trojan Wars in this tale. Gull's mother was abducted in the first; Aeneas fled the city in the second.)
  
  The novel follows Aeneas, Gull, and Aeneas's courageous and sexy captain, Xandros, as they search for a place to call home.
  
  To me, one of the major themes of Black Ships is being human in a world that calls for larger-than-life gods and heroes. You see it with Gull, who operates within a strict set of rules as a priestess, and then throughout the story breaks most of them when the will of the Goddess or the needs of her people demand flexibility. You see it with Neas, whose father is constantly exhorting him to act in a more regal fashion. One of my favorite bits is when Gull is examining the cave near Vesuvius that she will use for the ritual of descent into the underworld, musing about how much work it will take to prepare it--and yet, though she works hard to ready the cave, when the ritual occurs it is governed by forces beyond her human control. I liked the contrast between the human and divine here.
  
  The other major theme is love, and how these three flawed and scarred people find it with each other. I love that you can't clearly say "this character is gay, that one is straight." What it really comes down to is that these three people have a bond that transcends all categories. They're just...well, when reading this book I just can't imagine any of them without the other two.
  
  Beautiful book, and I loved every minute of it. I just wish it had been longer. ;)
  
  (And, y'know, I really ought to go read the Aeneid. I never did read the whole thing, though I was supposed to for class once, and Jo has made me more intrigued by it.)
  Score: 5
• Posted on 2008-05-09
  I really wanted to love Black Ships
  
  I really wanted to love Black Ships because I have advanced degrees in Philosophy with specializations in Ancient Greek Philosophy. I was one of the only undergraduates in my class to really enjoy reading Homer's Odyssey and Iliad and later Virgil's Aeneid. I found the Trojan War fascinating both historically in terms of its epic battles and strong characters, and philosophically in how it has been utilized to create certain thoughts and images in our collective consciousness (like Nietzsche's controversial discussions of the overman archetype in terms of the heroes Agamemnon and Achilles).
  
  Black Ships author Jo Graham has also been interested in this period since high school. She decided to retell the story from the standpoint of a woman, Gull, daughter of a slave and ultimately Pythia, oracle of the Mistress of Death. Gull is born in Greece to a Trojan slave working the flax fields. She has an accident early on that cripples her foot, thus making her incapable of working the fields. To save Gull, her mother drops her to the Oracle of Sybil (Death), where Pythia promises to take care of the young, lame girl.
  
  Soon Gull shows a connection to the spirit and begins receiving messages through dreams and thoughts, and Pythia begins grooming Gull to replace her as the Oracle. One day Gull/Pythia has a dream of black sailed ships coming to Greece, full of Trojans (Wilusans) coming to rescue their kin and reclaim what they lost. Sure enough, the ships come with Aeneas at the helm.
  
  Gull/Pythia leaves with them to begin an adventure that takes them through Egypt (Virgil's use of Carthage fell flat as Carthage did not yet exist), the Island of the Dead, and other well-known islands such as Scylla and Byblos. They meet new people, fall in and out of love, build temples for the Oracle, and even take the storied ferryboat to visit the land of Death to meet the Lady herself.
  
  While Black Ships is classified as fantasy, it's really more historical romance. At times it is a veritable soap opera of relationships, as we try to follow who loves whom, who fathered whose children, what couples were separated in the war and reunited, and who Gull/Pythia will sleep with next (oracles cannot marry, but can have sex and bear children).
  
  I highly recommend this book to romance fans who also enjoy a good dose of well-researched historical narrative in their reading. However, if you are looking for a fast moving, historical fantasy novel, this book will not fill the bill.
  Score: 3
• Posted on 2008-05-02
  Why we read novels
  
  How often do we really come across the kind of novel that demands marathon reading sessions, that urge us to set aside our regular daily routine? Yet such books as these are why we read fiction, why we search through pleasant, entertaining reads for just such gems. I was delighted to find Black Ships. I could feel the heft of solid research backing a compelling plot based on The Aeneid as told through the eyes of a woman who was Aeneas' sybil. The characters are well developed and intriguing. This felt like the Bronze Age as it may have seemed to those who lived in it, and not like some imaginary costume drama. I thoroughly enjoy it and look forward to future books from this author.
  Score: 5
• Posted on 2008-04-20
  Enjoyable Blend of History and Fiction
  
  One of the difficulties I had with ancient history in high school was that I couldn't hold each of the cultures and civilizations we studied in context with one another; how they interacted and fit together in the causal stream of then until now. As a consequence, history was my least favorite subject and I didn't learn as much as I should have. Jo Graham, on the other hand, was reading Virgil--IN LATIN--when she was in high school, and she has been able to convert that youthful enthusiasm into an enjoyable novel of The Aeneid.
  
  Historians probably wince at the historical novel, but I find these vehicles to be a valuable resource if the author doesn't play too loosely with the facts or if the author is clear about what has been amended. Jo Graham seems to have remained true to the historical record, and she states plainly those changes she made for continuity or dramatic purposes. So, for the non-historian, "Black Ships" will help tie together the aftermath of the Trojan War with the Greece, Egypt, and proto Rome of the time.
  
  The story follows a young girl into womanhood, constrained by the traditions and belief systems of the time, as her life proceeds through the convulsions of the Mediterranean world of about 1200 BCE. "Black Ships" is essentially a love story set against this tableau, but Graham has been able to steer her novel away from the flowery historical romance by keeping her characters well grounded in the action of the time. Her love story never takes precedent over events, and so the book reads as something a bit more substantial. It has an authentic feel similar to Steven Pressfield's novels, or perhaps even Jean Auel's first two novels. What it lacks is a certain grittiness that must have been present in an era when 40 years made someone an old person. Beyond this, the narrative flows smoothly and satisfyingly, building from page to page, leaving the reader wanting to learn more of that history--and perhaps that is the best endorsement of all.
  
  Bizarrely, "Black Ships" is categorized as fantasy and sits on bookstore shelves in the science-fiction section. It is neither fantasy nor science-fiction.
  Score: 4