"A wonderful fantasy"
Queen Hippolyta rules over the Amazon tribes. Though she
is quite young and healthy, she is concerned over the
succession to the throne as that has always come down
through matriarchal lines. Her female progeny is born
soulless causing fear among the toughest of these female
warriors. Unable to name a creature without a soul many
of the tribeswomen led by the queen's cousin Phaedra
believe "that thing" dubbed Etta must die as even animals
are named. She must never sit on the throne. Hippolyta
differs and proclaims Etta as her successor as she expects
the infant to one day gain a soul. Years later Etta still remains within herself as a
soulless person is apt to be. However, word has arrived
that a great army led by Alexander is coming. Shockingly
Etta reacts and flees into the night towards the camp
of the great Macedonian with Hippolyte following. Neither
mother nor daughter knows what awaits them when they reach
Alexander's camp, but the Queen prays to the Goddess that
her child's sudden obsession means a soul awaits her. QUEEN OF THE AMAZONS is an engaging historical fantasy
that hooks the reader the moment the seer informs
Hippolyte that her daughter has no soul. The somewhat
simplistic story line never slows down gripping the
audience who will keep reading to learn what happens when
two Amazons encounter Alexander. Will Etta obtain a soul
at last, and how will Phaedra avenge her exile? With a
few neat twists to the tale to add spice, sub-genre fans
will appreciate Judith Tarr's latest tale that takes the
reader back to an already successful Alexander conquering
the world. Harriet Klausner
Reviewed by PNR Group Member
Posted March 6, 2004
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Judith Tarr returns to the always fascinating character of
Alexander the Great in this fantasy novel that springs from
the legend that the Queen of the Amazons came to meet him
in Persia, and became his friend.
Hippolyta was Penthesilea, or Queen of the Amazons. She
ruled as war leader and high priestess of a scattered tribe
of women warriors who had dwelt on the high plains to the
north and east of Persia for time out of mind. They were
not isolated---travelers came and went through their
territory, bringing news from the west, and carrying tales
of the warrior women back home with them.
But the Queen had a great grief in her life: her daughter
and heir was a strange child. The girl had been born, so
the Priestesses said, without a soul. And it was true that
she was like no other child alive. She did not speak, and
often seemed not to even see the people around her. She
could not dress or feed herself, but she could ride and
hunt like no other woman of the tribe. Many of the Amazons
believed that the child must never be Queen, but that was a
problem for a later time---Hippolyta was young and strong.
Selene, the niece of the tribe's Seer, was put in charge of
the child, to be her nursemaid and guardian. And it was a
good, though sometimes difficult, life for many turns of
the years. But then one day news came from the West of a
new Conqueror, a young man who came out of Macedon with a
spirit like flame, intending to rule the whole world. The
Queen's daughter responded to the tale as a woman in the
desert would to the sound of falling water. That very night
she stole out of the camp and rode west. Selene could not
stop her, and so she must follow, praying that the Queen
would understand. Hippolyta herself followed the next day,
and so they rode together, controlled by the child's
compulsion, until they had crossed the mountains and
entered into Alexander's Empire, and under the sway of
Alexander's powerful personality.
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