Empire of Ashes: A Novel of Alexander the Great

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Authors: Nicholas Nicastro

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Praise for the Books of Nicholas Nicastro

On
Circumference: Eratosthenes and the Ancient Quest to Measure the Globe
:

“Forget the myth of Columbus' daring in imagining a round earth. Nicastro not only traces the conception of a spherical world back more than a millennium before the seafarer set sail but also recounts in fascinating detail how the ancient Greek geometer Eratosthenes measured that sphere with astonishing accuracy. Though it would be thousands of years before his feat received appropriate recognition, Eratosthenes conducted his revolutionary science with nothing more complex than a sundial and a compass. With reader-friendly clarity, Nicastro explains the surprisingly simple calculations behind the earth measurement. But readers learn about much more than geodesy: Nicastro delivers the deeply human story of a multitalented genius whose tenure as the head of Alexandria's famed library occasioned remarkable achievements in literature, history, linguistics, and philosophy despite the political turmoil that periodically rocked the Ptolemaic world. Indeed, this polymath plays out his long career against a colorful backdrop peopled with a rich variety of conquerors and cosmologists, murderers and mathematicians. A distant yesterday still furnishes fascinating drama for readers today.”

--
Bryce Christensen,
Booklist

“
Propelled by the story of Eratosthenes's solution of an ancient puzzle -- how big is the earth? --
Circumference
offers many unexpected pleasures along the way. With an amiable voice and a flowing style, Nicholas Nicastro brings historical places and people to vivid new life, from the shining city of Alexandria to the great conqueror for whom it was named. A real treat for lovers of history and science.

--Steven Strogatz, author of
Sync: How Order Emerges from Chaos in the Universe, Nature, and Daily Life
,
and Schurman Professor of Applied Mathematics, Cornell University

“
Given the paucity of material in English on Eratosthenes, anything is a welcome addition, but this book is much better than nothing. In its pages, historians of science will learn much about the ancient world, and historians of the ancient world will learn much about science.”

--
Bryn Mawr Classical Review

On
Antigone’s Wake: A Novel of Imperial Athens
:

“
Nicastro is an author who clearly relishes his subject. Each sentence bursts with juicy, nurturing historical detail and considered thought about the hopes, aspirations, ideals and troubles of those who lived in the distant past. We follow the triumphs and travails of Sophocles as he struggles to create his art and also be what Athens wants him to be—a brilliant general. Athens as a great civilisation is constructed in front of our eyes. Nicastro brings to life both the back-streets of the city and the sea-battle-lanes of its Empire. The towering giants of Western history, Sophocles, Euripides, Pericles—and his consort Aspasia—are, through his vivid imagination, given a voice. This book allows the reader to inhabit the Golden Age of Athens, and to taste its grit as well as its glory.”

--Bettany Hughes, broadcaster and author of
Helen of Troy
:
Goddess, Princess, Whore

On
The Isle of Stone: A Novel of Ancient Sparta
:

“With
The Isle of Stone
, Nicholas Nicastro joins the illustrious pedigree of Mary Renault, Valerio Massimo Manfredi and Steven Pressfield with great style and enormous panache. His hero's checkered life story is used to frame a dark and darkening history of Sparta between a hugely destructive natural disaster, a great earthquake in 464 BC, and a self-inflicted, man-made debacle during the prolonged and even more destructive Peloponnesian War. Nicastro knows his ancient sources intimately, but also has the born novelist's instinct to flesh out their bare bones all too plausibly. Nicastro's antiheroes of the isle of Sphacteria are the dark side of Pressfield's heroes in
Gates of Fire
: both demand and repay the attention of all lovers of expert historical fiction.”

--Paul Cartledge, Professor of Greek History, University of Cambridge, and author of
Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past

“From its explosive first pages,
The Isle of Stone
draws you into the gritty reality of Sparta during the Peloponnesian War. Nicastro writes powerful prose, but this is no exercise in debunking. With drama, passion, and a sure touch for the facts, Nicastro reveals the heroism behind the humiliation of the shocking day when some of Sparta's unconquerable soldiers surrendered. His images of life and death under the Mediterranean sun hit you like the glare of a polished shield.”

--Barry Strauss, author of
The Battle of Salamis: The Naval Encounter that Saved Greece - and Western Civilization
and Professor of History and Classics, Cornell University

“
Reading one of Nicastro's books has the same fascination as staring at a terrible car crash. The scenes he constructs force us to grapple with the disturbing roots of our own cultural assumptions. Each of these characters spins into a series of bloody events far beyond individual control. Nicastro lays naked the complex web of collective motivations that shape the events of history.
The Isle of Stone
shows Nicastro's intimate understanding of this distant time and deeply foreign culture. By giving human faces to the dry bones of ancient battles, he goes a long way towards making ancient motivations somehow explicable. Once again, Nicastro proves his talent for capturing the attitude of historical times while spinning a passionate drama.”

--Pamela Goddard,
Ithaca Times

On
The Eighteenth Captain: The John Paul Jones Trilogy
v. 1:

"Nicastro takes you by the scruff of your neck and yanks you into the action of history. From the moment the spine is creased, you are there, on board the ship, like Jim Hawkins in the apple barrel listening to Long John Silver's most secret plan. . . . Kudos to Nicholas Nicastro and even more kudos to McBooks Press for adding this finely wrought novel to their armada of Maritime literature!"

—Eric Machan Howd
, Ithaca Times

"This maritime historical novel fairly shimmers with furtive lustiness and wry humor. Embellishing John Paul Jones' early naval intrigues and sexual liasons, Nicholas Nicastro preserves the true spirit of a mercurial and moody hero."

—Jill B. Gidmark
University of Minnesota Professor of English

“In
The Eighteenth Captain
, Nicholas Nicastro gives us a nuanced, insightful and thoroughly believable portrait of an American hero that few know beyond his saying "I have not yet begun to fight" which, in fact, he probably did not say. Nicastro does what the artist can do and the historian cannot; probe the inner mind of the historical John Paul Jones, guess who he really was from the empirical evidence, and then present that portrait in words and deeds that are on the one hand often fiction, but on the other true to the spirit of Jones. And he does it very well, showing us our American Tragic Hero, great but flawed, a conqueror brought down by his own faults.
The Eighteenth Captain
is beautifully framed by the fall-out of the French Revolution which represented the end of much that Jones loved but was a consequence in part of Jones' own actions, a lovely metaphor for the man's life and deeds. Carefully researched, accurate in tone and detail,
The Eighteenth Captain
is an insightful portrait of a man, a hero and his times, and what each of those things, in their essence, truly mean."

—James L. Nelson
,
author of the
Revolution at Sea
Saga