Gladiator

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Following Matyszak's 24 Hours in Ancient Rome (because, y'know, he has a great style balancing information and readability), I sought out his other books. Gladiator touches on a subject core to the third Felix Novel - In Victrix - so I started with it. I decided to read 'Fight for Freedom by Simon Scarrow because I enjoy learning about ancient Greece and so since Rome is Right next to Greece I decided to read this book. i also had a read of the blurb and saw that his father was murdered as a centurion which high rank in the Roman Military so i wanted to find out more. This book talks about a strong man at Rome in 180 A.D. Maximus is a great man and has leadership, so Marcus likes and trusts him. Therefore, Commodus has jealous of Maximus and kills Marcus to be new emperor. Maximus is killed his family and destroyed his village by commodus. Also, he is sold as a gladiator. when he become strong gladiator, he decided to join the game in colosseum to kill commodes. In addition, Lucilla who is sister of commodus ask him to kill commodus. Finally,Maximus kills commodus and die himself.Everyone are proud of him. Dat was ook meteen mijn grootste issue met dit boek. Het is een traditioneel Romeins verhaal en focust heel erg op geweld en op politiek. En hoewel de politiek op zich wel interessante facetten heeft, vond ik die net niet lekker uit de verf komen in dit eerste boek. Pas op het einde komt er een revelatie (die je van 30000 kilometer zag aankomen) die de politiek meer op de voorgrond zet, maar toen had ik al besloten de rest van de serie niet meer op te pakken. Hugo never seems to find himself, and feels he's cursed to live apart from humanity, who fear and hate him for his unusual abilities. I kept expecting, since I've heard this referred to as an influence to superheroes and Doc Savage, that Hugo would turn to crime-fighting, but that never happens.

dit verhaal best wel origineel want ik heb niet heel veel boeken gezien en/of gelezen dat zich afspeelt in de Romeinse tijd. I would really like to recommend this book for the people seeking adventure because this book is not only about entertainment, but it also gives us a scoop about the different aspects of Marcus's life as a gladiator and as a slave. The book also offers some facts for history lovers and for people who want to learn more about that Ancient Rome and Greek as seen on (P. 112) (chapter 12) "Unlike you Roman citizen, I was born into slavery, in an inn in the slums of Athens" and on (p. 117) "What about the others? The Thracians and the Spartans?". The first quote shows us that in the old times, Rome was a powerful country and unlike the people from Greek, they ruled over other countries. Also, the second quote shows us that later in the story, they talk more about who are the Thracians and the Spartans. De personages waren wel realistisch omdat ze hebben geen super krachten ofzo en het zijn gewone mensen in de Romeinse tijd. Porque a través de la vida de su protagonista, recorre la historia de la formación del actual Estados Unidos.One fictional hero whose murky inspirations, while populated with the likes of Hercules and Mercury, does have a very stable definitive father figure. The son is Superman. The daddy would be Gladiator. Siegel and Shuster the midwives? Tortured metaphors are now my superpower. When you were little more than a mass of plasm inside your mother, I put a medicine in her blood that I had discovered. I did it with a hypodermic needle. That medicine changed you. It altered the structure of your bones and muscles and nerves and your blood. It made you into a different tissue from the weak fibre of ordinary people. Then—when you were born—you were strong. Did you ever watch an ant carry many times its weight? Or see a grasshopper jump fifty times its length? The insects have better muscles and nerves than we have. And I improved your body till it was relatively that strong. Can you understand that?" Even allowing for the fact this book is 85 years old, it's not especially well-written. That said, the ideas it contains are fairly electric, and one can see how it inspired teenagers Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster to create Superman. Mostly because they lifted parts of it wholesale for their creation. I don't blame though, since as teenagers we mostly just regurgitate what we've seen before. It's not their fault Superman became an instant hit.

Attitudes have also changed. There is a casual sexism towards women that really stands out nearly a century later, but it's not intentionally cruel. Wylie also shows that the lower caste is casually racist as they use phrases like, "That's sure white of you." (The first time I heard a similar phrase, "That's mighty white of you," was from Burgess Meredith in some old movie and I did a double-take.) In which all the new-fangled emotional and psychological complexity claimed for modern superhero movies is found to have been there from the start This was one of those pleasant surprises that happen all too rarely in my reading life. I expected pulp, I expected a proto-superman, a science fiction adventure with little else. Instead I found a complex and moving exploration of humanity, of war, of failure, of the hatred and fear of the strange, of youth and desire.

I enjoyed it, thought it was a great science fiction story for its time, which hasn't lost its relevance in our world today. It is the Alpha & Omega of superhero's. Somehow encompassing the entire genre and here it is written in 1930, amazing.

There were some aspects of the plot that were a little predictable but again, it is a children's/young teen book so that's usually the case when reading as an adult. Still, while it might have been obvious what the outcome was going to be, how the story got there wasn't always as predictable. And in any case, these elements were things that you wanted to happen so it was all good. The plot is cliched and most conclusions are obvious. Scarrow does a nice job, however, of embuing the story with a strong sense of historical "place", as well as dealing with the issues of slavery and how much it impacted ancient daily life. Right from the beginning of the novel, I had to respect young Marcus as he helped out on his family's farm and later when they started having problems. You just had to love the character of the little boy fighting alongside his father as best he could. Then later as a gladiator in training how he would handle being bullied by older boys. His determination to right the wrong done to his family, in one so young was just unbelievable. Learning as much as he can so he can be the best gladiator possible no matter how much it hurt, no matter how tired he got was inspiring.Gladiator is not very long and reads rather fast. The language is old, but doesn't bother when you read at all. It follows the life oh Hugo Danner, which has amazing powers. The story revolves around him trying to fit in with different people and circumstances - just wanting acceptance and love from his fellow man. His great gift is more of a curse as he struggles to find a use for this power within him. The one hindrance to this becoming a serious text is the writing style of Wylie. The late author had a long and prodigious career, with fiction and non-fiction, for decades. But this book feels very schizophrenic. At times, events and actions pass by in a choppy uneven fashion and makes for an ugly laboured read. Thankfully these sections are spaced out, leaving the truly good character based parts to propel you into the ideas expressed. Methinks Wylie suffered from an impatient, impulsive streak, to get to the next moral point he wanted to expound upon.