A review by coco_lolo
Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault

3.0

Nearly six years after finishing The Persian Boy, I finally got around to this! And while I think I enjoyed that book more so, Fire from Heaven has spurred a new interest in ancient literature and in learning more about Alexander the Great. Renault's prose is as dense as ever (sometimes a compliment, sometimes a critique), but one thing I appreciated now is how she often talks around things, which requires a degree of inference from the reader. The relationships Alexander has with Philip and Olympias were nuanced, and the family drama was an unexpected element I particularly enjoyed. Hephaistion's voice also came through clearly, sometimes even more so than Alexander's; if I reread The Persian Boy now, I think I'd respond to his character differently. I do think the book would have been stronger had there been more characterization of the secondary characters—aside from the big names, I couldn't keep track of anyone, and the sheer amount of POVs we jumped into seemed excessive, especially toward the end. Lots of political and warfare talk went right over my head, so I didn't even try to read these sections too closely. I've read critique of this book claiming Renault's depiction of Alexander is too perfect, and to an extent I agree, yet I did find him humanized in ways through episodes of pride and brashness, which wiped off some of the gloss and made him more of an actual person rather than a myth.