4 out of 4 stars
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Based on the Peloponnesian War (431BC–404BC) between Athens and Sparta, Wolves of Laconia by William A. Lamon is a story about the chaotic era of Greece and the life of Adronikos, son of Hippagretas. Hippagretas asks Gylippus to train his son, Adronikos, in a camp for young Spartans and helots, where he would become a man and be ready for the gruesome future. In the training camp, Adronikos is made to understand what loyalty and bravery mean to a Spartan and why helots (a group of individuals who have sworn their loyalty to Spartan families) should remember their place and remain loyal. What decisions do Adronikos make despite the influence of people around him? What makes Adronikos different from other Spartans?
As portrayed in the book, the Wolves of Laconia are the Spartans who train in the historical city of Laconia. Spartans forged until ready to be dispatched to units outside the walls of the training camp. Wolves of Laconia is a wonderfully created novel written in an easily comprehensible language. It contains seven chapters with unique and well-described characters. This book possesses little emotion, with an understanding of what soldiers go through, both pleasure and pain, and shows us why war isn’t a good thing.
The author introduced ancient words like helot, agoge, and polis, which are relatively important to the story. The author was also very descriptive about every action, from fights to massages, making it easy for me to understand the story. He gave the characters so much freedom because I would expect to see the Spartans curse or mock their comrades and even treat their juniors harshly.
Wolves of Laconia is a simple book. There is nothing complex about it, so there was no opportunity for the author to make a mistake in trying to make his book more interesting. I dislike nothing about this book, and on the note of errors, Wolves of Laconia is professionally edited. I could not find any grammatical or punctuation errors as I read this book.
Therefore, I would like to give Wolves of Laconia four out of four stars for a fantastic story and unquestionable editing. I am impressed by this work by William A. Lamon, and I would love to read other books in the series of “The Last Shades of Scarlet.”
I would happily recommend this book to lovers of historical novels, especially about Ancient Greek, and lovers of war and adventure stories.
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Wolves of Laconia
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