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MY ⭐️ RATING: 4.25/5
Format: Kindle Whispersync
BOOK DESCRIPTION
Marching to War
The Carthaginians are marching to destroy Rome and it is up to Ky, a test pilot from the future thrown into an alternate past, to keep the once mighty Roman Empire from being destroyed. As Ky gathers Roman and Caledonian forces together to form a new Britannic Empire to defend against the Carthaginian host, he must also struggle to contend with a malfunctioning AI implanted in his brain that is slowly gaining sentience. Thankfully, Ky is not alone. With the help of the Emperors daughter Lucilla, he must ready himself to fight both his own mind and the Carthaginian hordes for a chance to build a new world.
Will Ky succeed in cementing the Britannic Empire as a force to counter the Carthaginian threat, or will the this alternate earth fall to Carthaginian hegemony?
MY REVIEW
Here we are back in Ancient Rome with Ky, Lucilla and Sophus once again! This had a different feel to it than The Sword of Jupiter had, while book 1 was a lot more to do with Ky and his new situation, I was surprised that Starnes took a different approach and made this one be more about Lucilla and her new situation and her growth as a strong female protagonist while Ky was out of action. I liked that he dedicated more time to Lucilla who needed to grow a lot more on her own, but not having Ky’s personality and dialogue with a lot of the characters for most of the story was severely missed despite Lucilla having such a great arc.
The Trumpets of Mars is a good sequel and I’m really enjoying this story of turning Rome into a more industrialized place and setting up the Britannic Empire by adding allies. With new allies comes new issues and more scheming, more battles from within, but also learning to be more open minded and that comes with a lot of difficulties with a people that do not like change. It’s interesting to see the way Starnes uses this to help develop not only characters, but the relationship with other characters between the Romans and Caledonians.
“Judging one culture by the social mores of another is counterproductive, as the standards for things like violence, beauty, and actions can vary widely, and objections can be met with negative reactions.”
One of the things I really enjoyed about this was the switching back and forth POV of the final battle between Roman and Carthaginian armies in the book. It was cool to see the battle tactics of both armies and the results that happened because of those decisions, but while that was cool to see, it never really drew me in the way I would’ve liked because it was lacking in actual fight scenes during this battle. It was mainly just descriptions of moves being made and people dying, I would’ve liked to have been in the battle itself hearing the swords sing when they clash, the men yelling, just a little more of that would’ve really sold that battle.
As I stated in my review of book 1, the narration by Kevin Kemp is just absolutely superb. I can’t get enough of what he can do with his voices and emotions, it’s just one of those that you can’t wait to hear. I do think that Starnes writing is very good and that this was a very good sequel, but for the lack of some depth it did hurt the experience a bit, but not enough to deter me from finding out what happens next with the newly formed Britannic Empire and the coming war with the Carthaginians.
Wolfmantula.com 