Jo Graham takes Virgil's Aeneid and does a retelling of it from the point of view of the Pythia. She begins the story as Gull, a slave born of rape but still loved by her mother. When her ankle is broken she is apprenticed to the Pythia of the dark goddess Persephone, Lady of the dead, and she becomes Linnea before losing her name to her role when the previous priestess dies. She posesses a gift and burden of prophecy and is occasionally driven by the goddess to do things that she doesn't always understand at first but that make sense over time.

It's the story of the Wilusians or Trojans, the survival of a few and the recovery of some enslaved tribe members, adventures in the Middle East, Egypt and Italy and a hope for a future.

I found it an interesting read, it made me want to revisit the Aeneid. However I didn't find the characters all that compelling, there were moments where I engaged but the engagement slipped, still I was pulled through the tale and enjoyed the read. ( )

I love historical fiction - especially novels set during classical times. Graham's debut is a fresh take on "The Aeneid." Most readers are familiar with the Illiad and the Odyssey (even if they've never read them) and many authors, and filmmakers, have retold those stories. One of my favorite of these is Marion Zimmer Bradley's "Firebrand" told from the point of view of the Seeress, Kassandra - fated to see the future but cursed that no one would believe her until it was too late. However, I have never read a modern author who has gone beyond the fall of Troy. Finally, one has and it was worth waiting for!

Graham has taken a familiar path – that of a famous story told from the POV of a minor character, often a slave, or servant. The story is told mostly from first person by Gull. She is the daughter of slave captured in Troy, and a strong female protagonist. When a chariot hits and cripples her, her mother gives her to the Pythia (a twist on the Delphic Oracle, here given visions by a Goddess instead of Apollo) where she discovers her real gift. Readers of Bradley's work will notice the obvious parallels between the two heroines, but Graham has her own distinct voice. Though the book is truly not fast-paced, it is still a page turner. The Aeneid is more of an adventure tale, a quest even. Gull is reminiscent of Kassandra, but the story will evoke themes in the Odyssey as Gull travels with Prince Aeneas searching for a new home for the exiled Trojans (here called Wilusans). The characters are fully developed, and the author provides details to secondary characters’ lives as well, even when they do not directly impact Gull. This makes the characters seem real.

Though I found the title uninspiring, and the cover almost boring, the writing is excellent; smooth and flowing. I sat down to read a couple of chapters and finished 65 pages without realizing it. Before I started, I learned Graham's next book will center on Cleopatra, as told by one of her handmaids. At first I was skeptical - another Cleopatra book? However, after Black Ships, I can hardly wait to see what she does with the doomed queen. And, the new edition of Black Ships has a much better cover. :-) ( )

"She has chosen you are Her voice and Her hands. You will be dedicated at the Feast of the Return, the Thesmophoria, as is proper. And from that time forward you cannot do as the living do. You cannot shed blood, or watch it shed. You cannot cut flesh with a knife, or wear the colors of the sun. You belong to the Lady, and to the shades beneath."

Since reading Jo Graham's Hand of Isis a couple of months ago, I have been dying to get my hands on Black Ships. It took some time to get a copy from the library, but I finally did - and it was every bit as good as Hand of Isis!

Black Ships is Jo Graham's debut novel. It is an adaptation of The Aeneid, as seen through the eyes of the Sybil. The story is really her story, and her character is much more fleshed out than she is in The Aeneid. Her name is Gull, later known as Linnea and as Pythia, acolyte of Persephone, Lady of the Dead.

Gull is the daughter of a Trojan slave. As a young girl playing in the fields, she is crippled when a passing chariot crushes the bones in her leg. Realizing that she will never be able to work in the fields for King Nestor and earn her way as it were, Gull's mother takes her to the temple of Persephone to be apprentice and handmaiden to Pythia, priestess of the Lady of the Dead. As she displays her power to see into the future, Gull secures a place for herself as "She Who Will Become Pythia."

Gull's first vision is of the titled Black Ships, fleeing the burning city of Troy.
When Aeneas, the last Trojan prince arrives to raid King Nestor's palace and to save the Trojan women and children sold into slavery, Gull remembers him from her vision and decides to join Aeneas and his remaining people on their journey to found a new city. The novel follows the progress of Aeneas, his most trusted captain Xandros, and Gull, as they search for a new home in a distant land.

Black Skips is a stunning and unique adaptation of The Aeneid, with realistic characters that leap off the pages. Jo Graham's brilliant novel brings the ancient world to vivid life, creating a remarkably compelling and beautiful story. From the windy shores of the Isle of the Dead, to the lonely slopes of Mount Vesuvius, to the richness of the black lands of Egypt, Black Ships is brimming with action and adventure and will stay with you long after you've read the last sentence. It is an epic story of survival, set against the backdrop of one of the most fascinating stories ever told. ( )

This book really got me interested in reading more about the Trojan War. I love the characters. I read it last spring, but since then I took a Humanities class where we studied the Ancient Greeks, and now re-reading it, I understand all the little details a lot better. Very well written book. ( )

I really wanted to like this books, and at first I did. I loved the scenery and the development of the world. However, as Gull grew up her character became more uneven. There were times when I was wondering why she and Aeneas were saying what they were. Gull seemed too ambivalent about her decisions.

It was a fine first book, but not amazing. ( )

Not so much a retelling as a reimagining of The Aeneid. Historical fiction lightly tinged with fantasy. ( )

Very slow pace. ( )

I like my fiction to be historically intriguing and as accurate as possible. In 'The Black Ships' I find not only the setting bu the language used to be delightful. The bare bones of the plot is a young girl is injured by a chariot and her mother takes her to the temple to work, otherwise being not marrying material due to her injuries. While in the presence of the temple maidens, she is found to be with the gift of prophecy and becomes a seer. A very good summer read...beautiful language and an underlying emotional heat that follows the reader all the way through. ( )

Not perfect, but nonetheless exceptional. Brilliantly conceived and executed, this is an amazing book. A highly recommended and fascinating approach to the Aeneus story cycle. ( )

Having enjoyed Virgil's epic I was looking forward to revisiting it here in Jo Graham's Black Ships. As a Historical Fiction novel I found it engaging and plodded thru it but never really connected with Gull. This made it rather unemotional for me and I did not enjoy it nearly as much as many others did. ( )

Virgil’s Aeneid has had new life breathed into it by a number of authors and translators of late. First, Robert Fagles offered his new translation in 2006, to much acclaim. Then, Ursula K. LeGuin and Jo Graham offered their fictional renderings of different portions of Aeneas’s life almost simultaneously. In Black Ships, Jo Graham writes of the hero Aeneas’s search for a new home for his people, the survivors of the fall of Troy; and Ursula K. LeGuin takes up almost exactly where Graham leaves off in Lavinia, written from the perspective of Aeneas’s new wife in his new home.

Black Ships is told from the perspective of someone we first meet as a girl named Gull, the daughter of a woman stolen from Troy when it fell and made a slave by the Achaians. She is born from a rape, but her mother loves her no less for that. Still, her mother is unable to save her when a chariot passes through, running over Gull’s leg and crippling her, making her unfit to work the flax fields. Gull’s mother therefore dedicates her to Pythia, the goddess of the dead, and it quickly becomes apparent that Gull does, in fact, have the gift of prophecy.

Gull becomes Linnea, apprenticed to the woman who then serves as Pythia and learning the ways of the goddess. It is a quiet life until the day the nine black ships arrive, a day that changes everything. Linnea meets Aeneas and becomes his Sybil, guiding him through angry seas, unknown islands, difficult diplomacy, war, and a doomed love affair. Only a girl herself, she nonetheless finds her own way, her own strength, and her own love.

Black Ships is painstakingly researched and thoroughly thought out, with some details from The Aeneid changed in order to make historical sense. I enjoyed reading about historical bits and pieces such as what the characters ate, how warfare was actually waged, how ships worked and what ancient religions were actually like. The characters are reasonably well-drawn, if perhaps almost universally too good to be true. One does wonder why Aeneas is always willing to drop everything and mobilize an army on the word of an 18-year-old girl, but after Aeneas has a bit of experience with Sybil’s power, it only makes sense to listen to her. The picture of Sybil’s own love affair with her chosen mate is drawn well enough that it brought me close to tears at the end of the book. As to the inevitable comparison with LeGuin: LeGuin is a master craftswoman, who has been writing for decades. Lavinia is a beautiful book, telling an altogether different story. Read it, too.

This is a well-written first historical novel by this author, from whom I am glad to say there is already a second book in press: Hand of Isis, set in Egypt. I hope to be able to tell you about it soon. ( )

Black Ships is a prose retelling of The Aeneid from the perspective of the oracle Gull, who sails with Aeneas and his remaining band of people as they search for the new homeland that will eventually become Rome. Graham's period detail is amazing--in Egypt, especially--and I think she did a wonderful job of dealing with the realities of a generation of displaced people, complete with an uneasy acceptance of children born of rape and the difficulty in keeping one's culture alive despite the desire to assimilate in every safe harbor. Gull is a strong, sympathetic character, and there's a lyrical mournfulness to her narration in the first few chapters that was really quite beautiful.

Still, at times I found the descriptive realism to be at odds with The Aeneid's more fantastical elements. On one hand we'd have a very evocative description of Mediterranean seafaring life, and then the next scene would have Gull & Co. exploring the Underworld, but I chalk that up to the difficulties in translating an epic poem into realistic historical fiction. And while she tries to get an interesting love triangle going (Gull loves Xandros who loves Aeneas who loves Gull who loves Aeneas too), it doesn't fully take off due to some flat characterization of the two male leads. But the detail and solid research that went into creating a vibrant atmosphere of a crumbling empire more than makes up for any failings. Impressive and original. I am looking forward to reading Graham's next book. ( )

I really loved this book. It started a bit awkward in terms of the writing, but the author worked that out quickly and it was a pleasure to read the rest of the way. I liked the setting, the characters and the story.

The book recounts the tale of the survivors of the fall of Troy. It is a retelling of the Aeneid. The main character of the book is named Gull, a half-Trojan child of rape. She has the gift and is touched by a goddess and she becomes the Pythia/Sybil for the group of Greeks who enslave her mother.

The remnant of the Trojans sail into her life in Black Ships when the men of the town are out raiding. They rescue the Trojan women and children and take a young Gull with them.

The rest of the book is the story of the Trojans trying to find a home, and of Gull learning and growing as a young woman, as an adviser to the Prince/King, and as the representative of the goddess of death.

The Trojans are searching for a place where they can live in peace, as a group; they want to preserve their identity and not become absorbed by other cultures/nations. The leaders have to balance the instant needs for survival with the long-term goals of preserving their culture and building a future.

It was a much quicker and easier read than book 2, I was sucked in very quickly and really came to care about the characters much sooner.

I had this book for over a year before I read it. It was chosen for a RL book group for May '09. I like to read the book the month before so I remember enough to discuss. I ended up with book 2 The Hand of Isis as an ER book and had to read it first to give the required review. They are connected, but also stand alone.

After the story Graham talks about her ideas regarding the Trojan war and the Aeneid , and why she made the choices she did and the changes. Her reasoning is sound and she did a very good job. Can't wait for book 3. ( )

I really wanted to like this book. I really thought I was going to love it!

I mean come on, an oracle of the Lady of Death who wears white paint and kohl eyeliner. Black ships. Destiny. The back cover made me think this story had it all.

I was disappointed. The book took forever to even get started. The first 50 pages just involved Gull, the main character, learning about "the ways of the oracle" which weren't all that exciting. Moreover, this main character, while possibly fitting her role as a "oracle of the Lady of the Dead", is incredibly stiff and hard to connect to. She doesn't seem to feel anything, or think anything. She's there because, well she's there and she accepts that. I felt I was watching a movie where the characters do this, and then that, and then say this rather than reading a book which is supposed to allow you to "get inside the character's head." This book just doesn't do that.

I didn't connect to any of the characters and by page 150 I just became too bored with it to continue. ( )

I primarily read Epic Fantasy and Hard SF (many other genres inbetween but the two above are my great loves), and I had read David Anthony Durham’s Acacia before Black Ships; you see, since I had an idea what to expect from Jo’s book, I knew that I wasn’t going to be reading Epic Fantasy, so I didn’t expect anything like that from Black Ships. Read the rest of my review here: http://davebrendon.wordpress.com/2008... ( )

I found this to be a beautiful book. The prose is clear and fluid, the plot well-paced. It's highly evocative of the past, as if legend and history mixed and wrote themselves onto the page. The background is detailed, the characters rich and deep, and the atmosphere is a mix of mystical surreality, action, love, mystery, and a lingering sadness that wells up in the soul.

Review by Carissa Thorp.
Black Ships is the story of Gull, a child of rape, living amongst the people who enslaved her Trojan mother, who grows up to become their Pythia, the local oracle. When the Trojan prince Aeneas comes many years later to rescue his people (something Gull as Pythia had forseen), she joins the displaced group and acts as their Pythia, guiding them in a journey that sees them wander the Mediterranean, visiting the Island of the Dead, the pirate city of Millawanda, and the great empire of Egypt, all while fleeing the Achaeans and trying to find a place of their own. Adventure, romance and exotic lands are the spice in this satisfyingly filling stand-alone historical novel.
Light on fantasy elements, but full of historical interest and compelling characters, Black Ships is a lovely, gentle read, written in clear prose that makes it eminently readable and suitably of the novel's time. I enjoyed the supernatural element of Pythia's visions, but they are just a small part of the tale that is a historically convincing re-telling of Vergil's Aeneid. A commendable first novel from Graham that can be recommended to anyone, but especially those who are interested in the period.

An interesting retelling of the events of the Odyssey and Aeneid, but with the twist of being from the viewpoint of the commoner rather than Homer's famed heroes or even Virgil's Aeneas, and a woman to boot. The story becomes very different for those not actively engaged in the supposed glory of battle.

Gull, the daughter of a Trojan woman and an unknown Greek soldier, is the narrator for a tale that spans her growth from crippled near-slave child to an oracle's apprentice to a mature priestess, a lover, wife, and mother, a symbol to her people during their exodus. From Troy to Greece to Egypt to the founding of Rome, this elegantly written story takes us through much of the pertinent history and much of the Mediterranean region, with a rich, almost mystical backdrop of religion, adventure, and culture.

Overall, a good, solid read about familiar events and characters, given new life and perspective by an insightful and strong young female protagonist. ( )

Have you read Virgil’s Aeneid? I haven’t, but it’s on my to-do list along with most of the great classics of Greece and Rome. Thanks to pop cultures’ magical abilities to disseminate information, I am aware of the basics of the story. Aeneas, last prince of Troy, flees the burning city with a few members of his family and sails off to find a new home for the remaining Trojans. After trials and tribulations (and a romantic liaison with suicidal Dido) he ends up in Italy, where he eventually settles and founds the kingdom destined to become Rome. I may have some of the details wrong, but that’s what happens when a story’s been evolving for thousands of years.



When I heard that Jo Graham had taken Virgil’s tale and re-spun it from the perspective of the Sybil, who led Aeneas on a journey through the Underworld, I just had to read it. Her Sybil is Gull, an orphan who at age seven becomes the apprentice of Pythia, Oracle of the Lady of the Dead. It soon becomes clear that Gull has the Lady’s touch – a special connection to the goddess she serves – and is quite respected amongst her people. When she encounters Prince Aeneas leaving to start fresh, she jumps at the chance to go with him.



Jo Graham makes some interesting changes to the original story, but the largest is her treatment of Dido. She explains in her notes that Carthage would not have existed during Aeneas’ life, and the only nation strong enough to have a woman like Dido was Egypt. Thus, instead of being Queen of Carthage, Graham changes Aenea’s dependent lover into an Egyptian princess, sister to the Pharaoh. She retains Dido’s beauty and personality while giving the story a chance to soak up the glory of the Egyptian empire. Gull, impressed by the power and literature of the Egyptian civilization, notes that Egypt is eternal and favored by the gods, especially compared to the relatively short-lived civilizations that surround her. I really like this observation of hers. Egypt's civilization is so far in the past that it is rightly called "ancient" now, but it was an old civilization "back in the day" too. I'd never really thought about it in quite that way before.



It’s a good story. Depending on your point of view it’s fantastic historical fiction or historical fantasy, but either way it’s so much fun. There’s plenty of action as men go to battle and wonderfully moody passages when the Sibyl consults the Lady of the Dead. I sped through the book, not wanting to put it down. ( )

Black Ships is a re-telling of The Aeneid, the epic poem by Virgil written in the 1st century BCE. In The Aeneid, Prince Aeneas, the last surviving member of the royal house of Troy, flees the city along with a handful of his people. After the sacking of Troy by the Greeks at the end of the Trojan War, they have no home left. They sail the seas, trying to find a home for themselves. It's not necessary to be familiar with The Aeneid in order to appreciate Black Ships; the book stands on its own two feet.

The thing I found the most interesting about Black Ships was the fact that the author changed some events and details. For example, the first sacking of Troy by the Greeks didn't lead to complete destruction; some survived and tried to rebuild the city. Then, a generation later, the Greeks returned in order to finish what they had started. (This book makes the Greeks look like bloodthirsty mongrels; but I suppose that's no different than The Iliad). It is only after that second destruction of Troy that Aeneas takes flight from the city.

So, why does this matter? Well, Graham actually changed these details not to make the novel more exciting, but to bring the facts of the novel in line with archaeological discoveries. In the hill called Hisarlik, which many assume is Troy, there are two cities that were destroyed within a generation of each other. The first is a large, majestic city - the city of Priam and Hecuba. The second is more of a shantytown, built on top of the ruins of the first. I absolutely loved that Graham embellished facts and changed details, not to take liberties with history, but to make the novel more historically accurate. She has an afterword in the novel which takes the reader through the reasons for these changes.

I also loved the fact that, rather than making up a new character, Graham took a character already established in The Aeneid (the Sybil who guides Aeneas through the Underworld) and fleshed her out. And she did a wonderful job - Gull is a very sympathetic character, as are Aeneas, Xandros, and all the others present in Black Ships. Graham has a talent for character development.

Black Ships is a wonderful historical fiction novel. It is enjoyable, well-written, and easy to read. Graham's next novel, Hand of Isis, is set in Egypt. I can't wait to read it!

From S. Krishna's Books ( )

I've been looking for a book like this since finishing the Kushiel trilogy. Black Ships has a lot of the same elements: epic scope, first-person POV character who's a priestess for an unforgiving deity, vaguely European setting. I loved Gull, the main character who serves the Goddess of Death (presented in several facets, from Persephone to Sekhmet). I loved the trip to Egypt, I loved the broad lush description of her world, I loved the way Gull served her goddess. I loved that she fell for Xandros, who was in love with Neas, who was in love with Gull; the longing was handled very maturely. In a different author's hands (ahem, Stephanie Meyer) the melodrama could've been oppressive, but instead Gull stated very matter-of-factly that she couldn't forsake her goddess to love Xandros, and she wouldn't marry Neas and thus doom the remains of her culture to be forgotten. I loved, LOVED, that the author didn't flinch from portraying royal marital relations exactly as they were, down to the marriage of a 13 year old girl with a 30-some main character, with consummation implied.

'Black Ships' is marketed as fantasy, but there is really no fantasy element. The book is straight historical fiction. The interesting element of mythology is that the characters knew personally some of the protagonists of the Aenid, the story of the seige of Troy. In fact, one of the protagonists is Aeneas himself. The book is extremely well written - I picked it off the rack at the bookstore to check it out by reading a few pages, and couldn't stop reading until I'd pretty much read the whole thing, skipping bits here and there.

The historical period is that of the declining ages of Ancient Greece, and the end of the book links together with the founding of Rome. The characters embark on a journey around the civilized Mediterranean Sea, with exciting battles and escapes along the way. There is lots of action, but at the same time, the protagonist is a woman and the whole plot is told through her eyes. Troy has been destroyed, and the remnants of the populace, only a few hundred people, must find someplace else to live, someplace safe where they will not be further pursued by those who wish to destroy even the remainder. The heroine is the daughter of a Trojan woman who was made a slave by other greeks who have raided her city. Crippled, her mother takes her to the priestess of one of the local gods to raise, knowing there is no other hope for a slave girl who cannot work and be productive. Grown up, she earns the respect of others with her ability to serve, and one of the interesting aspects of the book is a picture of how a priestess might have performed her role in ancient Greek society. She eventually is found by the remnants of her mother's people and joins them in their quest to find a new home.

Besides the history, the book has a slight flavor of romance novels, that is, there's some "mushy personal stuff." I didn't enjoy that aspect of the book much, but some people will. The depth of characters was far more than I suppose one finds in a typical romance novel, though, and the historical and social aspects of the book overshadowed the romance aspects plenty enough that this wasn't too much of a distraction for me.

The book was exceptionally good, and a big surprise in the fantasy aisle of the bookstore. If you're looking for standard fantasy, this isn't it - but if you want a highly entertaining read set in a period so different from our modern world that it might as well be a fantasy world, this is the perfect choice. ( )

Born of The Aeneid, Black Ships retells the story of Aeneas, the last prince of Troy, from the point of view of a female oracle. Known variously as Gull, Linnea, Pythia and Sybil, she walks with Persephone, the Lady of the Dead, serving as her voice when she communicates with the people.

Troy has fallen when the story opens. Gull is the child of a slave woman. Because of an accident that cripples her, she becomes Pythia’s acolyte. In a few years, at the tender age of 12 or 13, Gull becomes Pythia through the death of her mentor. Read the full review at http://fuzzyhistory.com/2008/07/25/bl... ( )

I deeply enjoyed this novel. It was not a literal re-telling of the Aeneid, but satisfying in its own right. The archaic-sounding prose was beautiful and reminded me of Jacqueline Carey's writing style. ( )

This was an entertaining read that kept me well entertained through a couple flights and a few nights in a hotel room. Historical fiction is like fan fiction for history geeks and I appreciate the want to humanize characters like Aeneas and give readers a window into life during the particular time period. If I had one bone to pick with the story it would be the triangle set up between Gull, Xandros and Aeneas. I feel like it is one trope this genre relies heavily upon and I'd like to see i t used more sparingly.

It was particularly nice to see an attempt to move the Aeneid from the world and context of Virgil and Augustus and into the late Greek & Mycenean world where it is set. The author brings up some interesting points that I hadn't thought of before, particularly the note that so much of the characters' known world falls apart during this time period. It makes me curious to pick up some history books and revisit this period - it has been too long since I have. It was also interesting to see it from the eyes of a woman. I wonder how much we know of their existence - I can't tell how much of this is based in what we've discerned from historical texts and what is what we'd like to imagine of women's lives and roles in the past. ( )