https://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2023/10/2023156-frontier-wolf-rosemary-sutcliff.h... ( )

I didn't want this book to end, so I took my time reading it, but then suddenly all these plot points started colliding and now I've finished it and I'm sad there isn't a sequel. :( I want to read about the continuing adventures of Alexios and Hilarion.

This book is basically about a bunch of assholes who learn to love each other and discover they're more than the assholes they believe themselves to be. It's lovely and I want a sequel and a movie and a miniseries. ( )

This novel is part of the author's famous Eagle of the Ninth series, though written over 20 years after the original trilogy and set in between the second and third novel. A young Roman soldier Alexios Flavius Aquila is disgraced after a failed military engagement on the Danube and as a punishment sent to command a garrison on the bleak northern frontier of the Empire, in what is now Scotland. He gradually earns the respect of these "Frontier Wolves", many of whom have been recruited from local tribes. The garrison exists in relative peace with most of the local tribes, partly due to this local recruitment, but this is threatened by the combination of an inspection of the garrison by an overbearing commander who refuses to compromise with the local customs, and the headstrong actions of the younger brother of the local tribal chief. The results: violence and war, with destruction and death on both sides. Aquila sees comrades and allies killed around him and earns the respect of his men, so much so that when the crisis is over, he refuses a promotion and stays on with his fellow Frontier Wolves. This was as beautifully written as everything by Sutcliff. I didn't find it quite as engaging as the original trilogy, though she sets a very high standard, so this is still a very good novel. It could have done with a glossary of place names, as those used here are not the usual Roman locations likely known to most readers of her works. ( )

Just as amazing as ever after six years and multiple rereads. I'll write a full and proper review someday, but I definitely recommend this if you've enjoyed The Eagle of the Ninth and can handle graphic violence.

With that disclaimer about violence, and the details I included below, I will say that it's an absolutely amazing book. The writing, character development, and male friendships are top-notch. I especially enjoy the protagonist's friendship with his sidekick, and the protagonist's dynamic growth from an immature, unwise young man into a mature and wise leader--he's an amazing protagonist whom I love dearly, and it makes me so proud to see the man he becomes with effort.

It's a very, very violent and bloody book, however, so I don't recommend it to everyone. If you're sensitive to any level of violence, this is not the book for you. It's quite graphic, and it contains large amounts of blood, wounds, mutilated corpses, and killing, all of which are described in detail. I was grateful that the actual moment of killing was almost never shown, but everything before and after is described, including dead bodies of friends. A couple of the deaths in particular are not your average death in battle--they're intimate, personal, and sickening, not to mention gruesome. There's also deaths of animals, if that bothers you.

If you haven't read the first book in this series, Eagle of the Ninth, I highly recommend it. It's best to read that one before the sequels--and the first two books in the series are much, much tamer, omitting the graphic violence without sacrificing intensity, excitement, adventure, and realistic and immersive action scenes.

I wish there were more wholesome adult and young adult adventure novels like this one, with little to no romance. But for now, I'll have to be content with rereads. And Frontier Wolf will always be a favorite of mine. ( )

If this book had been published in the 1950s there would have been some excuse for just another boy's story of a young man's mistake and redemption through service in the Roman Auxiliaries, but by 1980 Sutcliff should have been a bit caught up with and adventure literature that did include women and more than just the subtlest wisps of homoeroticism. Nothing wrong with the story itself beyond cascading co-incidence, but she'd done it before, before it had become her cliché. ( )