What awaits Ash and the candidates is deadly-five days of dangerous tests filled with demon fighting, monster slaying, and magical spells-each overseen by a different Egyptian god. At first, Ash can't believe it, but when a floating royal barge takes Ash and his mentor to the bustling, magical, solar-powered capital, things get real. On the night before his twelfth birthday, Ash learns that he was born on the same day as Prince Khufu, which makes him eligible to compete to be the prince's shadow, a coveted position as the friend and bodyguard of the boy destined to be pharaoh of all of Egypt. Growing up in a village in the middle of the desert, Ash thinks his future holds nothing but sand, sun, a few annoying bullies, and lots of boring chores. No one brings more verve, intelligence, and freshness to the novel of the classical age than David Anthony Durham.In this middle grade solarpunk novel set in an alternate Egyptian universe, twelve-year-old Ash must compete and survive to become the shadow-and protector-of the prince.įIVE DEADLY TESTS, ONLY ONE SHADOW PRINCE

In the pages of The Risen-the term the slaves in revolt have adopted for themselves-an entire, teeming world comes into view with great clarity and titanic drama, with nothing less than the future of the ancient world at stake.

In this thrilling and panoramic historical novel we see one of the most storied uprisings of classical times from multiple points of view: Spartacus, the visionary captive and gladiator whose toughness and charisma turn a prison break into a multi-cultural revolt that threatens an empire his consort, the oracular Astera, whose connection to the spirit world and its omens guides the uprising’s progress Nonus, a Roman soldier working both sides of the conflict in a half-adroit, half-desperate attempt to save his life Laelia and Hustus, two shepherd children drawn into the ranks of the slave rebellion Kaleb, the slave secretary to Crassus, the Roman senator and commander saddled with the unenviable task of quashing an insurrection of mere slaves and other players in a vast spectacle of bloodshed, heroism, and treachery. From the author of the widely praised Pride of Carthage, the superb fictional rendering of Hannibal’s epic military campaigns against Carthage’s archenemy Rome, comes the perfect follow-up: an equally superb novel of the legendary gladiator Spartacus and the vast slave revolt he led that came ever so close to bringing Rome, with its supposedly invincible legions, to its knees.

The risen a novel of spartacus