Colleen McCollough's Masters of Rome as a set for Kindle

Brian G Turner

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Just noticed that Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series is available as a set for Kindle, for just £15:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00GW5GLKA/?tag=brite-21

It's only the first four books, though - it doesn't appear to include October Horse, which concludes the main canon, or Cleopatra, which is more of an appendix to the Masters series - still good, but all the characters we're used to have pretty much gone by then.

However, I can heartily recommend it to anyone with an interest in anything Roman - or who has the patience to read what I think is the greatest epic fantasy ever written.

The first book can seem a little long-winded at times, but this series really hits it's stride with the second book, when we see Marius and Sulla dominate the story proper.

I know some people will protest that historical fiction isn't fantasy, but I would strongly disagree - IMO there's little difference between low-magic fantasy and low-magic historical fiction, other than the former claims occur in a secondary world, while the latter occurs in ours.

Don't think that because we know anything of history that this makes it easy to write good historical fiction - Colleen McCullough's characterisations are extraordinary. Marius, Sulla, Piglet, Ceasar, Cato, Cicero, Pompey, Crassus - truly she give these figures life like no one else ever has, and more than anything I've seen in most spec fiction.
 
Thanks for the heads up on this, Brian - I've been wanting to read this series for a while.

It's a bit annoying that the publishers seem to have withdrawn the individual Kindle editions, though. I'd already bought the first book to test the water, so to speak, and would have gone back for them one at a time. Now I have to buy the first book again in order to get the others (fortunately I got it in the Christmas sale, so it was cheap!).
 
Are you sure the individual Kindle books are no longer available??
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007AGAUKM/?tag=brite-21

Yeah, I searched for them earlier on. The collection you linked to (books I to V - Amazon have got their description wrong) has got some negative comments because of what they've done.

Bizarrely, the third book is available individually, and the one you've linked to, and Antony and Cleopatra, but not books 1, 2, 4 or 5:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_6_7?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=colleen%20mccullough%20masters%20of%20rome%20series&sprefix=colleen%2Cstripbooks%2C266#/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=colleen+mccullough+masters+of+rome&rh=n%3A341677031%2Ck%3Acolleen+mccullough+masters+of+rome
 
There's a comment appeared on a couple of the reviews on Amazon:


"Hello, I'm the publisher and would like to assure you that it was neither our choice, nor the author's to take the individual books down. We hope they will be back available for purchase in the next few days."


Curious. So perhaps the individual titles will reappear soon.

The comment was made by 'Nicolas at HoZ', who - if it's genuine - may be Nicolas Cheetham, digital publisher and Head of Zeus Publishing.


Anyway, I bought the collection and am now reading The First Man in Rome :)
 
The individual Kindle editions of each of the first five books in the series are now back up on Amazon :)
 

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