Amazons

[Al Jackson]

In my travels I have noticed a lot of ancient artifacts featuring Amazons. (Especially in Italy.)
(There was sure a damned lot of artistic work put into portrayal of Amazons , wonder why?)
Not sure one could create a 'historical' novel about Amazons , still I know of only one fairly good one:
Steven Pressfield's Last of the Amazons. I read this on the strength of Pressfield's Gates of Fire (the best historical novel I ever read about the Battle of Thermopile). I loved Pressfield's world building for Amazons but I found the narrative a bit labored and he seemed to struggle with the story. It is the Theseus and the Amazons , probably a bit of legendary historical fiction in itself.
I have never found any good serious other Amazon novels , tho more may be out there?
I think the whole socio-ecomics of a real Amazon society would have a ton of soap opera around it as well as ripping yarns.*

* The recent Wonder Woman movie put me into a frame of mind about this since the whole sequence in Themyscira was the best part of the film and put my mind a-thrill about what would a real serious Amazon society really be like?

 

[hitmouse]

One of the Flashman novels has Harry embroiled with the West African slave trade and, if I remember correctly, the king of Dahomey's amazon bodyguard.

 

[Graymalkin]

In my travels I have noticed a lot of ancient artifacts featuring Amazons. (Especially in Italy.)

where else? Sounds like you've been around. In the nicest possible way of course.
I see Wiki mentions a reference to Amazons in Libya at an earlier time.
Where legend merges into history. The bronze age period really fires me up.

 

[Al Jackson]

where else? Sounds like you've been around. In the nicest possible way of course.
I see Wiki mentions a reference to Amazons in Libya at an earlier time.
Where legend merges into history. The bronze age period really fires me up.

I started noticing in travels to Italy , ancient Romans sure had a thing about Amazons.
Of course also on Greek Pottery.
It was really struck me with the huge Amazon frieze form The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus which is in the British Museum. Old Greece and Rome sure had a bit of an obsession about them.
Wikipedia lists only a handful of historical fiction based on Amazons , only read Pressfield's Last of the Amazons. I am bit surprised it is a rich sounding story … would like to see more non-comic-book Amazon fiction, based on the mythology and maybe the archelogy.

 

[svalbard]

I meant to reply to this last month but forgot. Mary Renault's The Bull From The Sea features the Amazons. The book is a sequel to The King Must Die her retelling of the story of Theseus. I absolutely adore these books. Her prose is brilliant and I would urge you to check her other books out as well especially The Last of the Wine.