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In Review

22 November 2008 00:29 BST

Rome Burning by Sophia McDougall

Orion hardback, out July 22nd, 576 pages, £12.99.

In a nutshell…

A Roman disaster

What's it all about?

Continuing on from her last novel Romanitas, McDougall again submerges her readers into her heady alternate modern day Roman world, where class divides and war are imminent. The story begins with Emperor Faustus falling ill, leaving heir to the throne Marcus Novius in charge.

With the aid Una, her brother Sulien and Varius, Marcus must take command of the greatest power on Earth and lead the Romans into peaceful territory. However danger lurks everywhere, most notably in the form of the evil Drusus, whose ambitions of taking the throne threaten the lives of not just Marcus and his friends, but all who live in Roman lands.

Who's it by?

This is Sophia McDougall's second book in the planned Romanitas trilogy, based on the idea that the Roman Empire has survived to the present time. She has written two plays, Jacob's Children and The Ribbon Cage and lives in London.

As an example

"The Roman people need to know that no one is above the law."

"Her bones seemed somehow painful to themselves; her cold blood seeped slackly through her aching veins. There was a chill in her flesh that would not disperse, even in sleep…"

Likelihood of becoming a Hollywood blockbuster

If The Da Vinci Code is anything to go by, there is clearly a market for long and involved movies that don’t make sense and are unsatisfying in the end.

So is it any good?

While this book isn't good, it isn't bad either. This is not to fault McDougall’s writing ability or her use of prose; she writes with ease and in an extremely descriptive manner which sucks the reader into noticing the finer details and imaging the bigger picture.

The images of fire throughout the novel add to the notion that the world is going to hell and punctuate the story at regular intervals, putting both the characters and readers under an enveloping and engulfing blanket of smoke which threatens to clear only once the story is over. The characters, however, are intriguing but not worthy of any real emotional investment. The exception is Una, who perhaps would have been better as the main centre of the book. The rest remain as 2D as the paper they’re printed on, which is disappointing since there could be so much more done with them.

My biggest gripe with the book is the fact that as readers, we’re supposed to imagine that the Roman Empire is still flourishing today, much the same as it was is in the past. This is the most unsettling and annoying part of the novel. Are we to convincingly believe that the Roman Empire could stay so similar after all these years? The answer is that there just isn’t enough to make us feel it, and this is what ultimately let’s Rome Burning down.

4 /10

Louise Cadell