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By the Sword Spoils of Olympus Book 1 eBook Christian Kachel

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By the Sword Spoils of Olympus Book 1 eBook Christian Kachel

Recently, the reign of the Diadochoi or “Successors” to Alexander the Great has become the subject of a slew of scholarly works by historians interested in this formative period of Western history. What followed the death of Alexander, in fact, was an epic struggle for power by his generals worthy of a Hollywood film. “These years, 323-281 BC,” writes historian Robin Waterfield in Dividing the Spoils: The War for Alexander the Great's Empire, “were filled with high adventure, intrigue, passion, assassinations, dynastic marriages, treachery, shifting alliances, and mass slaughter on battlefield after battlefield.” When the “dust of battle” finally cleared, Alexander's far-flung empire had been divided irreparably among three dynastic families: the Ptolemies in Greater Egypt, the Antigonids in Macedon and Greece, and the Seleucids in Syria, Mesopotamia, and Iran.

This remarkable and eventful era also serves as the backdrop to the new novel by first-time author Christian Kachel, appropriately entitled Spoils of Olympus: By the Sword. Kachel, who served three tours of duty in America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has clearly channeled his wartime experiences and accompanying insights into human behavior to create a thrilling and entertaining historical novel. In fact, many of the world-changing events of the early Hellenistic era occurred on those same modern Middle Eastern battlefields encountered by Kachel and his fellow American soldiers! Kandahar, for example, the site of a major American military base in Afghanistan, was originally founded by Alexander the Great some 2,300 years ago!

One important feature of Spoils of Olympus: By the Sword is its accessibility: readers need not be specialists in Hellenistic history to comprehend the historical “backdrop” of this novel. Kachel provides sufficient background information to give context and texture to the exploits of Andrikos, the novel’s main protagonist, without miring down the general reader in the intricacies of Hellenistic history. The greater geopolitical “stage” of the early Hellenistic era is easily comprehended. As noted above, in the aftermath of Alexander the Great’s unexpected death in 323 BC, a monumental struggle for power broke out among his surviving marshals. Political chaos, civil war, and unimaginable bloodshed highlighted the rise and fall of each of these potential world rulers. It took some 40 years of nearly continuous warfare and grand political scheming before an uneasy balance of power arose among the three great successor kingdoms that emerged from the ruins of Alexander’s once unified empire. Each of these, however, would ultimately be conquered by and absorbed into the expansive empire of Rome.

Additionally, Spoils of Olympus: By the Sword is history viewed “from the bottom.” It is thus the tale as told by the infantry grunt Andrikos, a foot-soldier of lowly stock and social status, who serves in the ranks of the formidable Macedonian phalanx. The latter, a slow-moving and disciplined behemoth – sixteen-men deep, with each man wielding an 18-foot pike (or sarissa), struck terror in the hearts of all who came against it, including the fearsome Roman legionnaires. Thus, for the most part, the novel’s protagonist is not privy to the inner sanctums of power, in which the fate of millions of his day is often arbitrarily and capriciously decided by Alexander’s heirs to the throne. (Only at the great gathering of Macedonian warlords at Triparadeisus in 321 BC – in the latter half of the novel – does Andrikos, as a spy, gain a glimpse of the Machiavellian machinations that were the political hallmark of the early Hellenistic era.) Andrikos, therefore, has no illusions about “his place” in the Hellenistic universe: he is a small cog in a very large, unwieldy, and often dangerous machine.

Keeping with his military background, Kachel includes numerous graphic depictions of ancient battles – which are certainly not for the faint of heart! Those readers who have viewed Oliver Stone’s magnificent (and highly accurate) 2004 historical film “Alexander,” which is equally unsparing in its recreation of the Macedonian phalanx in action, have a good inkling of what is in store for them in Spoils of Olympus: By the Sword. Additionally, readers of a more “delicate” and “Victorian” disposition may be shocked by the copious amounts of drinking, swearing, brawling, and fornicating that occur repeatedly throughout the pages of this work. Kachel provides an unabashed and unvarnished depiction of the common soldier’s life on campaign, both in the field camp with its testosterone-charged atmosphere as well as in the seedy bars and brothels of neighboring towns. As they march and fight their way thousands of miles across the eastern Mediterranean in pursuit of glory and booty, Andrikos and his mates thus attempt to live life as “large” as possible. These hardened veterans well know that they may not survive the following day’s battle; many, in fact, do not.

Andrikos’ world eventually becomes even more violent, murky, and dangerous when he is recruited into a shadowy organization sworn to uphold the true heir to Alexander’s throne, his son Alexander IV, who at this stage is still a child. This oath in turn pits Andrikos against an equally deadly clandestine group devoted to the cause of the strongest and most ambitious of the Successors, such as Cassander, Ptolemy and Seleucus. In this nefarious world of espionage, Andrikos learns the tools of the trade – including torture methods – from an experienced and steely pro, Vettias. Kachel’s description of the “enhanced interrogation” techniques used with ruthless efficiency by Vettias on opponents are certainly not for the squeamish. (I myself was forced to put the book down a couple of times while reading through these!) Thus, the claimants to Alexander the Great’s throne use all means possible to secure the greatest prize of all – total domination of the Hellenistic world.

I am deeply impressed with this first-time offering by a new author for a variety of reasons. First, Kachel writes in an unassuming, straightforward, yet mature style (perhaps reflecting his military background), which holds the reader in the grip of his first-person storytelling. Additionally, his ample use of dialogue, both for character development and descriptive purposes, as well as the abbreviated length of the book’s chapters, keep Spoils of Olympus: By the Sword moving at a truly brisk pace, like an army on the march. Secondly, the story, told through the eyes of the young Greek protagonist Andrikos, is itself an engaging one at a number of levels. Readers, for example, witness the transformation of a self-doubting and “at risk” youth (to borrow modern terminology) to a hardened but heroic veteran of the bloody and tumultuous wars of Alexander’s Successors. In this regard, Spoils of Olympus: By the Sword is highly reminiscent of Stephan Crane’s famous wartime novel Red Badge of Courage. Kachel’s tale of Andrikos’ “coming-of-age,” moreover, is set against a backdrop of continual warfare, political turmoil, and inexorable espionage – all of which are interesting in and of themselves. Lastly, and most importantly to me, Kachel clearly has done his historical research and is “spot on” in capturing the chaotic but formative birth-pangs of a “new world order” – the Hellenistic Age (323-31 BC). As a former doctoral candidate in ancient history (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), I am highly intolerant of sloppy scholarship. In this regard, I can find no fault in Kachel’s depiction of the early Hellenistic era or in the many fascinating characters who populate his novel.

I thus highly recommend Spoils of Olympus: By the Sword to all aficionados of historical novels, fellow ancient historians, all armchair warriors, and anyone in search of a “good read.” By the Sword is also the first novel in Kachel’s proposed The Spoils of Olympus series and introduces the reader to Andrikos, the story's principal protagonist. I certainly look forward to future installments of this series and fervently hope that they will inspire deeper interest in an often overlooked and even maligned period in Western History – the Hellenistic Age.


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By the Sword Spoils of Olympus Book 1 eBook Christian Kachel Reviews

I originally reviewed this for the Historical Novel Review.

It is 322 BC and the Macedonian Empire is reeling in the wake of Alexander’s death. Civil war looms as his generals and heirs position themselves to replace their God King – or tear off a piece of the empire for themselves.

Andrikos, a young, fatherless man, faces troubles of his own. He is lured into the seedy underworld of his Ionian hometown, and in his first foray into criminal life he finds himself in far deeper waters than he ever expected. Worse, his family is at risk because of his actions. His only recourse is to join the army, leaving one set of dangers for the larger ones rocking the empire.

After weeks of brutal training – and even worse self-recrimination – he catches the eye of an agent who is part of a secret brotherhood dedicated to the preservation of Alexander’s heirs and legacy. Though he is reluctant to leave his new mates, Andrikos is soon immersed in a clandestine world more secretive than the criminal world he fled and far more deadly than the life as a phalangite offers. And this time, his own contribution could affect the fate of the empire itself.

In this debut novel, Kachel brings the reader on a gritty and powerful foray into Macedon’s conquered realm. It is thoroughly researched, and it has the undeniable authenticity of a soldier (Kachel) writing of a soldier’s life. Andrikos makes for a very sympathetic character, as a young man overwhelmed by his circumstances but eager to rise to the challenge. Recommended, but with a content warning graphic violence, torture and sexual content. The formatting and cover were well done, and the scattered typos did little to kick this reviewer out of the story.
"By the Sword" is an atmospheric and character driven coming-of-age story that takes place in the years immediately following the untimely death of Alexander the Great. The news of his death traveled quickly throughout the land. He was born to the King of Macedon and was tutored as a noble and later by Aristotle. When he died, his kingdom was one of the largest the ancient world had known—more than 2 million square miles. His unexpected death left a vacuum of power and chaos. Civil wars and power grabs from Alexander’s generals tore this great empire apart. This is when Kachel’s enthralling Hellenic military epic begins.

Andrikos grew up during Alexander’s rule. Now everything has changed. The story begins in his village when he is an errant adolescent more interested in his next drink or round of sex. He is in no hurry to have the responsibilities of an adult. Kachel illustrates the ages-old influence that peers may have on young men and how they can affect them and their actions—changing their lives forever—for better or for worse. Young Andrikos hangs out with the wrong crowd and is swept up in their illicit behaviors and actions. He finds that he must flee his family and his home to save himself from an unintentional crime—forever changing him and his life.

Andrikos has no real plans for his life. Suddenly he finds that the only option he has is to join the armies of Alexander to escape his past. However, he was unprepared for the brutal conditioning and the heartlessness of the recruiters whose job it is to ferret out the weak from the strong. Kachel vividly portrays these horrific and brutal experiences through the eyes and heart of Andrikos as he undergoes the physical and mental conditioning that is forced upon him and his fellow recruits. There is no turning back. The only way out is death or fight to live another day.

Kachel captures what could happen when trained killers are left to their own devices and their own greed and bloodlust without guidance and a chain of command in this satisfying read. He also brings forward the importance of having a mentor can be to the young and inexperienced. Vettias is a confident and self-reliant warrior with a complicated background in gathering intelligence. He recognizes potential in Andrikos and takes on the mantle of becoming his mentor and teacher. Under Vettias’ guidance, Andrikos develops and matures into more than a foot soldier as he learns of honor and integrity, of treachery and deceit, and of friendship and loyalty.

"By the Sword" is a well-researched military historical epic where Christian Kachel, the author, portrays the effect that chaotic, warring times have on women and children, on the weak and infirmed, and the men who are caught up in the violent and ruthless swells of battles, and then the heartrending aftermath that follows even on the heels of victory.

One cannot help but think of the millions of young people who are going through their own coming of age throes in the heat of battles and skirmishes that are taking place at this very moment. Kachel, who has served three tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, writes with compelling adroitness about what Andrikos experiences as he makes his journey from an oblivious youth to a young man whose eyes have been opened to the cruelty of war but still manages to maintain his empathy for his fellow man and holds on to his humanity.

Be warned that Kachel does not whitewash the horrors of war, nor the rape and brutish treatment of women and children, nor the screams of pain and the blank eyes of starvation in the telling of his epic.

Christian Kachel’s "By the Sword" is a fine debut novel that explores the little known, but fascinating, age of post-Alexandrian Greece. Its intriguing interwoven storylines of a young man’s coming of age, of alliances and espionage, and of harrowing battles scenes will be sure to captivate readers and keep them turning the pages even as they wince and grimace with Kachel’s no-holds- barred descriptions in this well-researched historical narrative. We look forward to reading more from Kachel about what awaits Andrikos in his next adventure.

Historical Fiction Military, Classical Age
Targeted Audience New Adult, military history buffs, Classical Studies
Recently, the reign of the Diadochoi or “Successors” to Alexander the Great has become the subject of a slew of scholarly works by historians interested in this formative period of Western history. What followed the death of Alexander, in fact, was an epic struggle for power by his generals worthy of a Hollywood film. “These years, 323-281 BC,” writes historian Robin Waterfield in Dividing the Spoils The War for Alexander the Great's Empire, “were filled with high adventure, intrigue, passion, assassinations, dynastic marriages, treachery, shifting alliances, and mass slaughter on battlefield after battlefield.” When the “dust of battle” finally cleared, Alexander's far-flung empire had been divided irreparably among three dynastic families the Ptolemies in Greater Egypt, the Antigonids in Macedon and Greece, and the Seleucids in Syria, Mesopotamia, and Iran.

This remarkable and eventful era also serves as the backdrop to the new novel by first-time author Christian Kachel, appropriately entitled Spoils of Olympus By the Sword. Kachel, who served three tours of duty in America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has clearly channeled his wartime experiences and accompanying insights into human behavior to create a thrilling and entertaining historical novel. In fact, many of the world-changing events of the early Hellenistic era occurred on those same modern Middle Eastern battlefields encountered by Kachel and his fellow American soldiers! Kandahar, for example, the site of a major American military base in Afghanistan, was originally founded by Alexander the Great some 2,300 years ago!

One important feature of Spoils of Olympus By the Sword is its accessibility readers need not be specialists in Hellenistic history to comprehend the historical “backdrop” of this novel. Kachel provides sufficient background information to give context and texture to the exploits of Andrikos, the novel’s main protagonist, without miring down the general reader in the intricacies of Hellenistic history. The greater geopolitical “stage” of the early Hellenistic era is easily comprehended. As noted above, in the aftermath of Alexander the Great’s unexpected death in 323 BC, a monumental struggle for power broke out among his surviving marshals. Political chaos, civil war, and unimaginable bloodshed highlighted the rise and fall of each of these potential world rulers. It took some 40 years of nearly continuous warfare and grand political scheming before an uneasy balance of power arose among the three great successor kingdoms that emerged from the ruins of Alexander’s once unified empire. Each of these, however, would ultimately be conquered by and absorbed into the expansive empire of Rome.

Additionally, Spoils of Olympus By the Sword is history viewed “from the bottom.” It is thus the tale as told by the infantry grunt Andrikos, a foot-soldier of lowly stock and social status, who serves in the ranks of the formidable Macedonian phalanx. The latter, a slow-moving and disciplined behemoth – sixteen-men deep, with each man wielding an 18-foot pike (or sarissa), struck terror in the hearts of all who came against it, including the fearsome Roman legionnaires. Thus, for the most part, the novel’s protagonist is not privy to the inner sanctums of power, in which the fate of millions of his day is often arbitrarily and capriciously decided by Alexander’s heirs to the throne. (Only at the great gathering of Macedonian warlords at Triparadeisus in 321 BC – in the latter half of the novel – does Andrikos, as a spy, gain a glimpse of the Machiavellian machinations that were the political hallmark of the early Hellenistic era.) Andrikos, therefore, has no illusions about “his place” in the Hellenistic universe he is a small cog in a very large, unwieldy, and often dangerous machine.

Keeping with his military background, Kachel includes numerous graphic depictions of ancient battles – which are certainly not for the faint of heart! Those readers who have viewed Oliver Stone’s magnificent (and highly accurate) 2004 historical film “Alexander,” which is equally unsparing in its recreation of the Macedonian phalanx in action, have a good inkling of what is in store for them in Spoils of Olympus By the Sword. Additionally, readers of a more “delicate” and “Victorian” disposition may be shocked by the copious amounts of drinking, swearing, brawling, and fornicating that occur repeatedly throughout the pages of this work. Kachel provides an unabashed and unvarnished depiction of the common soldier’s life on campaign, both in the field camp with its testosterone-charged atmosphere as well as in the seedy bars and brothels of neighboring towns. As they march and fight their way thousands of miles across the eastern Mediterranean in pursuit of glory and booty, Andrikos and his mates thus attempt to live life as “large” as possible. These hardened veterans well know that they may not survive the following day’s battle; many, in fact, do not.

Andrikos’ world eventually becomes even more violent, murky, and dangerous when he is recruited into a shadowy organization sworn to uphold the true heir to Alexander’s throne, his son Alexander IV, who at this stage is still a child. This oath in turn pits Andrikos against an equally deadly clandestine group devoted to the cause of the strongest and most ambitious of the Successors, such as Cassander, Ptolemy and Seleucus. In this nefarious world of espionage, Andrikos learns the tools of the trade – including torture methods – from an experienced and steely pro, Vettias. Kachel’s description of the “enhanced interrogation” techniques used with ruthless efficiency by Vettias on opponents are certainly not for the squeamish. (I myself was forced to put the book down a couple of times while reading through these!) Thus, the claimants to Alexander the Great’s throne use all means possible to secure the greatest prize of all – total domination of the Hellenistic world.

I am deeply impressed with this first-time offering by a new author for a variety of reasons. First, Kachel writes in an unassuming, straightforward, yet mature style (perhaps reflecting his military background), which holds the reader in the grip of his first-person storytelling. Additionally, his ample use of dialogue, both for character development and descriptive purposes, as well as the abbreviated length of the book’s chapters, keep Spoils of Olympus By the Sword moving at a truly brisk pace, like an army on the march. Secondly, the story, told through the eyes of the young Greek protagonist Andrikos, is itself an engaging one at a number of levels. Readers, for example, witness the transformation of a self-doubting and “at risk” youth (to borrow modern terminology) to a hardened but heroic veteran of the bloody and tumultuous wars of Alexander’s Successors. In this regard, Spoils of Olympus By the Sword is highly reminiscent of Stephan Crane’s famous wartime novel Red Badge of Courage. Kachel’s tale of Andrikos’ “coming-of-age,” moreover, is set against a backdrop of continual warfare, political turmoil, and inexorable espionage – all of which are interesting in and of themselves. Lastly, and most importantly to me, Kachel clearly has done his historical research and is “spot on” in capturing the chaotic but formative birth-pangs of a “new world order” – the Hellenistic Age (323-31 BC). As a former doctoral candidate in ancient history (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), I am highly intolerant of sloppy scholarship. In this regard, I can find no fault in Kachel’s depiction of the early Hellenistic era or in the many fascinating characters who populate his novel.

I thus highly recommend Spoils of Olympus By the Sword to all aficionados of historical novels, fellow ancient historians, all armchair warriors, and anyone in search of a “good read.” By the Sword is also the first novel in Kachel’s proposed The Spoils of Olympus series and introduces the reader to Andrikos, the story's principal protagonist. I certainly look forward to future installments of this series and fervently hope that they will inspire deeper interest in an often overlooked and even maligned period in Western History – the Hellenistic Age.