Queen Cleopatra

Tros of Samothrace #5

by Talbot Mundy

Shortly after Mundy finished Om he began planning a novel that he called Queen Cleopatra. He put the project aside, and instead produced a massive epic based around one of the supporting cast members of his projected novel, a Greek sailor-adventurer named Tros of Samothrace. Mundy's aim may have been to create interest for his Cleopatra novel in the pages of Adventure (abbreviated A). The series sparked a hot historical debate that ran for a decade. Mundy's revisionism, especially his view of Rome as a proto-fascist state, was ahead of its time. As in original plan, Cleopatra is the main protagonist, but Tros' role may have expanded due to the popularity of the Adventure series. Ends with the assassination of Caesar, and Cleopatra's escape from Rome.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1929

About the author

Talbot Mundy (born William Lancaster Gribbon) was an English-born American writer of adventure fiction. Based for most of his life in the United States, he also wrote under the pseudonym of Walter Galt. Best known as the author of King of the Khyber Rifles and the Jimgrim series, much of his work was published in pulp magazines.

Reviews

[Paul Cornelius · Rating 2 out of 5]

A mostly unenjoyable book, Queen Cleopatra is the volume that bridges the time between two other Mundy works, Tros of Samothrace and Pruple Pirate. Unlike those last two, however, Tros barely appears in Cleopatra. Instead, we mainly get parlor room melodrama between Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, with most of the focus on Caesar. Towards the middle of the book Mundy gets to his philosophy--and will not let it go. For several chapters we get Cleopatra and Caesar and some associates rattling on about the nature of Wisdom and Courage. Caesar has the latter but, according to Mundy's theosophist view, lacks the former. Wisdom begats courage and on and on it goes, in constructing Caesar's tragic nature. Then about three quarters of the way through, Caesar meets up with the hirophants of Philae. The subject among these learned men is, of course, more about Wisdom. Clearly, Mundy intends these chapters as the core of his work. And it just doesn't work. At least not until the end, when Tros suddenly appears to help Cleopatra escape Rome following Caesar's murder. Then, we see things through Tros's eyes, which we should have been able to do for most of the book--it might have saved it.

[Rubén Lorenzo · Rating 3 out of 5]

De nuevo nos encontramos ante una novela de aventuras con ambientación histórica. Esta vez, el marinero Tros cede el protagonismo a César y a la Reina Cleopatra.

Lo mejor de la novela son las descripciones y los personajes; lo peor, esos capítulos de lenguaje pomposo que en realidad no cuentan nada. Además, tal vez porque la saga continúa, no tiene un final climático ni grandes giros argumentales, llegando a desvelar algunos antes de que ocurran.

En resumen, una obra decente que me deja ganas de continuar leyendo, aunque no es ni mucho menos redonda. Si te ha gustado el resto de la saga, esta séptima entrega no te defraudará.