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The sword of Damascus / Richard Blake.

The sword of Damascus / Richard Blake.
Item Information
Shelf Location Collection Volume Ref. Branch Status Due Date Res.
F/BLA
 General Fiction   Gloucester . Available .  
Reserve Title Catalogue Record 341804
. Catalogue Record 341804 ItemInfo Beginning of record . Catalogue Record 341804 ItemInfo Top of page .
Catalogue Information
Field name Details
ISBN 9781444709681 (paperback)
1444709682 (paperback)
Shelf Location F/BLA
Author Blake, Richard, 1960- author.
Title The sword of Damascus / / Richard Blake.
Publication Details London ::
2012. Hodder,,
©2011.
Collation 424 pages ; : 20 cm. ;
Series Aelric 4
General Note Originally published: London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2011.
Abstract/Summary Expansive and triumphant, the Caliphate has stripped Egypt and Syria from the Byzantine Empire. Farther and farther back, the formerly hegemonic Empire has been pushed - once to the very walls of its capital, Constantinople. All that has saved it from destruction is the invention of Greek Fire. Is it a liquid? Is it a gas? Is it a gift from God or the Devil? Or is it a recipe found in an ancient tomb? Few know the answer. But all know how it has broken the Islamic advance and restored Byzantine control of the seas. Yes, without this "miracle weapon," Constantinople would have fallen in the 7th century, rather than the 15th, and the new barbarian kingdoms of Europe would have gone down one by one before the unstoppable cry of Allah al akbar! But what is all this to old Aelric, now in his nineties, and a refugee from the Empire he's spent his life holding together? No longer the Lord Senator Alaric, Brother Aelric is writing his memoirs in the remote wastes of northern England, and waiting patiently for death. His companions now are his students, mysterious Brother Joseph, ghastly Brother Cuthbert, and plenty of hot cider. Then a band of northern barbarians turns up outside the monastery - and then another. Almost before he can draw another cracked, inebriated breath, Aelric is a prisoner of unknown forces, and headed straight back into the snake pit of Mediterranean hatreds. What waits him at the end of his long and dangerous journey is a confrontation that decides the fate of all mankind. Will age have robbed Aelric of his charm, his intelligence, his resourcefulness, or his penchant for homicidal duplicity?
Subject Monasteries -- Fiction
Islamic Empire -- History -- 622-661 -- Fiction.
Historical fiction
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