Christian Jacq, Ramses: The Battle of Kadesh, English translation by Dorothy S. Blair, New York: Pocket Books, 1999. About once a month, I cross both continent and ocean to China on business. This gives me regular opportunities to browse in airport bookstores for the latest in historical fiction. While partial to stories of 'fighting sail,' I also keep a 'weather eye' out for tales of ancient and medieval adventuring. Earlier this month, I found a book called Ramses: The Battle of Kadesh in the new Hong Kong Int'l Airport. Originally published in French in 1996, with English version published in 1999, it is one of a series of five novels about the Pharaoh Rameses II. The story line in this novel involves primarily the military build up in both Egypt and Hatti leading to the clash at Kadesh (or Qadesh, if you prefer) in 1300 B.C.E. which established the dividing line between the spheres of influence of these two major empires of the Mid-East. Sub-plots include Hittite subversion of the Egyptian throne using spies and traitors, the rivalry over the inheritance of the Hittite throne (surprise, surprise), the romantic relationship between Pharaoh and his Queen (ho-hum), and even the threat of Moses who in this tale is still wandering around the Sinai trying to "find himself." Briefly stated, the characters are two-dimensional with no evolution, development or growth; the good guys are very good, and the bad guys are just bad - primarily of evil intent but insufficiently skilled to really pull off their skullduggery. The dialogue is unsophisticated, and the love scenes are trite. The various difficulties faced by the heroes and heroines are tossed up and knocked down one by one with a facility that prevents any absorption of interest on the part of the reader. Also, magical events occur at odd points, making a story into more of a rambling of inconsistencies. There are only two battle episodes. The first, near the beginning of the story, has Rameses leading an army of charioteers, foot archers and foot spears to recapture more than ten walled cities and fortresses in the lands of Canaan and Amurru. Apparently, these several city-states, each a petty kingdom, had previously accepted vassal status in relation to Egypt, but recently had yielded to the bribes and threats of the Hittites and renounced that association. What happens next demonstrates clearly that the author has absolutely no idea how ancient warfare actually worked. He has the Egyptian army surround each walled city, and slaughter all the defender's archers, i.e., all the archers who are up on the walls and shooting down at the invaders from the protection of embattlements, by archery alone (!). Even worse, very few Egyptians are killed or injured during these repeated stationary engagements (!). After each such exchange of missiles, the defenders surrender and open their gates. Kinda' pathetic, eh, what? As for the Battle of Kadesh itself, it occupies 11 of the 374 pages of the book. The author has the tactical evolutions vaguely correct, but follows Ramses' own spin-doctors by attributing the Egyptian victory entirely to Ramses' single-handed sublime courage, fighting skill, and divine protection…. Oh, yes - since his entire army has apparently chickened out, he is aided only by a pet lion whose fighting ability is greater than the entire Egyptian Royal Guard (!). This is definitely a book for wargamers to ignore. It would certainly irritate Mark Healy, the author of Qadesh 1300BC: Clash of the Warrior Kings (Osprey Campaign Series No. 22). Save your money . . .. Back to Saga #75 Table of Contents Back to Saga List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by Terry Gore This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com