Lord of the Two Lands

By: Judith Tarr

Narrated by: John McLain

In 336 B.C., Egypt lies under the yoke of Persia. But a spirit of fire has risen to blaze across the world. His name is Alexander, and he is the destined conqueror of the Persian Empire - and the king foretold of Egypt. Meriamon, daughter of the last Pharaoh, journeys out of the Two Lands to find him and bring him home. From the battlefield of Issus to the siege of Tyre, from the founding of Alexandria to the divine revelations of Siwah, Meriamon both leads and follows her divine charge, who becomes her friend and her chosen king.

©1993, 2011 Judith Tarr (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Fun, but a little dated

The romance thread is a bit dated . However, the portrait of Alexander's early Asian campaign and time in Egypt is great fum. The viewpoint character, an Egyptian priestess and seer, creates a unique vision of the historical events. The magic system is interesting and key to the plot.

go back in time.

Takes all your senses to ancient Egypt. Sight, sound, feel, emotions. You are There!

Great book, bad narrator

If you like history, fantasy and a bit of romance, this might be the right book for you. The author created a universe full of magic of the old Egypt around the real events of Alexander's military campaigne to the Middle East and Egypt.

Despite meeting Alexandre in the book almost all the time, he is not the main character. The main role of the book play his decissions, which change lives of people in his army. The reader looks at Alexandre by the eyes of Meriamon, the Egyptian priestest who is a bit of a mystery for everyone - Alexandre, his army, her bodyguard and sometimes even for herself. Even though it sounds a little vague, I really enjoyed Meriamon's character, because she is strong, hardheaded, sometimes pretty weird, but totally herself.

I've read this book at least 4 times. To me it's already classics and I've been coming back to it every few years. Even though I'm looking at it with much more critical eyes these days, undoubtedly, in a few years a time will come, when I will have to read Lord of the two lands again. It's one of my most favourite books. That being said, I must admit that the narrator kinda spoiled the experience for me this time. The narrator, trying to change his voice tones to sound like woman, makes him sound like 80 old woman instead of 20 something. At the beginning I was genuinely mad and thought about returning it and rather read it in classical form again. In the end I endured. But I don't think I would want to hear anything from this narrator ever again.

Unique, Fascinating, and Deserving of Respect

Although romanticized and fantastical, "Lord of the Two Lands" is a great story imagined around a solid core of history. It is by far the best of the Judith Tarr books that I'm familiar with, and I think it deserves more recognition and readership that it has generally received.

This is a highly fictionalized account of the events of 333-332 BCE, the two years following the Battle of Issus, where Darius the Great of Persia was defeated by the young Alexander of Macedon. Darius fled, leaving behind vast amounts of treasure, many concubines, and his mother. Into the battle's aftermath walks the fictional Princess Meriamon, a physician and "singer of the Temple of Amon"--and the only living child of Nectenabo (a historical figure, the last native Egyptian to be Pharaoh). In this telling, Nectenabo was a "seer" who 20 years before had "witnessed" the birth of Alexander in his scrying bowl, and believed the Macedonian infant would become a great warrior and was destined to save Egypt from the Persians.

The 20 years have passed, Nectenabo is dead at the hands of the Persians, and Meriamon arrives at the Macedonian camp. She appears to be alone except for the cat Sekhmet. But she is followed by a supernatural Shadow who protects her, and Sekhmet may (or may not) be more than just a cat. Her mission is to insure that Alexander's next move is to Egypt, where he is to overthrow the Persian rulers (satraps) there.

The story portrays four historical events in Alexander the Great's early conquests: two brutal sieges (those of Tyre and of the fortress of Gaza); the inspiration and initial planning for the city of Alexandria at the mouth of the Nile; and Alexander's journey to the oracle of Zeus/Amon at Siwah, an oasis deep in the Libyan desert. Meriamon's participation in the sieges and city architecture is peripheral, but these historical events as told through her eyes are vivid and exciting. The last part of the book describes the pilgrimage to Siwah, where Alexander expects the oracle to reveal his true lineage (his mother having hinted to him and others that he was the son of a god rather than of King Philip of Macedon).

Historically, Alexander and a chosen company of Hellenes did indeed make this grueling desert trek, and for that reason, but the details of the journey are not known. Nor is it known what Alexander learned from the oracle; he went alone into the presence chamber, and never told anyone (at least on the record) what happened there, although he is said to have been "satisfied" with the answers revealed to him. The final section of "Lord of the Two Lands" imagines the journey's details, and in this novel it is Meriamon's supernatural connection to the gods of Egypt that allows the Macedonian company to survive. Their survival bonds the group of Hellenes irrevocably to "the black lands," one of the men in the group being Alexander's general Ptolemy (Google Ptolemy I).

In fact the ending section went a bit over the top for my taste, with men magically surviving (among many other terrors) sandstorms that should have ripped the flesh from their bones. Overall, however, I commend the author's writing and imagination. The narrator is so-so; I upped the speed to 1.1 to overcome his pauses and plodding, but once I did that the story moved right along.