Gladiator: Fight for Freedom

Gladiator: Fight for Freedom

This is the first book from the new Gladiator series by Simon Scarrow. If you are familiar with the word gladiator, then you will get the idea that the story is set during the Ancient Roman Empire.

The novel is basically about a young boy named Marcus Cornelius Primus. His family is thrown into hell [well, hypothetically speaking] – his father, a former centurion named Titus, is killed, while his mother, Livia, after a failed plan to get away from their captor is turned into a slave in a winery somewhere in Greece. Marcus, who manages to flee meanwhile embark on a quest to save his mother by finding a Roman army general in Rome as instructed by her mother. He leaves his Greek homeland with nothing the clothes that he wears by being a stowaway on a ship. Fate proves to have another plan for Marcus as a sailor aboard the ship notices him to illegally board it and a fight ensues. A man seeing Marcus capabilities to fight finally buys him so that he can be trained as a gladiator in his school. His life as a trainee gladiator now begins, but his hope of saving his mother is rapidly diminishing. Unknowingly, Marcus actually holds a secret that even he does not know, that secret that will threaten Marcus’ life… and with it, the very foundation of the Roman Empire.

Basically, the novel is a children’s novel, and I’m 20 going on 21. So, maybe most of adult novel readers will not find this story a great read. The language is simple enough – it is not the kind of language that you could read in novels like The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, but that does not rob the excitement from reading it. I love the story because I love history. The novel really shows what it’s like to be enrolled and trained as a gladiator and the life during the Roman Empire as a whole. The characters are quite alright. Some proves to be fascinating, like the Athenians and the Spartan. A Celt who is the rival of Marcus is a good antagonist. Marcus being 10 years old during the course of this book is still developing. Perhaps more about him will be revealed on the second book. If you have a lot of free time, you could finish the novel in one setting.

The second book in the series, Street Fighter will be out on the next February.