City of the Horizon

by Anton Gill

Book Overview

Egypt during the 18th Dynasty, about 1350 B.C. Akhenaten, the reformist pharaoh, has died, and his successor, the child pharaoh Tutankhamun, is effectively controlled by political schemers with no... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 193339711X
• ISBN13: 9781933397115
• Release Date: August 2005
• Publisher: Felony & Mayhem
• Length: 172 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.7" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

Gill creates a suspenseful series

"City of the Horizon" is the first in a three-book series by Anton Gill. For Ancient Egyptologist whodunit fans, Gill's Huy the Scribe mysteries are first rate. Set in the immediate aftermath of Akhenaten the Heretic's death at the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty, when the whole civilized world seems to be crumbling at the speed of light, "City of the Horizon" introduces us to an out-of-work scribe named Huy, discredited due to his allegiance to Akhenaten. Down on his luck and with few choices (none of them admirable), a dispirited Huy is literally plucked off the banks of the Nile by a school mate friend Amotju, who has a problem. Knowing Huy's traits from childhood, Amotju convinces the despairing Huy to help him: it's the ages-old story of jealousy and romance. Amotju is an incredibly wealthy man who has some of the eyes and ears of the power structure of the time. Still, the story goes much deeper as soon Huy finds himself in that tangled web we weave Sir Walter Scott so clearly wrote about: a murder here, a robbery there, thefts, political and religious intrigues,the secret police, and more murders, just as the new boy pharoah Tutankhamun comes into power. Amotju seems to be a saving grace for Huy, who literally seems to be brought back to life with these opportunities to help his love-stricken friend. It is no surprise that Gill creates a well-written, well-thought out storyline and he especially triumphs with the character of Huy. The author's penchant for landscape and atmosphere seems to capture the time and place, at least as perhaps lay readers of the period might imagine them. His plot development moves repidly and surely to a convincing climax and ending. Readers will readily want to move on to the next episode, "City of Dreams" and then the last "City of the Dead." All are excellent reads.

At last!

This great series was orginally published by Bloomsbury Publishing in England in the early 1990s. The only fault is that the author leaves you wanting more stories. And in fact, I understand that there are at least 2 or 3 more books beyond the first three, but where? I hope the new publisher will coax the remaining books out the author. This is just too good an author not to have all the books available.

Concept excellent, wish it were lengthier

The author Anton Gill has so far written three rather short books in this series about Huy the ex-Scribe. I wish they were lengthier, meatier, and perhaps the 3 were 2 books? The three are the equivilent of three long short stories or short novellas. But enjoyable and I love the concept. Huy was once a true believer in the era of Akhenaten, who, at the start of City of the Horizon has died, and with him all his radical beliefs in one god, the sun disc the Aten. Now, the old gods are being brought back (if they were ever really gone) by the suppressed priesthood and the old guard leadership, including former followers of Akhenaten, his father-in-law, Ay, and his general Horemheb. They know what the people want and how devestating Akhenaten's reign was on Egypt's economy, world status and how he lost part of the empire through his passivity. Therefore true followers like Huy are being put to death or exiled if they were high enough in the government, or, in his case, forbidden to ever again practice the only skill he knows, that of the scribe. He will always be watched and marked by the government as an untrustworthy person, and at any time could be "taken away". The atmosphere Mr Gill paints is one that is reminiscent of Stalinist Russia or Maoist China, where everyone is turning in their "friends" and denying they ever "believed" in the former god-king Akhenaten and his great heresy. It is also like the days of the Reformation in England when it went back and forth from Protestantism to Catholicism and people on both sides persecuted the others and burned them at the stake, depending on who was in power. When in power Akhenaten had been ruthless, killing people who worshipped the old gods, driving out the priests of the old gods into hiding, and now his followers are paid back. Huy, a small time functionary,confused now about what he believes and why he was ever caught up in the Akhenaten mania as a young man, is in the middle of all this, but a minor meaningless person, unimportant, not worth killing or exilling, but left no longer earn a living. His wife has taken his son and has left him due to his situation, his life is destroyed due to events far above him. I don't want to spoil the plot, but after this great setting of the scene, the actual "mystery" isn't too memorable. I wish, again, Mr Gill had carried on this basic situtatin, Huy finding his way in the chaos that Egypt was in for the decades after Akhenaten fell, and written one great book, or if a series, then something more fulfilling than this. To jump ahead, they are worth sticking with. #3,City of the Dead, was excellent.