[.ca] Tribune (ISBN 0451209044)

Very Enjoyable Historical Fiction:
I really liked it and am looking forward to the next Patrick Larkin book. Hopefully a sequel!

The Tribune is a Five Star Page Turner!:
I stayed up all night because I couldn't put down this exciting book about the adventures of a Roman Tribune with a complicated conscience. Larkin's expertise in Roman military history is as apparent as his skill at weaving together a thrilling mystery. The closer I came to the conclusion, the slower I read because I didn't want to finish it. Ignore the naysayers who seem to have nothing better to do than try to cut down well written original novels--The Tribune is a hit that would make a terrific series. . .Way to go, Larkin!

I came, I saw, I desired a refund:
Ah, a bona fide bad book, I was starting to fear that I'd lost my touch for picking the very worst novel on the shelf. First off, the publishers should only be charging half price, as they've very kindly spoiled the first 200 pages for you with their description- and if they can succinctly set up all those plot threads in just a few paragraphs why does it take Larkin so tediously long? The Tribune leads you to believe it had a lot of story potential at one time, until the author decided to essentially novelize a bad tv movie, complete with requisite character clichés. It's got blood, sex, swords, and horses and it will still bore you to tears with the relentless predictability that it offers. Will Lucius win over his Celtic troops? Are all characters that disagree with him villains? Will that annoying, precocious kid end up saving the day? Gee, you think? Most annoying is the overall writing style. Larkin confuses honor with brains and gives Lucius one but not the other, making him righteous but not smart or even remotely likable; the character is incapable of talking about his horse without the preface "My Spanish mare, Dancer", until you start to wonder if he's reminding you or himself. The two big 'surpises' are completely cheesy, with the main villain describing his entire plan in ridiculous detail to the captured hero and then some divine intervention (literally) to get the story out of the dead-end it had been written into; the last two pages should be torn out and destroyed, unread, upon purchase. The dialog and ensuing melodrama of the love story is straight out of a bad bodice ripper and the sex as written would take about a minute and a half in real time, from foreplay to finish; I felt very sorry for the one-dimensional heroine. Battle scenes, ostensibly the whole point of writing military fiction, are confusing messes where you have no sense of where people are, how the terrain is set up, and what exactly is happening. The Tribune combines the worst bits of its genre and the end result is a bland collage of triteness, with plot twists on par with Scooby-Doo and all the historical accuracy of an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess.

A weak attempt to tell a Roman Empire Adventure:
'The Tribune' is a weak attempt to tell a story of suspense, mystery, murder and political intrigues with the Roman Empire as a background. Some people - even some critics - commented that this book made for the Roman Empire what 'The Name of The Rose', written by Umberto Eco, made for the Medieval Age. That's really an absurd consideration. In fact, 'The Tribune' is one of these books which offered to its readers a compelling start but by and by the story misses the point and you really feel that the author loses his pace and objective along the way. The plot is developed with a peasant and unsatisfactory twists and turns and, in the end, the outcome proves that Mr. Larkin doesn't know what to do with his own premises. Anyway, if you're not a very critical reader, maybe you can find some amusement with this book. But if you really want to read a good ficcional account of the Roman Empire or some other great Ancient Civilization, I recommend you to take a look at 'The First Man in Rome' by Cullen McCullough or 'Gates of Fire' by Steven Pressfield. Compared with this two titles, I'm sorry to say that 'The Tribune' is just an ordinary stuff.

A good story and a fast, enjoyable read.:
I'm fortunate to have read the novel before reading the reviews. Sometimes too much is given away in reviews and the entire story and plot are blurted out by the reviewing critics. At any rate, The Tribune is an enjoyable, fast moving tale about a man of honor, the Roman Tribune Lucius Aurelius Valens. I thoroughly enjoyed the 392 page novel, especially the ending, and I'd like to see a continuation of the story depicting the times after Valen's discovery. I liked it, 4.5 stars.