It took me more like 2 weeks to read this, I haven't just ploughed through this novel in 2 days...
Title: Conqueror
Author: Conn Iggulden
Publication Date: 2011
Genre: Fantasy, Historical
ISBN: 978-0-00-727114-6
Ogedai Khan is dead - the shamans no longer able to fend off the weakness of the body that plagued his Khanate. With no heir named, his wife stood as regent until such a time that a gathering of those with a claim by blood to the Khanate. Eventually, Guyuk, the son of Ogedai emerges to claim the Khanate, with a few grisly murders behind him.
Anyone worth their salt in Mongol history will tell you that the name to watch for here has already cropped up a few times within the earlier novels (Bones of the Hills and Empire of Silver, in particular) - Kublai. This novel tracks his formative years, as he progresses from scholar, lurking within the depths of the libraries of Karokorum, to gurkhan, the great Khan of a nation, more massive than the empires of Alexander the Great, or Julius Caesar.
Of course, such a rise is not without trials and tribulations, with a full-scale civil war on his hands, as well as the denizens of China about to be crushed underfoot, as his elite troops fight running battles with armies outnumbering them ten to one and more in the process, this begins to unravel some of the mystique surrounding the Mongols and their way of life, as an empire and a dominant force in Asia at the time.
The pace is frantic, as most Mongol battles tend to be, with Iggulden not stopping to dwell on the minutae of the decisions, merely glancing at the thought processes, as he obsesses with the bodily functions of the combatants, exuding a lot of blood, sweat, tears, urine, excrement and pus over the course of the novel. You didn't expect this to be a tale for the feint-hearted, did you?
Like Kublai, Iggulden is also concerned with matters closer to home, not just the idea of expanding the empire to the ends of the earth, forgetting where they came from. Ghengis did not care so much for stopping in one place - much like Alexander the Great, he lived for war. Ogedai was forced away from the ideals of a nomadic people, with the armies expanding, though he did send his Orlok, Tsubodai, to continue lengthening the shadow of the Khanate, while he grew ill in Karokorum. Kublai maintained a balance between the two, though his spiritual home was more easterly than the traditional Mongol homelands, with the city he built at Xanadu, now a UNESCO worls heritage site, before the capital was relocated to what would become Beijing.
Iggulden really does enjoy giving some perspective to his novels at the close. With the idea that the initial trilogy of books concluded with Ghengis dead and the Caesar quadrilogy concluded with the death of Julius, we must assume as readers that this will conclude with the demise of Kublai Khan. Not so, as explained by the author, as he has grown sentimental over this one man, who changed the world, realising that he cannot change it forever.
The tenth historical novel by Iggulden is out now and this looks like the end of that particular era as well. Of course, with Iggulden only being in his early forties, I'd hope to see many more novels along these lines flow forth from his incredibly gifted mind. The only question I have would be where could he possibly take his ideas for another saga? I can only speculate: Ancient Greece has been done time and again, so I do not feel that he will venture there. There are the various parts of British history which do not get popular coverage, so he may look closer to home, alternatively, he may plump for something completely different, such as a tale of Spanish Conquistadors, or perhaps someone like Geronimo, or Sitting Bull?
I have thoroughly enjoyed reading these books and if anyone is vaguely interested in the history of the Mongol empire, Iggulden is certainly a must, so that you can feed from the passion that he infuses into his writings and hopefully come out knowing a little more, with a passion to learn a lot more. I know that I did.
Next up: Intervention, by Julian May