“It is the 2nd Century CE and Rome is the center of the known world. A machine of war and slavery, insatiable and blood-thirsty. But within this chaos grows a genius child of Greek pastures, Novos of Zankinthois, gifted with a voice of the gods. It is a time before serpents and masks of gold. Before flight and oracles. A time before hearts to malign. Before demons of stone and temples of gleaming white.”
A child prodigy is kidnapped, saved by an ancient being who trains him in music to become the consort of Caesar.
THE SLAVE OF ATHENIODONIS is a historical drama/horror story of approx.100,000 words.
The backdrop of this epic is the entire Mediterranean World; from the moss-covered rocks of Britannia to mysterious land of Egypt. From the Pillars of Hercules to the Euphrates River.
The time is the 2nd Century CE and life exists on the edge of a sword. Enduring a tumultuous
childhood is NOVOS of Zankinthois, a remarkable musical child rescued by ATHENIODONIS, a twenty thousand year old soulless being. Not of flesh, but of stone- who must consume man as easily as he nurtures him. Novos defends his own life- being the SLAVE OF ATHENIODONIS, rising to become the lover and companion of Hadrian, Emperor of Rome. But how can passion endure when power shifts with the rise and fall of the sun? Some devotions will flourish, while some will die without knowing, It works easily as a Trilogy. Each chapter is like a short story- with a beginning, middle and an end.
Yet they are connected by characters and locations. Some fictitious, interwoven with the rest based on factual Roman history and events. Power, love and survival are challenged by greed, revenge and violence. Similar to the dramas that are played out in our world today.
As Anne Rice successfully tapped into the immense curiosity of vampires, THE SLAVE OF ATHENIODONIS goes further with beings not made from mortals, but formed rather from the essence of the Cosmos. Mercury flows through their veins. However they are few and far between, with many unsuccessful attempts to transform humans into these “Watchers of the World.” And like the intrigue and deviousness of “I, Claudius” and stories such as “Gladiator,” this story delves into the cruel underbelly of Roman rulers- their allies and those who would have them murdered.
The story dares to ask- does love exist? And in a world of so much death, who is the real monster?
Man or Immortal?
Something has shifted in the way readers are approaching history. Pure historic fiction no longer satisfies the way it once did. People want the facts: the real emperors, the real wars, the real political betrayals, but they also want something beneath the surface as well. Something older and stranger than any record can contain. Historical fantasy delivers exactly that, and right now, the genre is producing some of the most ambitious, seriously researched fiction being written. “THE SLAVE OF ATHENIODONIS” is exactly that- and unlike anything you’ll find on a book list today.
Eighteen years of research and writing went into this novel, and you can feel every one of them. Phillips sets his story against the factually accurate reigns of Caesar Trajan and Caesar Hadrian in 2nd Century CE Rome, and he means factually accurate. The historical figures in this novel behave precisely as the historical record shows them: the scheming senators of the Palatine, the complicated family politics of Trajan’s court, the enigmatic and solitary nature of Hadrian himself and his hateful wife. Phillips did not bend history to fit his story. He built his novel around history, and then wove something extraordinary through it.
That something is Atheniodonis, an ancient predator who arrives on Earth long before any human religion existed. His blood runs black, and has less in common with Hollywood’s image of such a creature than you might think. He can fly, devours his victims by clamping onto their flesh, leaving them a dried skeleton beyond recognition. He reads human minds, but not those of his own kind. And he is the oldest of these “Watchers of the World”- marbleized and nearly indestructible by surviving the eons.
Atheniodonis is the “anti-hero” at the center of it all, searching across centuries of time for a genius child, worthy of inheriting his vast knowledge. Young Novos is that child. The villain of the story, Kani-Uk Medas, bent on the destruction of everything Atheniodonis creates is his dark mirror. Each character- human, historical or super natural has a fully realized voice and has a reason for being in this story.
Fantasy meets reality here in the most literal sense and in the most original telling possible. The result is one of the best historical fantasy novels in recent memory.
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