I got this book off Amazon. From the cover, I thought the author was "Joe Alex" but nope. The style within gave me the impression of a book written in a completely different language where not only the story build up but the beat itself had a different vibe. Not bad, but definitely different.
Now, this is the story of a young man from near Troy who is captured by merchants from the Levant, taken to Syria, and from there to Egypt.
The characters have surprisingly little depth and move from one place to the next in a very functional way and little in the way of internal conflicts. We are in a realm of action.
Where this book fails mostly is in setting expectation. With a title like "The Ships of Minos", you'd expect something maritime. Or that has to do with Minos. Or that deals with Crete/ the Minotaur. If you answered "Yes" to any of these, you'd be wrong on all accounts. There are two sea voyages but they happen between chapters. The only Greeks beside Whitehair, our protagonist, appear right at the end. At that time when you wonder "how is this gonna finish?"
A few things this book does real well include the descriptions of Ancient Egypt, its religion, odd religion (the faith of Sobek in particular), and the relations between the nation of Egypt and its neighbor. Another thing I found interesting was that our protagonist does not speak Egyptian and does not develop an understanding suddenly. The scenes are sometimes shown from both sides when relevant.
So this book was... not great. Will I read book 2? Nope. Did I hate it? No.
2/5 easy.
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