Steven Pressfield provides the reader of A Man at Arms an exciting historical drama set mainly in the Sinai Desert in AD 55. This is the tale of Telamon, a former Legionnaire, David, a young Jewish boy, and Ruth, a Greek girl. They all get involved with Michael, a Christian smuggling a letter from Paul the Apostle to the the church at Corinth in Greece. This is a tale on the scale of Ben Hur or The Robe with just as much adherence to facts of the matter. The surface details are great, the story is enjoyable, but the premise is completely off. Nero did not persecute the Christians until 60s A.D. But do not let that that truth dissuade you from reading this thrilling tale of desert treks, narrow escapes, and desperate fights. A fun book overall.

Thanks Netgalley for the opportunity to read this tale.

Paul, the Apostle, has sent a letter by courier to the early Christians in Corinth. The Romans want to stop the delivery. Telemon, Roman man-at-arms, is forced to take on the task of finding the courier and retrieving the letter. When he finds the courier, things begin to change. Telemon must decide what path he will follow and how far he will go to stop or aid the delivery of the letter. Such an interesting premise and characters with diverse backgrounds thrown together – faith, zeal, hope, honor, and charity. I only wish there were an author's note, discussing a bit about his research and the history.

You could read this book 100 years from now, 100 year before this day, you could read it any time and it will still be a great force.

I had some mixed feelings about this book, mostly consisting of how hard it was at times to read it: for the savagery (thought I am sure it was worse in the time depicted) and other aspects that didn't go well for me, so this is more of a 4.5 stars. However, however, what a book!

This is the story of Telamon, a mercenary, ex roman soldier, sent to find the man who has the letter of Paul the Apostle and size it and its carrier in order for the letter's content to never reach the communities of Christians it was destined for. This turns into an extraordinary journey for the man-at-arm, for his apprentice, and the people they take along with them.

Turns out the letter is not what you think, and the journey is not what you might believe and then it turns out you indeed know something about the letter. All this adventure and hardship for you to be part of an historical moment. And Steven Pressfield wrote it so extraordinarily, built it up so good that for a second you are suspended in time, learning the words and the meaning for the first time.

I hope there is no person who thinks to abandon this book. But if you feel like that, please know, that the ending will be worth it. For there is the very essence of humanity revealed after all this war, there is something so deep and strong that is absolutely timeless. And that will touch you to your core. Such is the nature of great literature!

Terrific historical novel. I'd not read Pressfield before and this time period isn't really my favorite for fiction (my knowledge is a little hazy) but he brought it to life for me. The characters are wonderful and equally importantly, I learned something about the real people portrayed within (I found myself googling). It's atmospheric with intricate details about so many things. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. I might not have been a Pressfield fan before but I'm going to look for him in the future. Great read,

I really enjoyed reading "A Man at Arms". This is a great story, with characters you can't help but have an opinion on, and some excellent scene-setting. The writing is of a very high standard. For me, the story moved a little bit too slowly in parts, but it's still a very, very good read, and I hope to read a lot more of Steven Pressfield's work.

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley. This review was written voluntarily and is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.

Ancient history is a novelistic sub-genre I shy away from but Steven Pressfield is a master of dramatic storytelling and something about "A Man at Arms," its grand theme, drew me in. And I am so glad I opened its cover, for I read it in two evenings of transfixion. In the first century A.D., a new religion's disciple's letter on its way from Jerusalem to Corinthian rebels becomes an empire-shifting hunt. The Romans hire an amoral man-at-arms, our hero, who winds up with a ragtag team pursuing the letter. Then the moral balance shifts and his journey becomes an utterly compelling ordeal amidst savagery and corruption, a quest against odds almost impossible to contemplate, a quest only he might contemplate. Pressfield is justly famous for his nonfiction advice series to writers about how to pen compelling fiction, and in A Man at Arms, he provides a bloodthirsty yet noble case study. In a sense the ancient Roman and Jewish setting is artificial, for the novel reeks of a classic Western or a Star Wars epic, but at the same time, of course, the setting imbues the entire quest with significance. Written in a semi-formal voice of gravity, this novel startled me with its universal relevance and dramatic tension. Magnificent.

A story of ancient Rome and its empire. It is a very rich era to write about and Steven Pressfield's book is a fun example of the genre. I found it slightly hard to get into but it is worth pushing past that. The story is set in teh first century AD in Jerusalem and round about. A hired hard man, ex legionary is hired to seek out a letter that has the potential to cause tremendous harm to the Empire - it is up to this man, Telamon to him the carrier and save it all but not all is so simple. Read on and relax into his world - all at a fast pace.

Pressfield again marches into ancient history with a tale set in an underserved time and an overserved subject. Yet, the story describes the intricacies of intrigue, conflict, fear, and determination of an empire fighting a faith movement with what it knows - warfare. And a faith movement fighting an empire in what is revealed - love and belief. Our hero, Telemon of Arcadia, a solitary bellator, is conflicted within himself by his unaware conversion from his own internal code and revelation of faith presented by his companions. A would-be teen warrior, a wild mute girl and her proselyte guardian, and an avowed witch, stir in Telemon considerations he has comfortably avoided throughout his life. First tasked with tracking and recovering emissaries of the Apostle Paul carrying the Epistle to the Corinthians, Telemon holds true to his own beliefs but evolves to become the carrier of the message. From Jerusalem to the Sinai to Greece, the band is sought by Romans, Arabs, and Jews each with a reason to deny the message reaching the Christian community. As in his other novels, Pressfield ably portrays the landscape, culture and conflict of the time and area. Telamon passes on the way of the warrior to his companions and receives lessons in return. The characters are vivid and real, each garnering interest of the reader. While delivery of the Epistle is expected, method and acceptance form a tale of their own. A sequel is expected and anxiously anticipated!

One of the most interesting facets of religious belief is that religious belief has answers for everything. The Bible is full of what’s called “wisdom literature,” with advice on how to solve everything short of how to fix holes in drywall. In Orthodox Judaism, this is supplemented with incredibly detailed rabbinical teachings. Deuteronomy 6:9 commands that the words of the Shema prayer be written on the doorposts of your house, which is easy enough, until you realize that there’s a dispute as to whether the words on the scroll should be horizontal or vertical, and that because of that, you have to put them diagonally.

Stoicism is a philosophy, not a religion. (Here’s how you can tell; Stoicism doesn’t have holidays.) Stoicism is behaviorist; its teachings are focused on ethics and virtue. The true stoic isn’t (as the modern usage has it) someone who is indifferent to emotion; it is someone who lives their lives consistent with their own ethical code.

I don’t know if Steven Pressfield identifies as a Stoic or not, but his signature philosophy is something of an uneasy marriage between Stoic ideas and Manichean cosmology. The Manicheans, like George Lucas, believe in a dark side in constant conflict with goodness and light. Pressfield’s philosophy, expressed succinctly, is that there is a creative spark of light in all of us, and an invisible dark force, called Resistance, that is trying to blot that spark out. The job of the creative mind is to create, and not to surrender to the siren call of Resistance, however that manifests (usually as negative self-talk).

The appeal of the Pressfield Way, for lack of a better term, is threefold. First, it’s uncomplicated. It doesn’t take a very sophisticated viewpoint to understand that applying butt to chair is work, and checking your email and Twitter and sneaking into the kitchen for a snack is not-work, and is therefore the work of Resistance. Second, it’s task-oriented, a philosophy that is supremely helpful if you have a job to do that needs doing and you need to eliminate distractions in order to do it. Third, it tallies with lived experience. Everyone deals with obstacles and procrastination every day; the Pressfield Way is dead useful as a mental model for addressing these conflicts. (I just this minute brought up the George R.R. Martin website, and he’s busy watching movies and reading Hemingway and, as far as we know, not writing, so that tells you something right there.)

There are, however, three main limitations with using the Pressfield Way in practice. First, it can’t always tell you what kind of work to do. This is especially difficult if, like me, you have creative projects pointing at different directions every day. Down in the basement, I have furniture that needs to be refinished, and an art project that I need to finish, and the kids got a keyboard from Santa Claus and I want to learn how to play that at some point. I have this book review to finish, and a hundred others I’ve written that I want to cross-post to my website. I have to rework the website for my (struggling) publishing company, and I have a web project about baseball and one about music that I want to complete. I have a good idea for my sixth law review article. My fourth novel is about halfway complete, and then I have two non-fiction projects (one about politics and one about history) that I want to pursue. And I have a day job on top of that. I not only have your ordinary garden-variety everyday Resistance to deal with, I have an inner voice telling me that I need to work on the other things that keeps me from completing the thing I am doing.

Second, the Pressfield Way can’t tell you if the work you are doing is crap or not. The most common self-talk you get from Resistance is what you are doing sucks and you are wasting your time with it. Pressfield teaches us that Resistance is always lying and always full of crap. Which is true enough as far as it goes, but every lie has a kernel of truth in it. Maybe what I am doing really does suck. How do I know? How can I tell? (This is where your editor and your beta readers come in.)

The third limitation in the Pressfield Way is love.

A MAN AT ARMS is about this limitation, about the intersection of fighting Resistance with finding love. Its hero is Telamon, a Greek warrior in the Roman legions now working as a mercenary. Pressfield portrays him as an exemplary Stoic, someone who acts according to his own code, impervious to any other concerns other than the welfare of his mules. Telamon accepts a commission from a Roman officer to track down a fugitive Christian who is carrying Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church. The Romans want to suppress the apostle’s message, and Telamon wants to be paid.

The problem is that there’s a little girl involved.

As a story, A MAN AT ARMS Is lacking in a lot of ways. Telamon seems scarcely human, and seems an unlikely object of childish devotion. The narration is chock-full of little deviations, some helpful, others with the consistency and appeal of cold oatmeal. The action scenes are taut and cinematic, though, and the villains are suitably villainous. But the attraction is in the clash of philosophies more than anything else, and in this area if no other, A MAN AT ARMS is instructive, and worthwhile.

The message of the Pressfield Way in terms of the twenty-first century would-be novelist, typing merrily away on his wireless keyboard, listening to 80’s rock through his Bose speakers, is forthright. Spouses and children are tools of Resistance. You spend all your time hanging out with other people, whoever they are (which you can’t of course always do in this year of grace 2021), and you are not going to get as much work done, and that is a fact. But you have to talk to your wife, you can’t (sigh) let your kids play with their screens all day, you have to do your other job, and what do you do with that? Pressfield, in his other books, says that you fight Resistance, you become a professional, you follow the path of the warrior.

In A MAN AT ARMS, he comes to a very different conclusion, and the correct one. Pressfield paints an idealized man of infinite Stoic virtue and accomplished prowess, the exemplar in many ways of his own personal philosophy, and it all comes to tatters in the face of love.

Another Remarkable Historical Novel

The setting of this novel is mid first century in Judea and Greece. The story is about trying to stop the transportation of an epistle of Paul to the Christian church in Corinth. Early Christianity is in integral part of this novel, but there is not any proselytizing in this novel. It is as solid as any of Steven Pressfield novels set earlier in history.

The novel opens with a discharged legionary now a mercenary traveling in a caravan from Damascus to Jerusalem. After saving the caravan from an ambush from local thieves, Roman soldiers arrive not to save but looking for something. They perform a full body search of an old man and then his preteen girl companion. At this point, the mercenary attacks the Roman soldiers conducting the intrusive searches. He didn’t get far. He is taken to Jerusalem and integrated by the garrison commander who offers him a reward to find a letter and return it to him. The novel takes off from here

This thriller adventure is full of action. It was an easy ready but not a quick read. Also this novel is not what I call a no-brainer action novel. Besides the basic main thread there are several subthreads — the mercenary training a tag-along barely a teen boy in the way of a man-at-arms, with the old man, with preteen girl, with a witch, and with the garrison commander. These are all tided together in to rich storyline that immediately captured my interest and kept it to the end.

The B-storyline for the mercenary is revealed very slowly as the mercenary only considered himself as a soldier, and that is all that matters. The only character that had some depth of background was the tag-along boy. I did not find this thin B-storyline was a distractor. It was replaced with the character interactions with each other. This satisfied my desire to learn more about the characters. There was another B-storyline, but this was not about the characters. This B-storyline is very characteristic of Steven Pressfield’s historical novels. This background is in this detailed description of the geographic, economic, political, religious, historical, and human conditions both local and external at the time and location of his novel. This provides the reader with a tremendous insight into overall setting surrounding the events in this novel. Even though the novel is fiction; the author’s insight is not. This aspect of the novel added a depth of richness to this novel that is not often seen.

As for aspects that some readers may object, vulgar language is essentially not existence. There are not any intimate scenes. There is violence and described as it occurs in battles and skirmishes, and even in a crucifixion.
There were two aspects of the author’s writing style that I need to mention. First, the author used many Latin words and archaic or very infrequently used English words to give the feeling that this was a story set long ago. A very minor downside to this was my extensive use of searching for the words’ meanings on the Internet. Reading this novel on an e-reader greatly facilitated these searches. The second aspect puzzled me. The author was very fastidious about using the correct terms except in one area. He used the terms sergeant and lieutenant vice the proper terms Roman military ranks. The author did use tribune that is accurate. I found this puzzling and a little distracting.

Overall, for me this novel is another solid novel by Steven Pressfield. I could not stop reading late into the night and start up again upon waking. I rate this novel with five stars and highly recommend reading it if interested in Steven Pressfield as an author or this time period.

I received a free e-book version of this novel through NetGalley from W. W. Norton & Company with an expectation for an honest, unbiased review. I wish to thank W. W. Norton & Company for the opportunity to read and review this novel early.

Pressfield has once again gifted us with a fantastic historical novel! This book didn't have a single boring moment, and as always Pressfield has provided fantastically accurate information and incredibly interesting details on the strategy and warfare of the time. The characters are well written and easy to become attached to. Vivid descriptions through out will have you feeling like you've stepped back in time.

Steven Pressfield has never disappointed for me, or fans of military historical fiction, and this book is another fantastic example of his skill and talent.

‘Arms and a man, I sing’

‘Charity never faileth.’ The words of St Paul in the First Letter to the Corinthians; in this novel, Pressfield’s first in twelve years, charity fails again and again. Set in Roman Palestine during the reign of Nero, the plot revolves around a mercenary soldier and his attempts to convey the famous Letter of Paul from Jerusalem to the Church in Corinth. The ‘man at arms’ is the consummate warrior skilled in every type of martial skill. A former legionary, turned cynical soldier of fortune, he is first employed by the Roman authorities to track down and intercept the letter and its carrier, but then changes sides, working to get the letter to its planned recipients.

This is a brutal and violent story, the Roman soldiers and their allies more akin to Mel Gibson’s legionaries in ‘The Passion of the Christ’ than other recent fiction. The narrative is filled with cruel, sickening torture, crucifixion scenes, cynical betrayals and genocide. Yet the literary style is odd. The tale reads as though it were a Nineteenth Century translation of an ancient text, Josephus say, or other Hellenised writer of the time. I expected a reveal of the supposed origin of the text to appear at the end, but this did not happen, leaving me to wonder somewhat why the author chose this particular style and conceit.

The plot is almost entirely implausible, is filled with magic and lacks much historical accuracy. Yet the setting is a recognisable Palestine of the Roman era, and the story replete with non-stop action carries the reader headlong despite many misgivings. The hero initially appears to be a Roman era Outlaw Josie Wales, a sort of superman gathering a posse of vulnerable followers, but the miracle at the close of the book, while clever, seems greatly at odds with the plot up to that point, a literal ‘Deus ex machina’ in fact. Recommended, but with reservations.

A Man At Arms sees Pressfield return to writing fiction set in the ancient world after a break of over a decade. In the time I’ve read hundreds of historical novels, but in the back of my mind I’ve always known that none came close to Pressfield’s genius. So to see this new book on the horizon I got a wee bit excited.

It’s a good book. A very good book. The story is strong, the characters are very readable. The story has an essence of integrity and humility that ring true of a Pressfield novel. However it doesn’t quite hit the heights I expected. Maybe because the story being told doesn’t hold the historical weight of the likes of Thermopylae.

Still, well worth a read, and I really do hope he writes more historical novels again sooner rather than later

Pressfield at his finest. No one writes about ancient history and the warriors that lived during that time in quite the same way. Combining a thorough knowledge of battle strategies, the historical background of the time and the brutal (and short lives) of the people who inhabited the region Pressfield never fails to deliver.