... in both Fictional and Historical sources. To be fair, I haven't gone all that far down the trail- only as far as Robin Lane Fox's book on Alexander. I liked the book. It didn't push me to re-imagine Greek life like Renault or battle like Pressfield, but it gave the impression of being scrupulously even-handed in the treatment of its subject. It didn't deal all with absolute facts, certainly, but the theories it presented were reasonable, and not terribly far-fetched. Interestingly, this was the first book that brought up the possibility of Alexander being poisoned - though I'd heard the theories before- it didn't really present it as probable- but gave the circumstances that made it look possible.
It was tragic though, to see Alexander's dream empire fall apart after his death. It really brings out the charisma of the man who held all these disparate people, his ambitious advisors together to give his vision shape.
Against that history I read "A Choice of Destinies" by Melissa Scott, which imagines a world in which Alexander didn't go to India but was forced to turn back, to face Rome instead. I enjoyed the postulations of the wars and negitionations- the possibility of alliance with Rome against Carthage- but I think its too far-fetched to suggest that it would have lead to an empire that would rule the world two thousand years later- taking Alexander's dream into the twenty first century. It was a very enjoyable read though.
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