The War at Troy breathes vigorous new life into the myths of Homer's Illiad, skillfully rejuvenating Paris and Helen, Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra, Achilles, Odysseus and Hector in this startingly contemporary drama of the passions. Here two powerful generations of men and women live out their destinies in the timeless zone where myth and history intersect, and where quarrels among immortal gods mirror the conflicts of the human heart. This imaginative retelling will surely benefit from the renewed interest in this classic tale (the movie "Troy" starring Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom lands in May 2004).

Quintus' epic, written probably in the third century after Christ, is the only extant literary work from antiquity that gives a connected account of the events of the Trojan War. It tells what happened to Achilles and to Troy, and of the fatal enterprises of the Queen of the Amazons and the King of Ethiopia, the funeral games held in honor of Achilles, the victory of Odysseus in his contest with Aias, the death of Paris, the strategy of the wooden horse, and the capture and sack of Troy.

PART FOUR OF THE TROY QUARTET Bringing ancient myth to life with passion, humour, and humanity, Lindsay Clarke vividly retells the story of Troy and of the heroes who fought there.

In this perceptive retelling of The Iliad, a young Greek teacher draws on the enduring power of myth to help her students cope with the terrors of Nazi occupation. Bombs fall over a Greek village during World War II, and a teacher takes her students to a cave for shelter. There she tells them about another war—when the Greeks besieged Troy. Day after day, she recounts how the Greeks suffer from thirst, heat, and homesickness, and how the opponents meet—army against army, man against man. Helmets are cleaved, heads fly, blood flows. And everything had begun when Prince Paris of Troy fell in love with King Menelaus of Sparta's wife, the beautiful Helen, and escaped with her to his homeland. Now Helen stands atop the city walls to witness the horrors set in motion by her flight. When her current and former loves face each other in battle, she knows that, whatever happens, she will be losing. Theodor Kallifatides provides remarkable psychological insight in his version of The Iliad, downplaying the role of the gods and delving into the mindsets of its mortal heroes. Homer's epic comes to life with a renewed urgency that allows us to experience events as though firsthand, and reveals timeless truths about the senselessness of war and what it means to be human.

A SONG OF WAR Troy: city of gold, gatekeeper of the east, haven of the god-born and the lucky, a city destined to last a thousand years. But the Fates have other plans—the Fates, and a woman named Helen. In the shadow of Troy's gates, all must be reborn in the greatest war of the ancient world: slaves and queens, heroes and cowards, seers and kings . . . and these are their stories. A young princess and an embittered prince join forces to prevent a fatal elopement. A tormented seeress challenges the gods themselves to save her city from the impending disaster. A tragedy-haunted king battles private demons and envious rivals as the siege grinds on. A doomed hero launches a desperate plan to bring the war to a close. A grizzled archer and a desperate Amazon risk their lives to avenge their dead. A trickster conceives the greatest trick of all. A goddess' son battles to save the spirit of Troy even as the walls are breached in fire and blood. Seven authors bring to life the epic tale of the Trojan War: its heroes, its villains, its survivors, its dead. Who will lie forgotten in the embers, and who will rise to shape the bloody dawn of a new age?

Drawing on archaeological research, an expert account of the famous historical battle confirms many details recounted in Homer's epic account, from Troy's alliance with the Hittite Empire to the significant fire at the end of the twelfth century and facts