86 Books Like The Currents of Space

This starts the Twilight Of The Empire series as Aurelius Castus—known as Knucklehead to his troops—slaughters his way across the Roman Empire. It’s gritty and believable and starts with an absolutely eye-popping fight. And then it just gets better from there.  

We meet Castus as a simple soldier but he becomes a Centurion and then a senior officer as the series develops and his concern changes from just staying alive and slaughtering his enemies to complex moral and political issues. But don't worry, no matter what uniform he wears, he still swings a sword with the best of them.

For this one, I loved how utterly surprising the plot was. The book is well written, and the characters are so dynamic, but just when I thought I had things figured out, I realized I was completely wrong. There is an adventure in this one, but it really weaves around a love story… maybe a potential love story? I don’t want to give too much away!

The world is really well built, the characters are fun, and I found it difficult not to root for some sparks to fly (beyond the magical ones, of course!). 

This book is brilliant quality, beautifully designed, and really good value. It shows the natural beauty and fragility of the unspoilt natural environment of Sark, a tiny Channel Island off the coasts of England and France.

To look at its contents is to love it. Illustrations from over 20 internationally famous wildlife artists show how the environment is both rugged and beautiful. A plethora of unpesticided flora vies with an unmatched diversity of wildlife, shown with artistic skill. The life of the people and their unique world is reflected by artists from England, Russia, France, Germany, and Holland.

Its incredible value is to show the world what a lovely place the Island is, though yet under danger of unsympathetic change. Thankfully there are still no motorcars.

I’ve read Bloody Murder more times than any other non-fiction book. The first edition made a huge impression on me. Symons introduced me to countless fascinating authors and books (many of them obscure) which I’d never heard of and which have given me endless reading pleasure. Symons’ opinions were, and remain, controversial, and his disdain for ‘humdrum’ writing from the ‘Golden Age’ between the wars has attracted much criticism, some of it sensible, some of it over-the-top. His belief that the ‘detective story’ had metamorphosed into the ‘crime novel’ was eloquently argued, but I think mistaken. Today’s readers have just as much of an appetite for an entertaining, well-crafted puzzle as ever. But never mind the flaws; this elegantly written book remains as influential as it is indispensable.

A wonderful account of the sometimes counterintuitive world of Roman medicine. They could treat cataracts, for instance, but couldn’t recognize appendicitis because they weren’t allowed to conduct autopsies. The chapters on Roman army medicine are excellent. There is also an excellent chapter on women’s diseases, birth and contraception.

This book has all the details of how to keep a Roman household going, from buying and cooking dinner to making lye for laundry to throwing out the trash. It describes in wonderful detail exactly how and with what they did it, including heating, lighting, bathing, and a fascinating section on the unlovely yet vital subject of sewage.

Dr. Stephenson, an excellent Byzantine historian, provides a thorough and well-written narrative of Constantine's life and career set accurately within the late 3rd and early 4th century Roman Empire (A.D. 273-337). He focuses on the military abilities and the religious beliefs of his subject and reveals how he changed the Roman Empire and Christian Church with his policies. A good read.

Nobilissima swept me into a time of historical upheaval--the disintegration of the Western Roman Empire. And I watched events unfold through the eyes of a real historical figure, Placidia, sister to the outrageously incompetent Roman emperor, and an influential leader in her own right. This fast-paced, well-researched novel begins with the city of Rome encircled by Germanic invaders. Soon, Placidia is abducted by the Goths, with astonishing consequences. Bedford portrays Placidia as a warm person, loyal to her friends and followers, but also as a leader capable of making hard decisions, and I cheered for her as she steered a survival course for her beloved Roman Empire. By the end, I couldn’t help wishing that history might have turned out differently.

When I was finally allowed to specialize in Ancient History in the third year of my BA degree, this included a survey of Ancient Greece, supervised by no less a figure than Professor (later Sir) Moses Finley.

One of his recommendations for reading was Adkins' book, listed here, a key point of which is that virtue is not absolute but depends on a society's socio-economic development level. In Archaic Greece, the "good" man was not the one whom later Greeks, and ourselves, would call "good" by virtue of moral rectitude but the one who could, by brute force if necessary, protect his family and community in troubled times: a telling corrective to historical "presentism."

Flavius Ferox is kind of like a Roman sheriff looking after tribal lands in northern England. What looks like a simple raid soon turns into something much more. Ferox is a fantastic character and there’s some subtle humour in with the bloodshed. The start of an excellent trilogy, this gets you in from the start.

Yes, technically Flavius Ferox isn't a Roman as he was born a Silurian (a very warlike tribe of Wales) but he fights for the Romans and he has no problems at all in being bathed in barbarian blood at the end of a battle. That makes him a more than worthy addition to this list.