The Twin Soul of Alexander: A novel of Alexander the Gr… (2024)

Here we have yet another novel about Alexander the Great, evidently intended to be the first volume in yet another Alexander trilogy. Not that I'm complaining - we all know I'll snatch up absolutely any and every Alexander-related piece of writing I come across! As seems to be the norm for such trilogies, this one covers the period of Alexander's youth up to succeeding his father as king. What sets this version apart is that here the story is told from Hephaestion's POV, narrated in first person and with a strong focus on his relationship with Alexander, which I quite enjoyed. At the beginning this felt very much like a debut novel, with decent substance but lacking polish in the writing and characterisations. However, Scheier quickly gained more experience during the process. By the second half of the book, he had very much hit his stride, with the writing flowing better, the pace more even, and characters and relationships having acquired the necessary depth to make them feel realistic and worth feeling invested in. The author chose to change some names so as to avoid confusion that might arise from having too many people with the same names among readers less familiar with the historical facts the novel is based upon - which is probably very helpful for them but which I found a little irritating, mostly because my inner armchair historian just wouldn't shut up whenever she perceived a historical inaccuracy. But hey, you can't please everyone with decisions like that, I can live with a little irritation now and then - it certainly won't keep me from picking up the next installment whenever it is released.

Rewiev of the blog Alessandro III di Macedonia- your source about Alexander the Great

First I want to thank the author for sending me the book to read and review it!

Hephaestion is the narrator of this novel and it’s through his eyes that we know this very interesting Alexander. Hephaestion felt a magnetic attraction towards the young prince from the beginning and it was nice to see how their friendship born. We will thus follow the adventures of the two young boys just as they actually lived. The author remains very faithful to what we know from the sources and when he takes some license he does so by changing some names so as not to have namesakes, in order to help even the less expert of Alexander the Great while reading the novel.

I’m not a MM novels lover, however Scheier paints the relationship between the two boys in a very natural way, without excesses and without falling into the vulgar. In fact, I really liked imagining what I was reading and it was like being there too. In these pages we experience the adventures of the boys in Mieza, the machinations of the ever-present Olympias, we experience the encounter between Alexander and his faithful Bucephalus, the difficulty and also great ability of Alexander to establish himself as the true heir of the Argead dynasty. In short, there is everything in this novel! What I like about novels like this, those well written and faithful to the sources, is that with the details and scenes of everyday life that can only be present in the novels, we read a more real and concrete Alexander.

To mention some of the elements that I liked: Hephaestion in Mieza is marginalized a bit compared to the others because of his humble origins and small groups are created among friends as is normal, among the great generals’ sons and with a few years in addition and the younger ones; Olympias is always present from afar, like a puppeteer always tries to move the threads of people close to Alexander and will try to influence Hephaestion too; the author inserts Ahmed, a slave of Hephaestion who will influence Alexander for his conquest of Egypt. In the fourth chapter Hephaestion dreams of a uchronic future: what would have happened if Philip had not died so early? He probably would have collided with his son Alessandro. Prophetic, beautiful!

At the beginning of the book, the author makes two extremely important premises that are obvious to Alexander’s connoisseurs but that in my opinion are necessary because often especially in reading novels they are left out by readers because they aren’t necessarily specialists or are in any case informed about events:
- hom*osexuality at the time was normal: men stayed most of the time with other men, from an early age they grew up with other males and women were seen as a way to have children. There is nothing to do with feminism or machismo, but it was so. In this context the terms of erastes and eromenos are inserted – the author for the age difference chooses to make Hephaestion the erastes and Alexander the eromenos, but in my opinion it’s nice how the two roles are not so defined between the two because in the relationship that Alexander has with the other Hephaestion acts as a trusted adviser and guide, even when it concerns the approach to female sexuality, but the roles seem to reverse when they are among them because often Hephaestion is the insecure one that must be reassured by Alexander;
- at that time the events of the Iliad and the Trojan War were not legends and myths, but were considered history. This is the reason why Alexander, although referring continuously to Achilles and comparing himself to him, was not considered a madman.

I liked this reading very much, it’s proposed as a historical novel and it is. I’m also curious to read the other two books of this trilogy (yes, because this is the first volume of a trilogy on Alexander and Hephaestion) and, narrating the events from the point of view of Hephaestion I think they will stop with his death. I’m already dreaming about one last chapter of the third book narrated from Alexander’s point of view that is a sort of final summary that tells us the highlights of the story and introduces us to Hephaestion also from the eyes of his beloved great conqueror who never betrayed and always supported him. But this is just my idea because I can’t wait to continue reading the adventures narrated by Lawrence M. Scheier! 😉

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This was an alright read, but it has some issues. One of its biggest issues has to do with voice, as it often mixes up modern language while trying to maintain its temporal and physical setting (think dialogue with someone exclaiming they're "screwed"). Another is that very frequently focuses on sexual themes, to the point that it begins to sound like a well-researched fan fiction. I admit: I was looking for a novel with romantic overtones regarding Alexander and Hephaestion's relationship, however by the end it got irksome how often the main character refers to his loins. That said, it is indeed well-researched and I did enjoy the depictions of the wars at the time and the details of the place setting, although occasionally the expositions veered on the heavy-handed side. This was my first dive into novels regarding Alexander the Great (and Hephaestion), and I was looking for one focused on romance, so this fit the ticket at the time. A few other novels later, however, and I have realized the writing of this one left a lot to be desired. Overall it was a somewhat entertaining read, one that I did not feel engrossed in but do not regret reading.