Changes

Modern technology gives a writer far more options on how to present their book. They are no longer bound by a yearly cycle of releasing a book in hardback and then waiting a few months for it to be released in paperback. The e-book gives you license to play with the format; how about a set of regular instalments? These segmented books worked for the likes of Charles Dickens, but pleasing a modern crowd used to quick thrills, as well as those used to the longer -drawn -out format, is not easy. Did Simon Scarrow and T J Andrews achieve their goals in the combined novel ''Invader''?

As a fan of Roman fiction, I find that a lot of the books seem to follow a format and Scarrow is not averse to this. The books open up during some sort of skirmish or battle, you then have a story in the middle and the book ends in another larger conflict. The format works well as you get the grisly thrills at both ends, but also some narrative and characterisation at the centre. ''Invader'' is made up of five previously published e-books that make up the whole. In the ideal world , a reader should not really know this, but you do.

The issues with the book lie with the pacing. Whilst a long format book has two battles and a deep middle; a five -part book has more like ten battles and lots of short sharp attempts at a story. In ''Invader'' you feel that you are never more than ten pages away from another gruesome encounter. For the easily distracted reader , this could be a good thing, but for anyone used to a little more story, they will not be as happy. When are numerous conflicts too much? This book shows that if you read battle after battle, they start to feel the same. Figulus comes across so many tribesmen that are described as the biggest he has ever seen that by the tenth battle he must have been fighting a veritable sea of Goliaths.

The usual Scarrow novel has a balance between action and day to day Roman life. The segments in ''Invader'' that do explore life in the army are interesting, but not as well developed as the ''Marco and Cato'' books. To some readers the fact that the action is turned up to eleven may be exactly what they want, the gruel almost drips from the page. However, for a truly great action book set in Roman times , you require some time to build up the heart of the story, before then ripping it, still beating, from the chest cavity.