THE HITTITE by Ben Bova, 2010.

I just finished this yesterday. Being a Trojan War fan, I decided I'd give it a try. I was familiar with Ben Bova as a scifi author, but had never read any of his books, as I'm not really a fan of that genre. This novel is about the Trojan War, but told from the point of view of an outsider, a Hittite soldier, Lukka, who after the Hittite king is murdered and the empire at Hattusas is in chaos, discovers his wife and two young sons have been stolen away and taken to the west. He and others in his troop follow the trail, participate in various ambushes, and end up in the Achaian camp outside of the walls of Troy. The story is at times very familiar, with the usual Greek and Trojan cast: Odysseos, Agamemnon, Hector, Paris, and Helen. Bova makes the character of Lukka to be an unsung hero of the war, a capable and articulate soldier who makes logical and reasonable suggestions for battle strategy, builds a siege tower (which becomes the basis for the great horse), serves as a messenger for both sides, and is present for almost every important event. There is plenty of battle action, assorted violence, and gore, and enough period detail for setting the story, but it's a pretty shallow novel. Some of the language was jarringly modern.The author puts his own spin on some of the more well known episodes of the story, and offers up different reasons for some characters' actions. And the conclusion, which involves Helen and Lukka, totally turned me off. Mostly, I felt as though I was reading a movie script, and honestly, the cover reminds me of a movie poster. Was it a waste? Not completely. But there are certainly better novels out there about Troy than this. Whom The Gods Would Destroy by Richard Powell, Song of Troy by Colleen McCullough, and War at Troy by Lindsay Clarke are three I would recommend over this one.