Ghost On The Throne

“And a mighty king shall stand up, that shall rule with great dominion, and do according to his will. And when he shall stand up, his kingdom shall be broken, and shall be divided toward the four winds of heaven; and not to his posterity, nor according to his dominion which he ruled: for his kingdom shall be plucked up, even for others beside those.”

-Daniel 11:3-4

As the author of GHOST IN THE THRONE, I was amused to open up my daily Bookbub newsletter and discover that there was a book called GHOST ON THE THRONE, a history book written by historian James Romm that discusses the wars of Diadochi.

If you are not familiar with the term, the “Diadochi” (the Greek word for “successors”) were the various generals and commanders of Alexander the Great’s army who managed to seize a piece of his empire for themselves after Alexander’s unexpected death in 323 BC. The title GHOST ON THE THRONE refers to how Alexander’s shadow dominated events even after his death, since there was no one capable of taking all of the power he wielded in life.

Bonus humor points! The chief villain of my book GHOST IN THE THRONE is the sorcerer Cassander Nilas, and I actually named him after one of the Diadochi. I kid you not!

Specifically, after Cassander of Macedon, who ended up in control of Macedon itself when the first round of fighting among the Diadochi settled down. The Diadochi were all hard and ruthless men, but Cassander took it to another level, and he was responsible for the deaths of Alexander the Great’s mother, wife, and child, which was somewhat vicious by the standards of the time. Though to be fair to Cassander of Macedon, Alexander’s mother Olympias had tried very hard to have him killed and hadn’t quite managed it.

To be less fair to Cassander, it was rumored that he helped assassinate Alexander, smuggling a poison into Babylon for his brother to pour into Alexander’s wine. Granted, we don’t know the precise details of Alexander’s death – he might have been poisoned, he might have gotten sick and succumbed to illness, or his body might have simply shut down after fifteen years of fighting and extreme binge-drinking. Regardless, many people at the time suspected Cassander of involvement in Alexander’s death. It is amusing to see that conspiracy theories are not a modern phenomenon – even twenty-three centuries ago, Alexander’s death began spawning conspiracy theories almost at once.

But back to GHOST ON THE THRONE. If you’re at all interested in this period of history,  you owe it to yourself to read this book. The period of the Diadochi is an extremely complicated one, since everyone betrays everyone else like all the time, but the book lays out it clearly and concisely. You also get a sense for the force of will and personality Alexander possessed – he held this collection of skilled and ruthless men together for fifteen years, but less than two days after his death they were already at each other’s throats.

I have to admit I had the idea for like a dozen different fantasy novels while reading the book – the wars of the Diadochi are ripe with interesting ideas for fiction.

This is why I tell fantasy authors it’s often a good idea to look for ancient and medieval history for inspiration. Like, if you base your fantasy novel off STAR WARS, everyone will complain you ripped off STAR WARS. But if you base your fantasy novel off the final battles between Cassander and Alexander the Great’s mother Olympias, not many people will realize it, and those who do realize will think you’re an erudite genius! 🙂

-JM