Recensione in ITALIANO: QUI.
Hello everyone, I’m Elena, happy holidays and thank you for being on Alessandro III di Macedonia -your resource on Alexander the Great and Hellenism! Today I’m going to tell you about a book that was literally a discovery, a beautiful discovery indeed. The other day when I published the article with the seventeen books just released I immediately bought one, this one and… wow!
King of Kings
by Cristian Mihai
Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, 2024
ISBN: 979-8300916466, 70 pp.
What does it mean to be unstoppable? To conquer the world and still crave more?
Through the eyes of history’s most ruthless rulers- Caesar, Augustus, Napoleon-King of Kings unveils the man who set the standard: Alexander the Great. From blood-soaked battlefields to the silent halls of his tomb, his story is a masterclass in ambition, power, and the price of immortality.
Sharp, visceral, and unflinching, KING OF KINGS is not just history-it’s a reckoning with the echoes of a legend. Step into the shadow of the boy who became a god and ask yourself:
What would you sacrifice to leave your mark on eternity?
Reading time: from 25 to 26 December, 2024.
I didn’t intend to read this book right away, because I didn’t want to read about Alexander and especially not in English, but I bought it because unlike the other books on that list, this one only cost € 6.88. When I received it I browsed through it a bit as I usually do, I read the Foreword and… I had to read it right away, in fact I finished the other book I was reading and read this one. Cristian, a Romanian author I didn’t know before, was the best fiction reading this year about Alexander (I haven’t actually read many, but this little book deserves to be remembered and I’m happy to be able to talk to you about it!).
In King of Kings we follow some of the greatest commanders and historical figures visiting Alexander’s tomb: Caesar, Mark Antony, Septimius Severus, Napoleon and others, in paying homage to Alexander, looking for that something more material or immaterial that only Alexander had and in a mixture of admiration and almost veneration all of them live as in a dream a key moment in Alexander’s life. We read about a dialogue between Alexander and Philip, between Aristotle and Alexander, the battle of Gaugamela and other episodes and I’m sorry that the one about the Gordian Knot is missing because is very symbolic, but this little book, given its brevity, couldn’t tell everything. Each character relives an episode of Alexander, experiences the sensations and in his own way would like to have really taken part in it, because he feels the greatness and eternal glory of the Macedonian who died too young.
I really liked three characters/episodes: Caesar who relives a young Alexander; Septimius Severus who decides to seal Alexander’s tomb now plundered of riches and “witnesses” the death of the Conqueror; and that of an unknown visitor who witnesses the dialogue between Alexander and the cynical philosopher Diogenes and is from this meeting alone that Alexander understands that there is more, there is something different from what he does and how he lives.
King of Kings is a fictional book that captures the reader for its vision of Alexander: the sentences used to describe characters and situations are effective, the figurative, dreamlike, admiring and solemn language paints the thirst of insatiable curiosity in a fantastic way, in his eternal quest to continue to conquer and know, but every now and then we manage to see beyond the Commander’s veil and find the man, made of doubts and uncertainties. Cristian makes us read an idealized and romantic Alexander through the visit of the characters, but he likes because is glorious, described in a wonderful way and the reader is captured by the magnetic aura of Alexander, a bit like I think the author is too and it is beautiful because you can clearly perceive it from how he writes.
At first I’d have liked King of Kings to have been longer because I’d have liked to read about many of the missing episodes, but it’s beautiful precisely because is short: it takes the reader and transports him to a different world, together with the greats of History visits the tomb of the Great Alexander, he too feels the greatness and immortality and at the end of the book he is forced to return to reality even though he’s still dreaming and still has in mind the taste of what he has just read.
If it had been longer it would have become repetitive, perhaps cloying and would have bored and lost that magic that makes it special. I found only one mistake on page 39, a “queen” instead of a “king”, but this self-published book, of only 70 pages, at the small price of less than 7 € for the paperback edition, is a special addition to my Alexandrography, a discovery that I’m very happy to have made and a reading that I recommend to all of you if you can read in English and it would be good if it were also published in Italian for readers who cannot do otherwise.
A book that is definitely worth reading and I hope the author will write more about Alexander!
That’s Alexander. He didn’t just change history; he invented it.
We live in a world where influence is measured in likes and retweets, where your fifteen minutes starts ticking the second you post. Alexander? He made his fifteen minutes last 2,000 years. He made the whole world like and share him before the world even knew what it was.
He was a question mark with a sword, asking the same thing every step of the way: Why not more?
But here’s the thing about conquering the world: once you’ve got it, you have to ask yourself why you wanted it in the first place. That’s why Alexander matters. Because he was the first person to prove you can win and still feel like you’re losing.
When you’re a prince, when you’re Alexander, time is just another toy soldiers march through. Every moment is a challenge, a lesson, a test.
Achilles. Hero of heroes, the guy who traded tomorrow for glory today.
“Remember this, Alexander, the world is full of heroes, but only a few become legends.”
“Courage without wisdom is like a sword in the hands of a fool. It cuts, but it doesn’t conquer.”
The boy is silent, absorbing the words, his mind a battlefield of future conquests, uncharted lands, and people he hasn’t yet ruled. But beneath it all, a seed takes a root – an understanding that this journey to greatness isn’t just about conquering empires, but conquering himself.
“My boy, you’ll find a way to tame the world itself, won’t you?”
Caesar rides on, but in the back of his mind, he knows that he’ll always be chasing Alexander, trying to live up to a legend he can never quite touch.
Alexander’s tomb is the final judgment, the place where men like him come to measure their worth and find themselves lacking.
Anthony feels it, the intoxicating pull of destiny, the allure of immortality. It’s a drug, and he’s already addicted, craving more even though he knows the cost.
Thebes is his canvas, and blood is his paint.
Alexander, though dead, is still a storm in the annals of time.
Because the truth is, Alexander has always been chasing something, but it’s not glory, not victory, not even the empire that now stretches farther than his father ever dreamed. It’s the horizon. That thin line where the earth meets the sky, where the known world ends and something else begins. And he’s always been just a step behind it, running, reaching, but never quite catching it.
Here’s a man who has nothing, wants nothing, fears nothing. And that, more than armies, more than cities, more than the world itself, is power. Real power. The kind that can’t be taken away or destroyed or bought.
There are more scars -small ones, large ones, some almost faded, others still fresh. Each one is a map of his journey, a testament to his relentless drive, his refusal to die.
The tomb is a masterpiece, a marble prison for a man who could never be contained.
Alessandro III di Macedonia 
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