conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide a description for a book titled The Druid King about Vercingetorix, Gauls, Romans with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A distinguished science fiction author (Bug Jack Barron, etc.) turns to historical fiction with this sweeping but unremarkable tale of the myth-infused adventures of Vercingetorix, the greatest and last leader of the Gauls against the Romans under Julius Caesar. As a young man, Vercingetorix is forced into hiding after the execution of his father, who tries to usurp the leadership of the Gauls. Trained by the Druids in the arts of war and magic-his teachers are the Arch Druid Guttuatr and the dazzling swordswoman Rhia, who has pledged to live as a virgin warrior-Vercingetorix is visited by premonitions and dreams of his grand but tragic fate. When his learning is complete, he is manipulated into an alliance with a certain Gaius Julius Caesar, a master of war and intrigue, a leader with great ability and few scruples. Reasoning cleverly with the young man, Caesar also reintroduces him to his childhood love, the beautiful Marah. Vercingetorix is to become a client king through whom the Romans will rule Gaul, but when he realizes that his father's death was part of the plot, he turns ferociously against the Romans. The conclusion is a series of grand battle scenes interwoven with mystic visions. The author's sympathies are clearly with the Gauls, but he is balanced in his portrait of Roman and Gallic factionalism, and reconstructs a Celtic society without the worshipful attitude that marks many fictional treatments of those creative and valiant folk. It's a solid, intelligent effort-but readers familiar with the author's iconoclastic science fiction novels will find it disappointingly conventional, despite the mystical trappings.<BR>Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the first paragraph for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Druid King
  Warriors of many tribes would be sequestered together in the camp he was going to set up at Portus Itius, on the channel coast, so having a druid at hand to adjudicate disputes would, he hoped, keep them from killing each other before the real slaughter had properly begun. Diviacx, being the only druid who would allow himself even to be caught within sight of a Roman, had been the only possible choice.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide three more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The eight siege towers began to roll slowly toward Bourges, the Roman infantry advancing at a measured pace behind them. Archers on the city walls shot arrows at them as they came into range, and Roman archers crouched down behind the tower-platform parapets answered the Biturige volleys. Both were largely ineffective, which worked to the advantage of the Romans, since their archers were able to suppress the fire of the Bituriges well enough so that flaming arrows could not prove a significant counter to the siege towers.
  When the siege towers were all but upon the walls, another signal was sounded. An aisle opened up in the eastern infantry formation, and the hundred legionnaires manning the poles of the battering-ram wagons began to push. They had to lean into it with all their strength and weight to get the ram to move at all, and when it began to move it rolled forward slower than the slowest walk of a very old man. But once in motion, it began to gather momentum.
  The siege towers reached the walls, and legionnaires scrambled up their interior ladders. Where the summit platforms met the top of the walls, the leading Romans, fighting shoulder to shoulder from behind a wall of their shields, engaged the defenders in bloody close combat in restricted quarters, seeking not to slay as many Bituriges as possible but merely to push them back off the wall so that the troops behind them could pour into the city.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The eight siege towers began to roll slowly toward Bourges, the Roman infantry advancing at a measured pace behind them. Archers on the city walls shot arrows at them as they came into range, and Roman archers crouched down behind the tower-platform parapets answered the Biturige volleys. Both were largely ineffective, which worked to the advantage of the Romans, since their archers were able to suppress the fire of the Bituriges well enough so that flaming arrows could not prove a significant counter to the siege towers.
  When the siege towers were all but upon the walls, another signal was sounded. An aisle opened up in the eastern infantry formation, and the hundred legionnaires manning the poles of the battering-ram wagons began to push. They had to lean into it with all their strength and weight to get the ram to move at all, and when it began to move it rolled forward slower than the slowest walk of a very old man. But once in motion, it began to gather momentum.
  The siege towers reached the walls, and legionnaires scrambled up their interior ladders.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the last four paragraphs.. End with the sentence '
  Edward Kastenmeier, my editor, who persisted so diligently and in such a detailed manner during the long and arduous process of putting the novel into its final form.'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Marah sighs, as if she has told it too many times, but then, as she speaks, her eyes soften with tears, even as they seem to be gazing elsewhere in pride, as if she never truly tires of telling it nevertheless.
  Jacques Dorfmann, without whom I would never have begun this journey, nor, in the end, been compelled to continue.
  Martin Asher at Vintage Books and Sonny Mehta at Alfred A. Knopf, who took a chance on a most unusual project by a writer who had never written such a novel before.
  Edward Kastenmeier, my editor, who persisted so diligently and in such a detailed manner during the long and arduous process of putting the novel into its final form.