A fitting end to the trilogy, even if it’s pretty depressing. Book 1, the protasis, was the youth of a growing Alexander. Book 2, the epitasis, was Alexander at the height of his power until he couldn’t go further. Book 3, the catastrophe, is the fallout of everything that happened in the first two, which was chaos, violence and envy. 323 BC and 322BC were interesting and suspenseful because of the fragility of everyone’s position, but after that I thought the events were strung together too loosely.

This book also returned to the multiple third person narration from book 1, and I liked seeing the world of the adult Alexander through multiple perspectives. Bagoas, while interesting, was a very biased narrator who saw Alexander through rose-coloured glasses and didn’t care for the politics of Alexander’s empire. This book offers everyone’s opinion’s of each other and of themselves. Alliances change and so do they.
Since book 1, there was little the child Alexander could ever do wrong. He was presented as the beloved shining light of the first two books and I guess that worked a little too well? After the immediate rush following his death, I didn’t care as much about the events that followed. If not Alexander, who is supposed to be loved now? The poor Arridaios? He had my sympathy, at least. ( )

A historical novel that dramatizes the struggle for control of the Macedonian Empire after the death of Alexander the Great. Created by a stunning string of military victories and alliances, Alexander's empire stretched from Greece to Egypt to the border of India. The book is well-plotted as it covers the major battles, murderous demises, and power plays in the dozen or so years after Alexander's death. However, the writing is sloppy, sometimes to the point of confusion, the style is overly formal, and the book is full of typos. Despite that, it's an exciting story that demonstrates just how extraordinary Alexander was to both have created his empire and then managed to hold it together.
This is the final book in Mary Renault's Alexander trilogy, following "Fire From Heaven" and "The Persian Boy," neither of which I've read. ( )

Ms. Renault's third & final volume of her Alexander the Great trilogy. More of her same engaging brilliance in this great history-based Alexander trilogy. ( )

Alexander's death sparks rivalries for power over his empire.

The first two novels in Renault's Alexander trilogy, Fire from Heaven and The Persian Boy, were outstanding. Funeral Games, however, lacks the strong narrative voice or central character of the first two; not only does Alexander die early in the novel, but the point of view shifts throughout the novel, following various characters as they scheme to hold onto as much as they can of Alexander's empire. Characters are introduced or brought back onstage from the previous books, grasp for power, and are murdered, but the restrictions of historical events make this more of a sequence of events than a coherent plot. It's not a bad book, but not a great one. ( )

Self-consciously valedictory. Renault completists should keep an eye out for a cameo appearance, near the end of the book, by Alexias, the hero of her first historical novel, The Last of the Wine.

This book, the final volume in Mary Renault's Alexander the Great trilogy, covers the events right after Alexander's death. Without Alexander's powerful personality to provide unity and focus, his astonishing empire is quickly deteriorating into a mess of intrigue and entropy.
Funeral Games kind of suffers from the same problem. Without a strongly-rendered main character to provide focus and cohesion it just doesn't have the same enthralling quality as the first 2 books. As a novel with an ensemble cast, it isn't bad, and you get a decent picture of the historical happenings that the fictional story is built on... but it just seems a bit superfluous. ( )

My introduction to Mary Renault was The King Must Die, the first of two novels about Theseus--it was actually assigned reading in high school. What impressed me so much there was how she took a figure out of myth and grounded him historically. After that I quickly gobbled up all of Renault's works of historical fiction set in Ancient Greece. The two novels about Theseus and the trilogy centered on Alexander the Great are undoubtedly her most famous of those eight novels.

The first book of that trilogy Fire from Heaven, is about the young Alexander of Macedon before his famous conquests, ending with his inheriting the Kingdom of Macedon. I was fascinated by the portrait drawn of him and his family--and his teacher--Aristotle. It also draws vivid portraits of his "Companions" who helped him conquer much of the civilized world surrounding the Mediterranean and divide it between them after his death. The second book, The Persian Boy, is Alexander seen through the eyes of one of his lovers, Bagoas, the "Persian Boy" of the title and covers the period of this conquest, and is every bit as remarkable. I thought Funeral Games a bit of a disappointment after those first two, but it missed a lot with Alexander's absence, dealing with the aftermath of his death.

The first two of the trilogy were books that cemented my love of historical fiction and fascination with Ancient Greece. If I have any criticism of those first two books, it's that Renault's Alexander is too much the paragon. You get the feeling Renault was more than in love with her Alexander. But that wasn't a criticism that occurred to me while I was reading them--given how fully I was under Renault's spell. But there's just no character central here that has anything near Alexander's appeal. I do get that's rather the point. Without Alexander, the center cannot hold. It may be that this suffered from reading the books of the trilogy one after another. As with the death of Caesar in McCullough's book, it's just so much of a wrench after what had gone before. Of Renault's works of historical fiction, the first two books are among my favorites, but the last of the trilogy is my least favorite of any of them. Still worth the read. ( )

More of the same engaging brilliance in this great history-based Alexander trilogy. ( )

My favorite book of the trilogy. This was the one that felt the most historical and the least fictional. What a time to live through.... or to try to live through. ( )

Somewhat dissappointing. Renault uses multiple third person narrators instead of the single first person narrator used in The King Must Die and The Persian Boy. The novel fails to create the emotional resonance of the other two -- partly because of the change in narration and partly because so few of the characters are truly sympathetic. ( )

Renault guides us through the complexities of the post-Alexander world with a sure hand. Despite the shifting points of view, she wards off confusion.

Bagoas is as powerful a creation as ever. I definitely wanted to see more of him. Sisygambis is a tragic figure, but the main focus is on Eurydike and Arridaos. One can't but regret that they weren't more successful. In the end, I even felt sorry for Olympias. ( )

Alexander the Great is dead and his generals pick over the corpse. This book is really an afterthought rather than the culmination of Renault's trilogy on Alexander. It's an interesting read on a footnote of history, but not a great one. ( )