Masada

By Ernest K. Gann

Subjects: Motion Pictures, Novelization, Television, Miniseries, TV Movie, Films, TV, Movies, Fiction, Siege, 72-73

Description: An exuberant historical tale which returns to the days of heroes larger than life silhouetted against the desert sky above the rock of Masada. Eleazar ben Yair and General Flavius Silva, the antagonists in that brief conflict when the Romans were pursuing the last remnants of resisting Jews, shared the common nobility of men who face impossible odds. Eleazar confronted the overwhelmingly superior military force of Rome; Silva, a sensitive, intelligent man, faced the subtler threat of spiritual (and physical) impotence. And then there is Sheva, a Jewish beauty determined to save her people Jael-fashion; the influential Roman Falco with his two ""pretty"" boys; noble Masadians and grousing Romans. It all ends with a Roman desert victory entailing their psychic defeat. . . . Within its traditional frame, some convincing commotion and the publisher anticipates a strong commercial success.