An excellent followup to Lord of the Silver Bow. Shield of Thunder starts off a little weirdly, since it doesn't follow the main POV characters from the first book until about a third of the way through, but I ended up liking Banokles, Piria, and Kalliades anyway, so no harm there.The writing is just as fun and vibrant as in the first book. The Greek Bronze Age / Age of Heroes is such a fun and underutilized time period in genre fiction. The characters are all recognizable from myth, but Gemmell puts his own twist on them to make this more than a simple retread of the myths..

Shield of Thunder is a downright good read. Skillfully written without being dense, and moves at a nice brisk pace. Worth a read if you like Greek mythology or historical fiction in a setting not seen very often.