I absolutely can't stand Vidal as a non-fiction writer and generally as a man of opinions or "letters" or what have you but this is the second novel of his I have read which I have thoroughly enjoyed. He appears to be doing two things with his revisionist history in this case: presenting an alternative to the idea that Athenian civilization really was the be-all, end-all of the "ancient world," and presenting pre-Judaic theories of creation. In both he is generally successful. the biggest problem is that Vidal uses a number of terms invented by modern western academics to describe certain things. This certainly hinders one's suspension of disbelief. But on the whole the story is engaging and it's always nice to read a different (fictional) perspective. As long as he sticks to fiction, I think he is pretty good writer. The moment he applies his ideas to stuff posing as non-fiction, the result is usually disastrous.
