Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dawn of Empire | 2006 | Sam Barone | Buy |
| 2 | Empire Rising | 2007 | Sam Barone | Buy |
| 3 | Quest for Honour / Conflict of Empires | 2010 | Sam Barone | Buy |
| 4 | Eskkar & Trella - The Beginning | 2012 | Sam Barone | Buy |
| 5 | Battle for Empire | 2012 | Sam Barone | Buy |
| 6 | Clash of Empires | 2013 | Sam Barone | Buy |
Sam Barone’s Eskkar Saga is set in the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers during the early Bronze Age, when settled farming communities were first learning to defend themselves against nomadic horsemen. The series spans over a million words and follows Eskkar, a barbarian outcast turned mercenary, and Trella, a brilliant former slave, as they transform a vulnerable village into the walled city of Akkad.
Dawn of Empire (2006) opens with Eskkar tasked to defend the village of Orak against an approaching barbarian horde, a task no settlement had ever accomplished. Each subsequent novel raises the stakes, from border conflicts with rival city-states to full-scale wars of empire. Barone draws on archaeological evidence about early Mesopotamian urbanization to ground the action in a period rarely explored in historical fiction.