John Man: Attila - A barbarian king and the fall of Rome

If you were bummed out to find Darth Vader was more misunderstood than a card-carrying, black hat-wearing bad guy, then set aside the time to climb inside the head of Attila the Hun.

Biographer John Man may not be the most gripping of storytellers, but he's done his homework and dished up one of those rare beasts where substance rises above style.

Such effort is the least his subject deserves. Bad, bad Attila the Hun is possibly the most enduring bogeyman in history, the Scourge of God and all that post-match tripe, a one-man wrecking ball who helped put the final boot into Rome's decaying splendour.

Fascinating details litter each page. For instance, the original form of the name Humphrey meant someone who made peace with the Huns, which probably goes to show why there aren't many Humphreys about.

And Man's description of the grotesquely gentle technique they employed to impale enemies and unruly family members will leave you with curled toes and crossed legs.

Such fun and games read like a documentary version of Lord of the Rings, with exotic characters like Odoacer, Orestes, Sidonius and Theodoric, and cool barbarian gangs such as the Skirians, Visigoths and Bacaudae who stomp around the old world like hostile heavy metal bands.

If there was ever a Yoda-type whispering in his ear "Attila, baby, it's about making bridges, not busting walls" he ended up as an impaled hood ornament on the royal cart.

Once the dust settles, Attila emerges as a classic case of the nearly man, the Winston Peters of the ancient world. He nearly sat the empires of Rome and Constantinople on their asses and nearly marched the western world down an entirely different path.

Luckily for those who like things the way they are, he was his own worst enemy. Why bother with sweet-talking folk, uniting them behind a grand plan to create a new civilisation, when you can smash them into submission with arrows and axes, and then suck crippling amounts of tribute/ protection money from them for as long as you can?

* Bantam Press, $45