This is not the first book by Salman Rushdie that I read. He somehow reminds me of Umberto Eco: impressive historical references, wonderful command of the language and astonishing creativity.
The main locations of the novel are Mughal Hindustan and Florence, Italy; many chapters, though, are based in between those two places: Uzbekistan, Persia and the Ottoman Empire above all.
This trilogy is about the life of Alexander the Great - son of Philip II, king of Macedonia - who became the chief of the largest empire of the world when he was just 30.
Alexander spent the first years of his life in Macedonia, trained by his father’s officers and the great Greek philosopher Aristotle. He then joined his father’s army as the commander of the cavalry special corps. After his father’s death he was crowned king and promptly started a military campaign that would first lead him to control the whole of the Ancient Greek world, and eventually the Persian empire, including Egypt, Central Asia and the western part of the Indian subcontinent.