And, For The Third Time...

Somewhere in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting Of The Snark: If a man says something three times, then it is true! (This is not a serious suggestion but let's just stay with it for a while...)

The opinions of a character are not necessarily those of the author but sometimes they are, sometimes it is reasonably clear that they are and they definitely are when the author himself expresses that same opinion elsewhere. Thus -

Max Abrams (a character):

"'I say [Aknhaton's pacifism] stinks.'"

-see here.

Thoas (a character):

"'Cities stood ablaze for want of the troops [Akhnaton] could have sent.'"

-see here.

Poul Anderson (the author):

"Sometimes we are disillusioned, of course. Akhnaton, the Egyptian Pharaoh who preached monotheism, turns out to have been a dreadful wimp and a disaster to his country..."

-Poul Anderson, "The Discovery of the Past" IN Anderson, Past Times (New York, November 1984), pp. 182-206 AT p. 201.

We remember a favourable reference to the monotheist Pharaoh in a book by CS Lewis, a man strong on theology, less so on politics.