TD, the book I have on Alexander is an old one written by Harold Lamb, an author I collect. One can usually find a used paperback of it somewhere relatively cheap. There are probably other later ones that are more thorough.
I felt Stone's handling of Aexander's gayness was tepid at best and utterly passionless so that when Alexander has his big grief scene over Hephaestion's death, I didn't believe it. The romantic scenes between the two were very tentative, limited to embraces so "we don't turn folks off or make them think Alexander is a wussy". And it was immediately followed with very passionate love scene with Roxane with lots of nudity to show that, "Yeah, even though Alexander did it with guys, he was butch and knew how to give a woman a real rogering.".
The only interesting part about homosexuality was when Christopher Plummer, as Aristotle, explains to his young students a philosophy about the love between two men which probably bore some resemblance to the Grecian attitude to it...which was that it was a fairly normal practice among them; even though it was still couched in caveats about what kind of homosexual love was noble and what kind was not (Achilles' excessive love for Patroclus was not).
But the biggest problem was you believe neither Farrell nor Jared Leto. They look embarrassed, uncomfortable, and worried about their images. There was no heat or any kind of passion in the relationship. And aside from a couple of these scenes, Leto's character has absolutely nothing else to do.
It was actually one of the biggest problems of the film with all of Alexander's companions...they may get one or two scenes, but the rest of the time they are reduced to extras and you really never get to know any of them as individuals, they're merely serving plot.
elmore, I too prefer THE KING MUST DIE, though I found Renault's Alexander novels more interesting than the films. The problem with Alexander is that he pretty much goes from success to success in the latter half of his life. Not a lot of dramatic conflict.
It is his relationship with his parents and their political wrangling that's the interesting part, but that it is the first half of his life. Writers and film-makers try to make Alexander full of Oedipal angst and filled with father issues to give his life some drama, but it still can't make up for the second half of his life which becomes military campaign after military campaign and victory after victory. After one or two battles, you've pretty much seen them all...and you already know the outcome.
