ICS

Ingenious retelling!

Revisado: 01-13-25

I haven't read Prisoner of Zenda in about 35 years but the character of Rupert of Henzau had stayed with me. I have become even fonder of him seen from the other side of the aisle in this romp that casts the original protagonists in a much dimmer light! The narrator is very competent and as a piece of light hearted reading this is perfect as a palate cleanser between two more serious audiobooks. Sex is present as advertised but almost incidental to the story.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Excellent story

Revisado: 09-21-24

I have listened to several novels by this author but this is by far the best and most human. A story about golden years gone wrong, friendships betrayed and the secrets people keep. The love story felt incidental to the murder investigation, but I am comfortable with that and the pace of the book is excellent.

Narration was perfectly competent.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Reads like a novel

Revisado: 02-03-24

A wonderful feat of scholarship but written in a very accesible way. This is the history of Mesopotamia from Uruk to Persepolis, three thousand years told through the lives of people that have reached us vía the medium of cuneiform texts. Highly recommended for readers or listeners of any level of knowledge about the era.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

Surprisingly excellent

Revisado: 07-13-23

This book is highly recommended for anyone who enjoyed Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell or Naomi Novik's Temeraire series. It follows the same vein of recreating the events of that era but introducing magic to reinterpret causes and circumstances of events.

The story follows three sets of characters operating simultaneously in different geographies: on one hand we have Pitt the Younger and the abolitionist Wilberforce in England, fighting in Parliament against the human trade to the colonies and, more covertly, against a mysterious, sinister figure who seems to be controlling political events on the other side of the Channel; in France we follow Robespierre and Camille Desmoulins as they ignite the French Revolution to obtain rights for the oppressed magician population; and then there is Toussaint Louverture and the slaves of St. Domingue (Haiti) raising for their freedom against their French plantation masters.

The history behind the story is very well researched, which was an agreeable surprise; the characters really come alive and the pace of the story is excellent. There will have to be a second installment for sure, and I will await it impatiently. This one had me on the edge of my seat even though I knew the historical context and main events.

The narrator is fantastic and really manages to create distinctive voices and personalities for each character.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Another fabulous retelling of medieval crime

Revisado: 11-08-21

I had read and profoundly enjoyed "Blood Royal", by E. Jager, but only chanced upon this book due to the recent movie adaptation and decided to give it a go on the strength of the author's other book.

I needn't have worried. The book is fantastic. I was glued to my phone for an entire Sunday until I finished it in one sitting. The story is meticulously researched as expected, based on contemporary 14th century chronicles and court records. The author manages to reconstruct the lives of the three main characters with considerable detail considering the intervening 750 years, and the retelling of both the crime and the duel is quite disturbing as they are described basically blow by blow. Even more interesting is the examination of the workings of the wheel of medieval justice, instance by instance, with its arrest and interrogation of witnesses, the hearings, the writs presented by the parties and the elaborate ritual and practical logistics of the organization of the duel.

The story is also very well set in its larger context of court politics and warfare, between the Hundred Years War and the Nicopolis crusade, giving a fascinating glimpse of how the lives of even the minor nobility was intertwined with the fate of king, country and the larger world. Characters whose lives and interests should have revolved essentially among the villages of Normandy turn up in Paris, in Scotland, in England and even Greece and the Balkans during the course of the story.

The narrator is very good and sets an excellent pace. I can only fault him for his pronunciation of names and places which, between the English accent and the medieval French, is sometimes a bit haphazard. Otherwise I have no complaint.

I'm very happy I picked up this audiobook and I'm considering purchasing a physical copy for my library for future reference. And I will definitely be looking out for any future publication of this author.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

Indispensable reading

Revisado: 10-03-21

This book is so full of interesting information that I would have considered it a valuable scholarly contribution at any time. Read in the context of the Coronavirus pandemic it acquires a relevance that the author probably never imagined. It gives us a chance to rethink the profound political and social changes of Late Antiquity from the lens of climate change and microbial evolution and interaction with ancient civilizations. The timeframe covered is from the Antonine Plague up to, and very much including, the Plague of Justinian and its aftershocks until the seventh century CE.

While I enjoyed the narration and listened to the end, I decided half way through that this book merits to be bought as a physical copy as well, for it contains a wealth of data the significance of which is easily lost when one doesn't see the figures written down. I think it will also be invaluable as a reference book in the future.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Oh yes

Revisado: 07-11-21

The translation is wonderfully poetic and the introduction and notes really add value to the poem. As I listened, I found myself sharing lines of text by WhatsApp with my sister, who is also poetically inclined. Often I would hear a line and its echoes of 17th century or romantic English poetry would add layers of meaning to the translation.


The story includes a lot of long monologues which describe the feelings of the characters in the throes of love, jealousy, spite and grief, which makes it both more introspective and sentimental than Western medieval romances. The story has a lot of twists and turns which are both predictable and infuriating and all things considered I find it astonishing that the death count is as low as it is. The cast of characters is quite small so the plot is easy to follow in spite of the long monologue hiatuses.

The narrator is very good and I appreciated the pronunciation of Persian names and placenames which would have been problematic for me.

I am very glad I listened to this before embarking on the several works by Nezami on my pending pile. I am looking forward to discovering more of this fascinating literature.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

A very good listen

Revisado: 04-22-21

The narrator was excellent.

I was not previously acquainted with this stand alone novel by P.G. Wodehouse and it's been a wonderful pleasure to discover it. It's a comedy of errors with some hilarious moments, and the writing is delightful.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña

A different point of view

Revisado: 03-22-21

This is an international relations book examining the evolution of the interstate balance of power in the Mediterranean since the first Illyrian War until the aftermath of the Peace of Apamea in 188 BCE. The focus is on Greece but the players are Rome, Macedon and Seleucid Persia. The key takeaways are that Rome (except when fighting pirates) was never much interested in Greece and mostly intervened only when forced by the pleas of the Greek polities. These, in turn, were jolted by the aggressive expansion of Macedon and Persia, who were attempting to profit from Egyptian weakness to capture its overseas dominions and had, indeed, come to an arrangement to divide the Egyptian territories amongst themselves.

The historical flow is hampered by the author often pausing to examine the gameboard as a theoretical international relations exercise. On the one hand I found this rather irksome but on the other it does add an interesting way of looking at things which is not generally used in history. I am also bothered by the fact that the book stops short of discussing the Third Macedonian War and the elimination of Macedon, and does not continue until the annexation of Greece as a province, or the end of the Seleucids. However, it does correctly describe the transition from a multilateral equilibrium to a state of international chaos, war and shifting alliances until a new unstable equilibrium is achieved with the unipolarity of Rome.

The narrator does his best but there are few mispronunciations and inconsistencies in names.

Has calificado esta reseña.

Reportaste esta reseña