English

Set in Napoleon’s heyday, this is a seemingly endless series of battles – often recounted in gory detail – interspersed with reckless carousing. Peter and Raoul always come out victorious and, if they do happen to get injured, they’re well again in no time. Bonaparte and his troops manage with next to no sleep, advancing from one victory to the next.

However historically accurate the account may be – and it seems there is some basis for the Polish slant as well as names of real generals, etc. – the plot and pace are quite implausible and the amount of blood and gore rather off putting.

The unsealed fate of the Grunewald sword and Peter’s ongoing affair with Caterina lead the reader to want the next book in the series.

I can’t give this book a higher rating than 2 stars. The plot may be good but I gave up one third of the way through. The French Revolution was surely a cruel period but I don’t feel the need to read all the gory details and the callous behaviour of people like Raoul Aguirre. I found the events sometimes unrealistic (e.g. the first betting scene) and the dialogue forced in places. The book could do with another round of line editing, too.

This is a complex adventure of political and religious rivalry, set in several nations of a fantasy world where supernatural powers intervene in human encounters. Spiritual bondage and fervour, cruel power struggles, brutal treatment of slaves and blow-for-blow accounts of battle to the death have the reader gasping with apprehension or seething with fury. But the main theme is the hero’s spiritual journey from fervent submission to what turns out to be a subtle deceiver – through selfish atheism – to final acknowledgement of the truth and kindness of the God from whom he has been fleeing.

The complex relationships between the various tribes and nations with their different religious allegiances, strange names and languages, together with mythical objects and beings, prove a challenge to the reader.

The book is well written, the plot enthralling and the pacing maintained throughout. I had reservations about what seemed to me gratuitous violence, implausible recovery from injury and the somewhat incongruous magical elements. Also, I have trouble accepting the idea that the supposedly true and good God not only condones but instrumentalises suffering and mass slaughter in order to woo a proselyte. Some apparently important characters (Saeral, Gillard, Shettai, Philip) seem to fizzle out in an unsatisfactory way but perhaps that is an intentional lead into subsequent books of the series.

I’m not sure the average reader would grasp why this is categorised as Christian Fantasy.

Robert Harris paints a vivid picture of life around the bay of Naples just before Vesuvius erupts. The engineer Attilius battles powerful, arrogant, carefree, unscrupulous men in his successful attempt to repair the aqueduct which is the lifeline for all the towns around the bay. Then, anticipating the eruption of Vesuvius, he does what he can to warn people to escape and – venturing into the inferno in the company of Pliny the Elder on the latter’s liburna – finally saves the sensitive daughter of the proud profiteer Ampliatus, Corelia, by a daring escape through the tunnel of the aqueduct.

I was amazed that people could survive through the relentless shower of falling pumice but it seems from historic and scientific evidence that the experience of an erupting volcano as described is plausible.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I feel decidedly artless for not having appreciated this famous tome from highly acclaimed author Mantel, Hilary.

I found it extremely difficult to read: first, because of the innumerable, intricately-related characters, many referred to with several names/titles, who weave themselves unannounced in and out of the action; and second, because of the frequent partial or off-stage remarks.

One does gain a uniquely colourful impression of the main characters and events (Cromwell, Wolsey, Henry, Mary, Anne, More, the threat of war, the appeal to the Pope, the trials of the ‘heretics’, etc.), but it’s all rather bitty.

And the book has no ending.

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