The pacing of this book was Tolkienesque, which is not a intended as a compliment. Much editing could have made this book a very good read. I still mostly enjoyed it, but the pacing for the first third was plodding and for the second third was deliberate and for the final third satisfactory. I di...
This book is a monumental achievement. Unlike The Lord of the Rings an Game of Thrones, Which take place in realms that are not our own, this one takes place in our past. There are no supernatural beings, sorcery or witchcraft. Some of the animals herein have powers of communication with humans t...
I really liked this book. At first, I was a bit disoriented, and really, I blame my own sloppy brain for that. It’s been over a decade that I actually read literature instead of trashy romance novels and/or Internet fan fiction. So when I first started this one, I was in awe of its many syllabic ...
A fascinating biography one of the most interesting figures in the Taiping Rebellion, Frederick Townsend Ward. Ward was the American mercenary that formed the Ever Victorious Army in Shanghai and held the city by facing off against numbers several times his strength and became an indispensable pi...
After reading The Alienist I immediately had to begin reading the sequel, The Angel of Darkness, also by Caleb Carr. It begins with a quick and expeditious pace compared to The Alienist, and although it didn’t match the intelligence with which Carr’s previous novel was written, the story resounde...