Stafford Lewis

Keep Going.

Revisado: 06-05-20

I am a big fan of the author’s non-fiction work. His ‘Going Clear’ is a particular favorite of mine. While I was up and down with this work I’m glad I finished it. The last few chapters bring things together nicely and while it may seem kind of all over the place as you move through it, the work has a good ending, which I find can be a very tough thing to achieve for even the most accomplished fiction authors. The book includes a great deal of actual science and you grow very attached to its main character. Personally, I also feel that if humanity is ever stupid or unfortunate enough to go down a road similar to what is described in this work, we will see that Mr. Wright’s imagination was very much on point with reality. Let’s hope we never do.

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Khanscentric

Revisado: 05-24-20

This is an extremely well researched work. The author has included just about every detail you could ask for as to the life of Genghis Khan or the creation of his empire. This is an easy listen and does not have the feel of a textbook. The descriptions and historical information are excellent. My only issue comes from the fact that the author basically credits the mongols with being the principal reason that most of European and Asian cultures evolved as they did. They were extremely important of course and were a large source of cultural and technology transfer. They were however only a portion of the vast historical machinery that was at work over centuries and one could argue that the Islamic cultures had Just as great a role in preserving and expanding upon the scientific and technological improvements of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. He also relates the barbarity of both Genghis personally and the mongols in general while not expressing that they were in fact horrible. He tells us that they developed almost nothing on their own; from the written world to any weapons of war without stating the obvious, that they were in fact barbarians who were ahead of their time in tactical military maneuvers and nothing else. What they had and what they became was stolen from other cultures that they invaded and slaughtered.

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A fun book with lots going on

Revisado: 05-22-20

I love the way this Ms. Muir writes; dropping modern day phrasing into the dialogue of her characters right along side wonderful descriptions of settings, characters and action. There’s lots of bickering between female characters that in many cases would have turned me off but Ms. Muir’s protagonists sniping at one another is both creative and in many cases extremely funny. As I said in the title of this review there is a lot going on, both between characters and in the background through description. So...yes you will have to pay attention. I promise you it is worth it. The combination of mid-evil inflected fantasy and spacefaring sci-fi works smoothly throughout the novel. I’m delighted that the sequel will be out in August and look forward to learning more about the universe this author has created.

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Questionable

Revisado: 05-16-20

I would caution anyone before reading this work to look to other books on the period first. I loved this author’s previous work entitled “Empire of the summer moon“ but this work is another matter altogether. The author spends a great deal of time lambasting nearly everyone he comes across and in very personal terms. All of the usual blunders are here but he also slashes away at battles and events and makes judgments about how they were fought in ways that many professional historians could argue with successfully. I found particularly troubling his arm chair psychological insights into the reasons behind actions taken by individuals while offering little to no rationale for these. I would invite him to look at Barbara Tuchman‘s statement concerning… The historian becoming a prophet. I also didn’t care for his personal swipes at The wives of both Robert E. Lee and Abraham Lincoln. Mary Lincoln was a troubled woman and this has been well documented. Lee’s wife was a southern aristocrat used to getting her way. Neither of these facts are in any doubt but I did not care for the language that the author chose to describe them. Both of these descriptions smacked of the modern left-wing intellectual looking down his nose and applying modern standards to historical personages. It’s both unnecessary and in this case quite crude. Lastly I found it interesting that the first half of the book sees Ulysses S. Grant portrayed as something just shy of an idiot and in the second half he seems somehow to just get it all together and become a competent and even great general. The author does treat Clara Barton well and I learned some things that I did not know about her. His descriptions of southern racism and of the atrocities committed by southern soldiers against African-American soldiers are important and deserve to be read and remembered. The work is not bad. But I feel that the author should have limited his opinions or maybe greater effort to back them up with documentary evidence and kept his impressions of what was going on in the minds of both soldiers and civilians to himself unless he could point to letters, journal entries or some other means of documentation to back them up. If he did have such documentation he should have included it.

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Epic

Revisado: 05-16-20

I rarely give five star ratings. A good book and even a very good book, fiction or nonfiction, usually gets four. This work is one of the few exceptions. It is truly remarkable being both character driven and plot driven at the same time. The author makes no bones about his desire to include as much hard science as possible and describe it in great detail. If you can’t deal with this then this book may not be for you. His descriptions of space, earth and of events are truly first rate. His characters, even those that might be considered walk ons, come alive beautifully. You begin to feel as though they are real people that you know, very quickly. I will certainly read more by this author.

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A great portrait of a bad guy

Revisado: 04-08-20

This work is about as fairly balanced as anyone could expect. It gives you the positive achievements of the prince as well as his moral shortcomings. The author takes pains to describe events in detail and paints an excellent picture of modern Saudi society as well as giving you an overview of its history. The work has left me wanting to know more about that history as well as concerned for the future of the Saudi people despite what new freedoms they may come to enjoy due to the rise of MBS.

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Old School

Revisado: 08-28-17

This is a fun read but largely outdated. Several of the authors points have been disproved by more recent scholarship. He is also an apologist for the British in terms of their history in Ireland and India. All that being said it's a good book for beginners who should then read a more up to date work on the same period and look for comparisons.

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Good but could've been better

Revisado: 05-26-15

Good history. Short on some areas that seemed rather important. Like 6 minutes devoted to the Glorious Revolution and how James II was allowed to escape. That seems to deserve a little more detail but oh well. It was ok overall but the areas he choose to expostulate on could have been better chosen.

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This was excellent.

Revisado: 05-20-15

Not a lot of fireworks and he doesn't paint much of a picture of many of the supporting characters bit of those he does he does it well. As for the woman herself, he has done a wonderful job bringing her back to life.

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Long but pretty good

Revisado: 03-08-15

Very important and epic story. That being said you'd better have some background before you read this and be prepared for a very long haul.

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