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Lädt ... The Silver Skullvon Mark Chadbourn
infjsarah's wishlist (77) Lädt ...
Melde dich bei LibraryThing an um herauszufinden, ob du dieses Buch mögen würdest. Keine aktuelle Diskussion zu diesem Buch. This was a really fun read on the whole. I liked the mix of fantasy (Unseelie Court) and history (Spain's attempt to invade England) and the non-stop action sword fighting action meant the pages were turned fast. I wish it was shorter, the endless sword fights are fun, but they are not enough to hold the weight of a 500 page book. All the characters were cliches, but the women were particularly annoying, and I hated the italicized flashbacks. A more sophisticated story would have integrated those bits of past history into the narrative. There are times when you read a book that's so amazing to you that you feel the author had you personally in mind when they wrote it, that's exactly how I feel about Mark Chadbourn's The Silver Skull. The story is set in Elizabethan England and in this world the real enemies are the Fae who have preyed upon humanity for eons. England also faces its human foes in the form of the Spanish who have reason to be discontent due to religious & conquestorial differences. The story follows Will Swyfte - the greatest spy England has ever known. He's handsome, daring, smart, and dangerous. He's everything a great spy should be. The core of the story is indeed a spy/adventure story. The Cold War between England and Spain appears ready to turn hot as Spain and its ally Faerie are posed to invade. The Unseelie Court is pulling strings behind the curtains. Will has been tasked with saving the whole of England from certain doom. However, the Queen's sorcerer Dr John Dee has brought back some balance between the adversaries. It is now up to the swashbuckling showman to prove he is the real deal with Dee providing him the latest in magical and mundane technology. Nasty, brutal, super intelligent - the fairies Mark Chadbourn creates are the ultimate super-villains. James Bond never had to deal with these guys! Looking forward to the next instalment. There were times that it lost my attention but overall I was very caught up with this story of Elizabethan England and some spies who weren't involved in the normal spying, but where involved with the things that go bumb in the night. Those things that could drive you mad, that peasant superstition would suggest some solutions but overall, it was Dee and Walsingham who held the tide back. Will Swyfte is a national hero, a man known to fight England's enemies, what people don't know is that what he fights isn't just the obvious but the hidden and what he knows could drive you mad. He tries to keep his relationships superficial but people sometimes find their way in. There were times when this flew though my fingers and then there were times that it lagged and it lost me. There were moments of whiplash when things happened so fast that I really didn't get a feeling of time, but overall I did enjoy it and look forward to the sequel. keine Rezensionen | Rezension hinzufügen
Gehört zur ReiheSwords of Albion (1)
1588- rumours reach Queen Elizabeth's court of the reappearance of a legendary doomsday device. Originally from the East, its power has been fabled for millennia. Last used by the Moors when they invaded Spain, it had been lost for centuries but now Walsingham's spies believe it has surfaced in Seville, where Philip of Spain's men are frantically trying to track it down - their intention to use it in a plot to murder England's queen.Will Swyfte - swordsman, adventurer, scholar, rake, and the greatest of this new breed of spy - uncovers a plot within a plot that has, at its dark heart, the venomous world of Faerie. It seems the Unseelie Court wants the device for its own nefarious ends- to launch a devastating attack on England in revenge for the capture of the Faerie Queen.Caught in a deadly race against time, Will journeys from London to Edinburgh, to Seville and finally to Venice in pursuit of the fiendish device as Philip's Armada prepares for its naval assault on England, providing cover for the Faerie world's even more deadly, magickal attack... Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
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Google Books — Lädt ... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999Klassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt:
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It's entirely possible I only finished this because at the times when I really went, "...but I don't care!" I was either stuck on a train with half an hour between here and home, or I was within a hundred pages of the end. (Yes, I didn't care within a hundred pages of the end. That level of general disinterest.) And part of my irritation is that I feel that this really could have been a thoroughly entertaining book, but all of the elements were under-utilised. The ruthlessness and emotional trauma of the spies was in some ways over- and in some ways under-played (Swyfte's woe-is-me ruminations on the spy's lot were often trite). Some big plot comes out at the end when it would have been used throughout. And don't even get me started on the fact that all the Fae are unremittingly evil despite the mentions of "helper" or good faeries. Lack of ambiguity often makes me pull a face, but especially when you're dealing with folk who would probably be found pressed between the dictionary pages at the entry for "ambiguous".
In short: meh. ( )