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jhouses's review
1.0
A ver, es mas 1,5 estrellas que 1, porque aunque el libro es pesado como pocos, esta trufado de buenas ideas que en otras manos habrían dado para mucho. El libro tiene un planteamiento interesante con la pretensión de ser la historia real sobre la que se novelo un trasunto de los tres mosqueteros que ha dado lugar a numerosas películas. El protagonista no es otro que Rochefort, el malo de la novela de Dumas y la historia comienza con interés cuando se ve implicado en el asesinato de Enrique IV y tiene que huir acompañado de un joven duelista al que desprecia pero por el que se siente atraido. Un comienzo prometedor que rápidamente se desinfla y se convierte en páginas y páginas de angustiosa espera mientras ideas muy interesantes como el matemático capaz de predecir el futuro y la doncella que finje ser un can¡ballero se estrellan en el insoportable tedio de la neurosis de Rochefort. Pufos como el Samurai viajero o la obra de teatro a lo Hamlet no hacen mas que acrecentar el sabor a refrito del asunto. No lo releeré
lilacashes's review against another edition
4.0
In summary, an enjoyable and gripping read with astonishing historical accuracy, but not without its peeves.
jonknightknighthunterbooks's review against another edition
challenging
dark
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
This is a swashbuckling adventure story.
With heavy themes about the ethical responsibility to act when one has foreknowledge.
And buckets ofpersonal growth and acceptance - that starts with quite virulent hatred (transphobia?) directed both from one protagonist to another and from one protagonist to himself.
This is perhaps a little heavier than I needed from a holiday read - I'd expected the foreknowledge/ethical side (it seems to be something of theme in Gentle's work) but the hatred made the early sections hard work.
This perhaps might have had more impact were I more familiar with the 1610s (but now I will feel I am, and have a load of key people and dates wrong!).
Any of Gentle's novels I've read could easily stand shoulder to shoulder with Stephenson's Baroque cycle - she really should be better known; though this is perhaps not where I would start!
With heavy themes about the ethical responsibility to act when one has foreknowledge.
And buckets of
This is perhaps a little heavier than I needed from a holiday read - I'd expected the foreknowledge/ethical side (it seems to be something of theme in Gentle's work) but the hatred made the early sections hard work.
This perhaps might have had more impact were I more familiar with the 1610s (but now I will feel I am, and have a load of key people and dates wrong!).
Any of Gentle's novels I've read could easily stand shoulder to shoulder with Stephenson's Baroque cycle - she really should be better known; though this is perhaps not where I would start!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Homophobia, and Transphobia
bibliobethreads's review against another edition
2.0
I picked up this book from my local library intrigued by the blurb on the back. Unfortunately blurb is all it was, the story had the potential to be very interesting but bored me before I was halfway through it, managed 250 pages before giving up.
arthurbdd's review against another edition
4.0
Fairly accomplished work, though I am not persuaded it really needs to be this long, and there's a rape angle which I feel was pretty gratuitously handled. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/2014/04/12/erecting-the-gnomon/
chelsea_not_chels's review
3.0
It would have been a four-star book if it had been about half the length. It seemed there were so many good places to stop, but it just kept going.
the_discworldian's review
Ah, no. Nope. No more, thanks.
Maybe this will sound prudish, but I prefer my duels with no fondling. And if there MUST be fondling, couldn't it at least be consensual?
Maybe this will sound prudish, but I prefer my duels with no fondling. And if there MUST be fondling, couldn't it at least be consensual?
nwhyte's review against another edition
http://nhw.livejournal.com/32752.html[return][return]1610 is a good book, all right, a fascinating and somewhat kinky look at the year of the title and the possibilities of changing history. But of course any fictional scenario involving deterministic prediction of the future has to actually find a way of averting said deterministic prediction to make the plot interesting; I have never seen that done convincingly and this is no exception. I felt I recognised too many elements from both Ash and the only other Mary Gentle book I've read, The Architecture of Desire (also set in a seventeenth century that never was - cf Pepys) without really much new being added. And basically it is too long.
stefhyena's review against another edition
2.0
Even though I did not like a lot of things about this book I am glad I persisted and read it all. I found the first 300 pages particularly difficult to keep reading and even once I realised I could get into aspects of the story, some parts were too drawn out. 600 is a lot of pages!!!
The story is a historical (possibly alternative history) look at some assassinations of kings (successful and otherwise) and on the surface level is a swashbuckling adventure. Then it also has a lot of introspective meandering, a love-story that moves very slowly and both sides of it are frustratingly stupid. There are duels, escapes, disguises, voyages- all you would want in a swashbuckling adventure but also for me far too many torture and punishment scenes as well as a rape that may have been crucial to the plot (although I question this in any case) but was shown in far too much detail. Cliche and horrible!
The sexuality in the book could be described as "kink" but even then as I try to like the fact that a rarely seen sexuality is portrayed, I think it is extremely problematical that it starts in non-consent. Both "lovers" try to humiliate each other or enjoy the humiliation of each other, which turns into a harmless sex-game for them eventually and we are meant to forget the real danger and violence it began with. The book is very forgiving of violence, even the killing of friends "these things happen" but very unforgiving of disobedience/disloyalty to a "superior". I tried to integrate that as simply a historical view, but I couldn't help seeing it as a hyper-masculine aspect of the book that somehow passes unexamined in a book that gives us so much good deconstruction of femininity, and also at least opens masculinity up to whatever woman is bold enough to grab some for herself. I guess the "individuality" of the women who managed to overcome their femininity was sort of in a liberal feminist framework, although there was some tacit acknowlegement of patriarchy this was portrayed as men simply being too dumb to realise what women experience (partly true no doubt but portrayed as humorous rather than sinister). Gender bending in the book was wonderful, except in so far as at times it seemed played for laughs (still even then there were some good observations). Why on earth having spent almost 600 pages finding the available female role/s too constrictive does Arcadie raise her daughter only to be a wife and mother??
The queerness and gender-fluidity of the main love story was the best feature of the narrative (the occasional criticisms by the Japanese character of white European culture also a great feature). It was unfortunate though that Arcadie's summing up of the "romance" looking backward finished off what I had felt was a tendency in the text to take all this kink and gender fluidity and turn it monogamous heterosexual after all- very slightly on the boundaries but....I would have preferred the characters to retain some polyamorous tendencies at the very least. The misogyny inherent in some types of male homoerotic behaviour was portrayed effectively. Female characters tended to be somewhat tragic but were portrayed well.
Some historical details were quite nice (such as the description of the colour of Rochefort's shirt as "goose-turd") and yet the characters in the main talked in a very modern (therefore anachronistic) way.
The violence in the book is not only unrelenting and portrayed somewhat positively or casually at times but overly graphic. If I had a dollar every time someone's brains, guts or blood splattered everywhere I would at least be able to buy a nice bottle of wine. I found that excessive if historically accurate. It took me over 300 pages to build any sort of relationship with the two main characters, they were extremely unlikeable to begin with and I think the change in them (Dariole in particular) was not fully believable. It's a romance, I could cope with larger than life happenings and doings if the characters pulled me in a bit earlier and if it wasn't for all the violence and rape scenes.
I am still of the opinion that a book this long is almost always too long.
The story is a historical (possibly alternative history) look at some assassinations of kings (successful and otherwise) and on the surface level is a swashbuckling adventure. Then it also has a lot of introspective meandering, a love-story that moves very slowly and both sides of it are frustratingly stupid. There are duels, escapes, disguises, voyages- all you would want in a swashbuckling adventure but also for me far too many torture and punishment scenes as well as a rape that may have been crucial to the plot (although I question this in any case) but was shown in far too much detail. Cliche and horrible!
The sexuality in the book could be described as "kink" but even then as I try to like the fact that a rarely seen sexuality is portrayed, I think it is extremely problematical that it starts in non-consent. Both "lovers" try to humiliate each other or enjoy the humiliation of each other, which turns into a harmless sex-game for them eventually and we are meant to forget the real danger and violence it began with. The book is very forgiving of violence, even the killing of friends "these things happen" but very unforgiving of disobedience/disloyalty to a "superior". I tried to integrate that as simply a historical view, but I couldn't help seeing it as a hyper-masculine aspect of the book that somehow passes unexamined in a book that gives us so much good deconstruction of femininity, and also at least opens masculinity up to whatever woman is bold enough to grab some for herself. I guess the "individuality" of the women who managed to overcome their femininity was sort of in a liberal feminist framework, although there was some tacit acknowlegement of patriarchy this was portrayed as men simply being too dumb to realise what women experience (partly true no doubt but portrayed as humorous rather than sinister). Gender bending in the book was wonderful, except in so far as at times it seemed played for laughs (still even then there were some good observations). Why on earth having spent almost 600 pages finding the available female role/s too constrictive does Arcadie raise her daughter only to be a wife and mother??
The queerness and gender-fluidity of the main love story was the best feature of the narrative (the occasional criticisms by the Japanese character of white European culture also a great feature). It was unfortunate though that Arcadie's summing up of the "romance" looking backward finished off what I had felt was a tendency in the text to take all this kink and gender fluidity and turn it monogamous heterosexual after all- very slightly on the boundaries but....I would have preferred the characters to retain some polyamorous tendencies at the very least. The misogyny inherent in some types of male homoerotic behaviour was portrayed effectively. Female characters tended to be somewhat tragic but were portrayed well.
Some historical details were quite nice (such as the description of the colour of Rochefort's shirt as "goose-turd") and yet the characters in the main talked in a very modern (therefore anachronistic) way.
The violence in the book is not only unrelenting and portrayed somewhat positively or casually at times but overly graphic. If I had a dollar every time someone's brains, guts or blood splattered everywhere I would at least be able to buy a nice bottle of wine. I found that excessive if historically accurate. It took me over 300 pages to build any sort of relationship with the two main characters, they were extremely unlikeable to begin with and I think the change in them (Dariole in particular) was not fully believable. It's a romance, I could cope with larger than life happenings and doings if the characters pulled me in a bit earlier and if it wasn't for all the violence and rape scenes.
I am still of the opinion that a book this long is almost always too long.