The Mongoliad (The Mongoliad Series Book 1)

I found it to be written a little too much like they are expecting it to be a screen-play. I would have liked less predictable story lines and more developed characters. How predictable it was. The foreshadowing was a little too complete. The book contains a grand concept delivered so simply that I was left wanting a lot more depth. His performance was the only thing that kept me listening on a very long drive.

Do you think The Mongoliad needs a follow-up book? Well yes, the series is obviously incomplete. I love the concept of the book. Many of its individual characters are very interesting, and I still think on their personalities and choices. I feel that some of the ethereal themes of the book were squeezed out of the way so it would appeal to the masses who watch Game of Thrones. Disappointing and abrupt end to this work. The authors did not have the forethought to wrap up the story lines. It appeared as if they hit their contracted number of words per work and decided that was it, we'll finish this up maybe?

The story lines were interesting and imaginative, but poor ending. I expected more out of these authors. Being Hungarian in heritage, I always try historical books that incorporate that heritage. I don't know much about the Mongolian invasion and was hoping this first novel might touch on that.

The actual storyline, as written, is very confusing. There is no clear individual to get to know and like. Nor is there a real villian to dislike. Too many undeveloped characters with seemingly disconnected plots. It seems like each author was assigned a character and tried to develop action scenes for that character.

Then the editor smashed the storylines together like mashed potatoes. Thus, the story wanders across this book like the Mongols did across the steppes. Yet there is enough to keep me going. I have Book 2 and will continue there hoping things get better. Luke Daniels as a narrator is just as effective as the book is written.

Not horrible but not great. The collection of writers of this book attracted me. I have generally avoided books by committee but thought, with these writers, this might be interesting and I was attracted by the sale price. I would have been better off not bothering. The central idea, that a group of warriors might ride off to try to stop the Molgol invasion by assassinating Ogedei Kahn, seemed like a reasonable plot, but I personally found the writing stuffy, boring and reeking of too much of a fantasy novel. It might have been the underlying assumption of a great world-wide conspiracy in a time when getting a message from one part of Europe to another took months, or it might have been the secret society names without any explanation as to what they were, or it might just have been that this book was not for me.

I don't know, but I ended up abandoning the effort about half way through the first part. While I thought the plot was plodding and uninteresting I have to say that the performance was first class. Luke Daniels did such a wonderful job of narrating that I could tell one character from another just by the voice. It did not make the characters any more interesting for me, but he did a first class job and that should be mentioned.

It was not a total loss. I did learn one thing - that I need to stop buying Audible books just because they are on sale at a terrific price. But this book, the first of a trilogy a trilogy that is apparently already close to complete, which is always a good thing , stands alone as a novel. Describing the newly published book in an Amazon interview, coauthor Mark Teppo says that??? We're old school that way. It's done when you put it on the shelf.??? Good news for readers everywhere!

The prose style of this adventure epic combines history-based fiction with the world-building of fantasy and science fiction, with the wordsmithing genius of Neal Stephenson definitely an influence. The first couple of chapters were a little muddled, but once I got the sense and rhythm of the story, the many characters and their strange names fell into place and it became amazingly easy to follow. Feeling the lack of maps, I confess I scanned the Wikipedia entries on the???

Mongol invasion of Europe??? The Mongols were not kind to the people they conquered or to the cities they overran, usually wiping out both with chilling completeness. They left few survivors in their wake, and the fact that western and Mediterranean Europe including France, Spain, Italy, the Low Countries and even the British Isles were spared their onslaught is, I suspect, going to be a big piece of the mosaic this trilogy will create.

Regarding the narration, as I think most people who have listened to the??? I was dubious about a book co-written by several authors but I am familiar with and love the work of Neal Stephenson so gave it a shot. There is some merit to the story but not much. It does not have the believable historic credibility that Stephenson's Cryptonomicon has. The characterisation is very weak and leads to no feeling of empathy or interest in the outcome of the characters' actions. I think I detected Stephenson's hand in the description of some of the fighting - he is masterful when describing the technique of swordplay and the detail of the equipment.

Apart from that, it was all pretty hum drum, long-winded and wearisome. I enjoyed listening to Part 1 of the Mongoliad so much that I immediately started back at the beginning again and listened right through for a second time. The book describes life under the Mongols, led by the Khan family, and in particular Ogudai Khan, the Khan of Khans or Coggin , and hints at the problems that born fighters face in maintaining the empire which was won by Gengis Khan. Life is savage, and there are many people who would like to destroy the Mongol empire.

The story has three strands: There's a pair of fighters who are employed to amuse another Mongol chief but who are considering changing sides to kill him, and there is the household of Ogudai Khan at Karakoram. He is continually drunk and losing his grip on reality, because he longs for the simple life on the open plains rather than managing a retinue of sycophants, but his behaviour is losing him the respect of all who know him.

Ogudai's brother has sent a young warrior Gansuk to Karakoram with instructions to limit the Coggin's drinking; he is being schooled in the ways of life at court by a pretty Chinese slave, who would like to escape but is worried about what would happen to Gansuk. Each of these strands is telling an interesting story, but all the characters are still in the middle of their exploits, none of them has come to a point of conclusion or achievement when the book suddenly ends, so the reader is left with an enormous cliff-hanger!

The narrator is very good at putting different voices to the many characters, and this helps to add colour to the narrative. I'm very much looking forward to the next parts of the trilogy, and hope it won't be too long a wait. I enjoyed every moment of it, looking forward to listening to the next book. Interesting lifestyle saga about the Mongoloids. Starts to fill in a details of a forgotten and unrecorded time. The Foreworld Saga, Book 1. Get it free with day trial. Publisher's Summary In the late 19th century, a mysterious group of English martial arts aficionados provided Sir Richard F.

The Last Aeon Iron Dragoons. What members say Average Customer Ratings Overall. Most Helpful Most Recent. Great storyline spoiled by poor naration Would you recommend this book to a friend? Not as dense as your typical Stephenson, but with the fantastic range and scope and depth. I was a little concerned about this, given it's a collaborative work written by a bunch of fantasy authors after they created a club for playing with ancient weapons.

And true, there is a lot of fighting in this book, but it's actually pretty compelling - it turns out that when a fight is described analytically and tactically by people who know what they're talking about, it comes across al This was great! And true, there is a lot of fighting in this book, but it's actually pretty compelling - it turns out that when a fight is described analytically and tactically by people who know what they're talking about, it comes across almost like dialogue. The characters are well-drawn and surprisingly easy to distinguish given there are about twelve of them travelling in a pack at any given time, and the story reaches from western-ish Europe to the edge of China.

Sometimes authors collaborate and it feels like they switched off every other chapter, or one person's characters are populating another's universe. I don't know if it's the bashing each other with quarterstaffs for years that did it, but there aren't any barriers that come through in this book. I love Stephenson's attention to detail, but here it's leavened in a way that I don't want to say it's an improvement, but sometimes I can get worn out by Stephenson's exhaustive dives into information.

What I'm trying to say is that the informational dives still exist in Mongoliad, they're just more accessible. It's a delight to read, and I'm really tired today because I stayed up until 4am to finish it. It's fascinating and fun. Knocking a star off ONLY out of pique that it's a cliffhanger ending. Can't wait for the next! This is a really tough one to review. Mongoliad is a serial novel which was produced interactively as part of a transmedia franchise.

According to the website, it's "sort of the thing that Charles Dickens wrote, but with a decidedly 21st century twist", emphasizing the role of social media and community resources in the project's idea and creation. I have to say the serialized format and the multiple authors both facilitated and hindered my enjoyment. Not surprisingly, the novel did not always fe This is a really tough one to review. Not surprisingly, the novel did not always feel cohesive. There are sections of the novel that are beautifully written, paid attention to character development, etc.

On the other hand, there were also those sections in which style changes are more obvious, quality of the storytelling was not as high, and chapters where more attention like pages and pages was paid to fighting styles and weapons than the actual protagonists utilizing and wielding them.

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Apparently, Mongoliad and the Foreworld universe came about from a group of friends' shared interest in the study of Western Martial Arts, so that's understandable. If that's your thing, you'll find plenty to like in this novel. If not, you'll probably go through ups and downs like me. I generally prefer a good story with ample character building. There are so many characters, and it always seemed like just when I wanted to know more, the book changes to another scene or switches perspective, leaving me hanging.

There was just enough in book one to keep me intrigued and interested in picking up book two. Feb 14, Melissa McShane rated it really liked it Shelves: This book has about a million authors, but it doesn't read like it does. It's also got about a million viewpoint characters well, more like eight so I had my usual negative reaction to being dragged out of one story I loved into another one I wasn't so interested in.

In general, I did like most of the plotlines, though I don't care for authors introducing new POV characters in the middle or even near the end of a book; it feels like it dilutes the story. On the other hand, one of those new POV This book has about a million authors, but it doesn't read like it does. On the other hand, one of those new POV characters became one of my favorites, so I'm not exactly being consistent. There's a lot going on here, and complicated fiction always has a chance of complicating itself right out of a reader's interest, but I think it succeeds as a whole.

This is a book about war--that's really its most notable characteristic. The authors are all, as far as I can tell, interested in medieval warfare and weaponry, and if you care about that, you're going to love this book. It's a world-spanning book, so you get martial techniques from Vikings and Franks and Mongols and even a lost Japanese warrior.

The combinations make for some very interesting fight scenes. Despite all this, the authors haven't lost sight of characterization, and manage to keep their characters distinct and interesting. I'm particularly fond of the Mongol tribesman sent to keep the Khan from drinking himself to death. Now there's a thankless job for you. Kudos to whoever keeps the team's writing styles uniform, and I'm looking forward to the next volume.

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Jan 16, Chris rated it really liked it Shelves: This alternate history is good, and suddenly you find yourself caring about the characters, many of whom seem to blend for a while. The book is most quest as some knights travel to save thier world from the Mongol horde. The Mongols have thier own problems. The reader finds herself in the position of rooting for both sides. The book is more action based than character based, and seems more movie like in this regard. Apr 07, Fred Hughes rated it really liked it. Even though this book was written by a committee of writers I found the subject matter interesting and the story line tight.

Characters are well developed, widely varied, and interesting. The book just ends and I already have Book two on my shelf to read after I read a couple of others. Greg Bear and Neal Stephenson attracted me to this series. Not science fiction, but more historical adventures. I received this audiobook as a complete package with a prequel, Sinner , included. This review only covers The Mongoliad: Book One , as I reviewed Sinner: A Prequel to the Mongoliad separately. Book One is a different sort of book. It pretty much violated all of my typical "rules" for a book, and I still find myself wanting to read on, to find out what happens in The Mongoliad: I'm not sure the book is really a 3-star book, but I think it's unfair to rate a book 2 stars but say that I want to know what happens next.

For those who don't know, "The Mongoliad" was a bit of a "multimedia experiment" started by Neal Stephenson and some of his science fiction, fantasy, and historical fiction friends. The end product, the volumes in the main story as well as the side stories, was a collaborative effort by Neal Stephenson , Greg Bear , Mark Teppo , and others. Originally published on the web though the site seems to be more or less inactive now, with the authors stating that the published works are the preferred versions , it was originally intended to be a joining of authors and various media types for different forms of story-telling.

While that may frustrate some, it was just fine for me; I loved The Baroque Cycle , after all. The story weaves fictional tales using actual events from the Mongol invasion of Europe. Book One is comprised with a few parallel story lines. Set in the Middle Ages, the two primary story lines are that of a group of knights on a quest including Raphael, who we met in Sinner: Through these "main" story lines, there are some side-stories in the novel, including some flashbacks as well as a plotline surrounding some of the brother-knights who are not on the quest but are left to keep the Mongol invaders "occupied" including Andreas, who we also met in Sinner: A Prequel to the Mongoliad.

The fact that I'm describing this so poorly is a testament to the first major issue I had with the book, an issue that is probably only an issue with the audio version: The second major issue I have with the book is related, that because the stories go back and forth, it can be easy to get confused as to who is who when switching between stories, especially if it's been a day or more since last listening.

Luke Daniels, the narrator, did a good job with using different voices for each of the characters. But if you couldn't remember which one was the adviser and which was the slave, then the voices didn't help much. One other note on the narration: Luke Daniels is a good narrator, one who adds to the story without adding so much that it's distracting. That said, in addition to the confusing names, there are also flashbacks and stuff in the story, and it was hard to figure out when the story was a flashback and when it was just moving on.

I suspect a print edition may have been more obvious. While I'm on the topic of "confusing characters," another major issue I had with the book was that it felt like it was in desperate need of an editor. This may be a factor of "too many cooks in the kitchen" or maybe it was just the contribution from each author wanting to ensure the setup for the other authors was clear Interesting plot-relevant sections would be bogged down with--or worse, broken up by--seemingly interminable character- and world-building sections. I don't mind world- and character-building, but I felt like it could have been done much more organically than it was done in this book.

It would have been much more fulfilling to learn about a feature in a town by seeing a character interact with it instead of a half chapter describing the looks of the buildings. Also, this was a book heavy on battle descriptions Not only does it end in the middle of a fairly interesting scene, but none of the story lines are wrapped up; they are all left hanging. I hope that before I go onto The Mongoliad: Book Two , I can find a good synopsis online or a cheat-sheet to remind me of who was who and what happened, since I'm going to be listening to a very different book before I move onto the next book I'm definitely going to listen to the next book and probably the third book.

I like the characters. I want to see if the knights will be able to complete their quest if true history is any guide, I suspect they will , and how some of the side-quests turn out. I care about the adviser to the Kahn; he doesn't seem like a bad guy, even if the guy he's serving isn't a great leader. So, despite my significant frustrations, possibly because I do really like historical fiction, I'm going to continue with the series.

I'm not sure this book is for everyone. I'm not sure that audiobook is the best way to consume the books. But despite its flaws, I actually want to know what happens next, so onward I go Nov 07, Mona rated it liked it. Not quite a 4, but very enjoyable in spite of a lousy start, disjointed narrative caused by multiple authors, and long boring explanations of Medieval weapons combats. May 01, Simon rated it liked it. Book One, written by seven authors altogether, depicts an adventure set in the 13th century about war and the devastation laid to the world by the Mongolians.

A band of orderly knights and monks set out on a quest to rid the evil that has brought so much destruction to so many people. Their journey is sure to be labeled as foolish since the odds are clearly against them but it seems that they have no choice. I admit that I know absolutely nothing about Genghis Khan as a brutal conqueror and so I was surprised to see that this book actually talks about him, or rather, his sons. I thought it was made believe but upon a little searching on Wikipedia, it turns out that these characters actually did exist during that time.

This was fairly interesting to me since I love to read about history but as for the story itself, The Mongoliad could have been more interesting. While the first book does make for a pretty decent introduction of characters and whatnot, it doesn't do much to make me want to read the next book in the series. The Mongoliad has several story arcs that tie in altogether and so you'll be presented with a dozen or so characters. Some of them are fairly interesting but many of them just aren't that fun to read about. When this happens, you tend to not care about the characters overall and whether they live or die in the story.

One major group consists of Cnan, Percival, Feronanthus, Roger, Finn, Istvan and a whole bunch of other characters that could be considered the main characters in the group, especially with Cnan. The authors do a pretty poor job of describing the physical traits of these characters and so throughout the book, you'll have a hard time painting a face to the name in your head. Cnan is known as a Binder but just exactly what a Binder is isn't described enough.

I got away that a Binder is a messenger of some sort. The other characters seem to be either knights, monks or of a physician type. The problem is that not much back history is told for these other characters and so again, you can't really relate to them too much. The authors seem to have put more effort and time into building these characters, especially with Gansukh. With a total of seven different writers contributing to the project, you would think the book would be one jumble pile of mess.

Surprisingly, the authors did a very good job of writing the book so that you don't really notice the fact that so many authors were in on the project. The bad news is that the authors sometimes write in a way that they assume you already know all the historical jargons of the past.

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Luckily, some jargon does get explained further along but I wouldn't be holding my breath. As far as location details go, this area isn't exactly clear as well. We get hints here and there but it can get quite puzzling sometimes. Luckily, these pieces of information aren't really necessary to enjoy the overall story of the The Mongoliad which is pretty simple overall.

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I just wish some these things would be corrected in the second book of the series. As far as action goes, there are a couple of these set pieces throughout the book. However, I sort of expected more grand scale battles. There is one fight scene that literally spans a couple of chapter and seemed to me dragging and majorly overdone.

I will also say that I sometimes had a hard time picturing the fight choreography in my head. Its not that the authors were being complicated but for some odd reason, I had a hard time concentrating on some fight scenes.

The ending to The Mongoliad: Book One was the most disappointing. Being how this is the first book in the series, I expect the author to at least leave a decent cliffhanger ending so that readers can't wait for the next one. However, things just abruptly ends! Many questions were not answered and if this is what the authors idea to be of a "cliffhanger" to hold readers over until the next book releases, then I do not agree with them at all.

I will conclude that this series has potential for me to see it to the end and although the first book in the series have some flaws, I believe it deserves a second chance and so I will judge the series more accordingly once I've read the second book. Jun 22, Mark rated it really liked it Shelves: I was a little leery of this work. Having been in a kitchen with too many cooks I expected disaster at worst, bland disconnected rambling at best. I'm happy to say I was disappointed in my expectations. That's not to say that I was overjoyed with the work itself. I'm a big fan of Neal Stephenson, have read most if not all of his work, and know to expect I was a little leery of this work.

I'm a big fan of Neal Stephenson, have read most if not all of his work, and know to expect grand ideas expressed through intricate story lines based on thoroughly researched background. I don't know most of the other authors and so wondered how they would all work on a story with one voice. I don't know the actual mechanism they used to achieve cohesion but they succeeded. I never really noticed any roughness in the narrative, no glaring holes in the plot, no surprise character appearances or disappearances necessitated by poorly thought out developments.

Things developed as they should without the hand of god interceding. Still, there was an itch I just couldn't scratch. Maybe it's that part of my mind was running a constant subroutine looking for trouble, that expected less-then-full-on-Stephenson. Maybe I was being too harsh without being conscious of it. Whatever it was, I came away a little disappointed. The characters were a little "less" than I am accustomed to. Not that Stephenson's characters are all overblown but they almost all are very distinct, very strong, and that seemed to be dimmed somehow. I also missed the sly humor with which Stephenson usually salts his work.

It showed up occasionally but it wasn't as present as I would have liked. So, if this is the way I feel about the book, why a "4-star" rating?

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Well, it's a good read. The characters are well drawn, the story sufficiently intricate, the geographical sprawl immense as it should be when dealing with the Mongol Empire still a-building , details of place, time, and culture were pleasing. I wish I could have given a partial "star," say 3. Even though the first volume ended in a way that left me with an urge to say, "meh," I look forward to the 2nd volume due out in September. Maybe my pesky mental subroutine will stop running and I'll find the story more engaging.

Apr 29, Michael Laine rated it really liked it Recommends it for: Alternate Reality Historical Fiction Fans. I wolfed it down. Some characters expand over time and evolve a little. The pacing is good and the fight scenes are graphic and detailed. Honestly, this is not the typical book for me.

But I like Bear and Stephenson a lot, and was excited to be one of the first readers of this trilogy. A couple years ago Kim Stanley Robinson tackled that question, too. But Stephenson and his team imagine the problem from a different perspective. I was frustrated with the end — clearly the authors were aiming for a cliff-hanger, but this was downright cruel. Korean cinema intrigues me.

The Mongoliad by Various authors

The nuances of dialogue invariably are lost in subtitles, but the tricks inflicted on convention seldom fail to impress me. Take The Chaser or The Host; it is doubtful that most are not perplexed by these ruminations on genre, the psychological thriller and monster film, respectively. My wife often questions some of these cinematic explorations. I don't offer a more sturdy answer than, I like them, it is fun. It was with a likewise loose spirit that I pursued the ense Korean cinema intrigues me.

It was with a likewise loose spirit that I pursued the ensemble writing project behind Mongoliad. I had encountered Wu Ming a few years back and I have held reservations about the discord of ensemble writing. I shouldn't have feared that here. It is a coterie of lads discussing swords and saddles. I don't believe it evens dreams of such. It yielded a big meh as I turned the cliffhanging final page: I would probably extend it 2.

May 24, Benjamin Duffy rated it liked it Shelves: I would have enjoyed this book much more if I had not come to it expecting a Neal Stephenson book. It has none of Stephenson's gonzo over-the-top-ness, nor his didacticism; none of his manic rambles, twenty-page asides, or enormous math-based research dumps. It has precious little of his trademark humor and gleeful geekery. In fact, the only real Stephenson trademark in evidence here is an abundance of hypercompetent badasses doing their thing - here it's alchemists and swordfighters rather than I would have enjoyed this book much more if I had not come to it expecting a Neal Stephenson book.

In fact, the only real Stephenson trademark in evidence here is an abundance of hypercompetent badasses doing their thing - here it's alchemists and swordfighters rather than hackers or codebreakers, but it's very much the same feel. However, those complaints aside, this was still a fun story, full of action, and I'll probably read the next book in the series. Then I read the ridiculous cliffhanger ending - here's the thing. The ending still made me mad. Melodramatic cliffhangers leading into second books which aren't even scheduled for publication for over a year - worst literary trend ever.

Worse by far than the sequel itself. May 18, Kam rated it liked it Shelves: When one is friends with people who love to read, and one talks to those people about not just the books being read, but their personal reading habits, things tend to come out: One of the most common has to do with spoilers. Some readers hate them like the plague, and I've known more than a few flame wars started online because someone decided to be a troll and posts the spoilers without warnings of any kind.

I, on the other hand, am what I When one is friends with people who love to read, and one talks to those people about not just the books being read, but their personal reading habits, things tend to come out: I, on the other hand, am what I like to call "spoiler-proof: Another divisive issue, I've found, is happy endings. Lots of people refuse to read a book if it ends sadly or badly for the characters, or put down a book almost immediately if they find out it's going to be tragic for a character they like.

I'm in the other camp: I don't mind if a story ends tragically, as long as there's a reason for the tragedy. I don't mind happy endings, but I do tend to believe that that happy ending has to be earned. And besides, it's not like life itself always has happy endings, and I appreciate any kind of story that doesn't go out of its way to twist the world to force a happy ending when a tragic one would have been the more appropriate choice. Another rather divisive issue is the question of cliffhangers, particularly at the end of a novel. There are a great many people out there who believe that a novel, especially in a series, has to have some definite end, instead of just leaving things dangling until the next book - a reasonable complaint, to be sure, especially when one begins talking about series that run to five books and up.

I, on the other hand, don't mind in the least, and actually love a good cliffhanger. A good cliffhanger makes me want to turn the book over and shake it in the hopes that, if I do so, the next chapter will magically appear. It never does, of course, but at least I know, if I get the urge to do that, then the cliffhanger is a good one. Awful cliffhangers, of course, are the ones that don't make me care much at all one way or another, or cut off the story at precisely the wrong moment.

The latter have been rarer than the former, likely because a great many writers have enough sense to at least know when to cut a story or a chapter. In fact, they're so rare that I haven't encountered one like it outside of discontinued fanfiction. Except here I am, staring at the conclusion of The Mongoliad: As I said, I like cliffhangers that leave me craving for the next book - rather like deliberately jumping off the edge of a bridge for a bungee jump. The ending for this book, however, rather feels like I've stepped into a hole without knowing the hole was there. I was expecting a cliffhanger, yes, but not this kind of cliffhanger.

I find this rather sad, as I do like this book. It began as an idea put forward by Neal Stephenson, which eventually metamorphosed into something that's now meant to be a multimedia, multi-platform fictional experience, an immersion into a world going beyond just books or comics or movies or video games. The book is just one aspect of it: I have a basic membership, which prevents me from accessing all the available content.

This includes not just chapters, but videos, maps, and character portraits, as well. I find the need to pay for more content rather frustrating, though I suppose it will all come up in book format eventually or hopefully. One can pay for the privilege of instant and immediate access to everything, if they so wish, but I would much rather wait. After all, now that they've published one book, the authors will have to publish the rest of it, and I can get the rest of the story then. I also hope that, when the book series has been concluded, the authors and whoever else is running this experience will open up the rest of the content for those of us who find the price of premium membership a little too rich for their blood and given the conversion from Philippine peso to US dollar, it is very rich indeed.

I am all for clever ways of making money, since creatives get short shrift for their work all too often, but there's also such a thing as being a bit too greedy. This first book is an intriguing read: Set in Eastern Europe during the 11th century, it is about a small band of knights belonging to an ancient, little-known order, who are engaged in a plan to stop the Golden Horde from spreading further into Europe. All that is explained about her is that she's very good at sneaking around and tracking, which are, apparently, core Binder skills.

That is just one half of the story: At some point in time these separate storylines will meet the knights' storyline branches out into two at a certain point in the story , eventually, because the authors appear to be quite sure about the endgame for this thing. What happens before then, though, is certainly open to debate - not least because so many threads are left dangling at the end if it might even be called an end. As can be expected, the cast of characters for this novel is rather large, and so far, they are an interesting lot. The knights are intriguing: Equally interesting is Istvan, the Hungarian knight whose bloodlust for Mongols is fueled by both memory and a rather unsettling personal habit.

Raphael is also quite intriguing, not least because he is an Arab by birth, at least, though not by faith in the midst of all these obviously Western knights. Damietta also appears to be significant to him, and I would really like to know in what way it is significant to him, because the city was an important staging-point for Crusades, and was constantly fought over by Crusaders and Muslims alike.

And then there is Percival. I don't know what to make of this one, even though he is the one who most closely fits the stereotypical idea of a knight: It's implied that there's more to him than just his pretty face, but the only indication of his having had a hard life is his martial prowess. It might be because of his name, because very few characters get named "Percival" without having some sort of quest attached to their characterization, and that's exactly what Percival gets: At this point I really don't know what to make of him, and while I know this mild dislike I have for him is somewhat unfair, given how incomplete his characterization is at this point, I'm hoping that opinion will change with later books.

I suppose this is because her character is difficult to pin down, given that she's undergoing a major shift in her life and paradigm simply by being around these knights, but I get the feeling sometimes that her characterization is a bit muddled - or could this be a deliberate thing, an echo of the inner turmoil she is experiencing? I cannot say for sure, but, as with Percival, I can only hope that any issues I have with her will be cleared up in later books. At this point, the characters I like the most are the ones on the Mongol side: But the real fun characters here are Gansukh and Lian, and how they negotiate each other.

On one hand, Lian is determined to get away from Mongol control but finds herself attracted to a Mongol. On the other, Gansukh is confused by the way the court operates, since it works almost directly opposite to how his life was out on the steppes, which is made even more difficult by the fact that he's attracted to Lian, but doesn't even know where to begin when it comes to her.