2011; 468 pages. Book 1 (out of 15) in the “Epic Adventure” series. New Author? : Yes. Genre : Historical Asian Fiction; Epic
Adventure. Overall Rating : 9*/10.
An enemy of my enemy is my friend. And the Christian Crusaders fighting the
hordes of Saracens in the Holy Land in 1260 AD need all the friends they can
get.
What about those fearsome
marauding Mongols way out in Eastern Asia?
They’ve been battling the Christian and Moslem armies, and inflicting
heavy casualties on both.
Let’s send a Papal envoy to them and get them
to join the Crusaders they’ve been killing. Then the both of us can gang up on those
infidel Moslems. We’ll conveniently ignore the fact
that the Mongols are also infidels.
We’ll assign a veteran
Crusader to accompany the envoy and keep him safe. A Knights Templar, no less. The two of them can travel to and meet with the Great Khan,
wherever he is, and convince him to join us.
Nothing can possibly go
wrong. Because we have God on our side,
and nobody else does!
What’s To Like...
Silk Road
is the first book in a 15-volume Historical
Adventure series by Colin Falconer.
It is a standalone novel, not connected to any of the others. Chronologically, it starts out soon after
what Wikipedia labels “The Seventh Crusade”, which was waged in the
years 1248-1254 AD.
The storyline follows three
main protagonists: William, the
Pope’s envoy and zealous defender of the faith; Josseran,
the Crusader tasked with making sure William safely reaches the Great Khan; and
Khutelun, a Mongol princess who’d
rather engage you in combat than become engaged to you. The character development of these three
individuals is deep and satisfying, and that is also true of the secondary
characters such as Khutelun’s father, her brothers, and the daughter of Kublai,
the present Mongol ruler of Cathay (China).
The historical angle felt
meticulously researched, which for a history buff like me, is a definite
plus. The titular “Silk Road” was the
main trade route in those days, but traveling it was perilous at best, fatal at
worst. I was familiar with the practice
of foot-binding and the partaking of hashish (by
both Mongols and Saracens), but didn’t know ice cream was a culinary
delight back then. And William’s clumsy
attempts at using chopsticks brought back personal memories one of my business trips to China.
Traversing the Silk Road from
the Near East to the Far East entailed months of traveling in the 13th
century, and to pass the time, the reader is treated to extensive theological
discussions. William is annoyingly zealous; Josseran is a jaded warrior; and both staunchly defend their faith and/or
lack of it. It was also enlightening to
hear the Mongols, Saracens, and Chinese expound on their religious beliefs.
The ending is both exciting
and heartwarming. The storylines for
Josseran and Khutelun are resolved, at least for the moment, and William’s is
covered in the Prologue and Epilogue.
There is room for a sequel, but I doubt that Colin Falconer will pen
one. Too many other Epic Adventures to
tell.
Ratings…
Amazon:
4.4/5
based on 14,544 ratings and 944 reviews.
Goodreads: 4.27/5 based on 10,002
ratings and 419 reviews.
Kewlest New Word ...
Argol (n.)
: camel droppings dried in the sun (Mongolian).
Others: Koumiss (n.); Parlous
(adj.).
Excerpts...
The woman turned to one of her
companions. “The thin one will die of
cold before we are halfway across the mountains. The other one looks fit enough. But he is as ugly as his horse, and his nose
is twice as big.”
The Mongols laughed.
“I have no quarrel with you for my own
account,” Josseran said in her own language, “but I object to you calling my
horse ugly.” (loc. 888)
“There are some who think we should spend
all our lives as our grandfathers did, on the steppes, stealing horses and
burning towns. But Qaidu and my brother
Ariq Boke live in a time that is gone.
Are we to live as Genghis lived, to conquer the world every winter, only
to withdraw again during the summer to tend our horses and sheep? If we are to keep what we have won, then we
have to change our old ways. The world
may be conquered from horseback, but it cannot be ruled from it.” (loc. 3664)
Kindle Details…
Silk
Road sells for $3.99 at Amazon right now. All of the other books in the series are also
$3.99. Colin Falconer has
another seven novels available for your reading pleasure, mostly historical
fiction and crime thrillers, and in the price range of $0.99 to $4.99.
“May you grow boils
in your ears the size of watermelons.” (loc.
2255)
I was impressed by the
sparsity of cussing—just three instances first third of the book. There are several rolls-in-the-hay however,
and a number of adult situations, including a disturbing underage one. I suspect, however, that such was life in the
wilds of Asia back then.
The editing was fantastic; I
noted just one typo: defend/defends. The
book is written in “Australian”, the author’s nationality, which means a few
odd spellings, such as offence, meagre,
and judgement; but also “normal” spellings
on such words as realize, specter,
and defenseless.
I personally found Silk Road a great piece of Historical
Fiction. There’s a smidgen of Romance
blended in; and I liked the way Khutelun and Miao-yen (the Chinese princess) were both, in their own
ways, strong female character studies. I have a
couple more books from this series on my Kindle, and I expect I'll start
reading one of those in the not-too-distant future.
9 Stars. One last thing. One of Josseran’s responsibilities during the trek was to act as a translator for William. William suffers from a deficiency of tact—not a good trait for an envoy—and Josseran often resorts to “loose translations” when William is engaging in brusque dialogue with other dignitaries. It was most entertaining to read his “free form” revisions.
