Reviews by Simon

The novel is decently written with some entertaining and compelling sections. It is worth listening to but in my opinion it is by no means a masterpiece, or worthy of such a high star rating.

The characters are fairly two-dimensional and the story arcs are written as a 300 page thriller's would be, just extended or repeated, rather than having the depth or abstraction that comes from reality. Everything is resolved in time. In epic novels which span large periods of time and encompass a spectrum of events and characters the most successful understand that in life not all problems are solved neatly. It is this neatness that shows the author's true talent is as a thriller writer and not an epic novelist. Once you have listened to a fair portion of the book each time a new crisis emerges it becomes a waiting game for the resolution and a wait for the next crisis to follow.

The characters are pretty simplistic too, there are two camps, the good and the bad. The bad seem to spend their entire lives scheming to ruin the good. The conflict becomes monotonous and frankly unbelievable, especially during the end sections of the novel which take place 35 years after the original offences, which further damages the novels credibility.

A decent enough listen and disposable entertainment but a lack of depth can be infuriating and really lets the novel down.

The story of Mithradates is truly legendary and encompasses some of the most turbulent times in the formation of the Roman Empire. Unfortunately this exciting and intriguing story is damaged by a slow, dull narration full of mis-pronunciations. If you are interested in this subject I would recommend buying the book and get the full use of maps, glossary and references.

The novel by Graham Greene follows a middle-aged, dissillusioned and depressed reporter in the French-Vietnam war. His determination to remain emotionally and philosophically uninvolved with the conflict, and life, comes under further strain by the naive American Pyle.
This novel is very well written and captures the weariness of it's generation with war and ideology. The audiobook, however, is not brilliantly read. The narrator doesn't differentiate between characters well so dialogue can become hard to follow and the tone makes a novel thats subject is already depressing even more so.
If the narration had been better I would have given this a 4 start review but as it is The Quiet American gets a 3.