| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
52 reviews
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
A Swashbuckling Adventure of Espionage and Ancient Science
11 Mar 2010
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
William Dietrich's fourth installment of the adventures of American envoy and spy Ethan Gage, who tends to be a bit like Captain Jack Sparrow in the sense that is loyalities tend to lie with whoever offers the best deal, comes back strong after a weak third book that had me a little disappointed in Ethan's future.
Barbary Pirates finally wraps up some loose ends with the explanation of why Ethan has been led on a merry chase around the globe since the onset of book one, finding ancient artifacts that are being hunted down by the mysterious cult group The Egyptian Rite. Ethan's trails have led him to find Egyptian amulets, Rosetta Keys, and Thor's Hammer, all at the behest of none other than Napoleon Bonaparte. We also get to witness Ethan's reunion with his beloved Astiza whom he fell in love with in Napoleon's Pyramid, that offers up one heck of a surprise for our fumbling spy and allows us to see a different warmer and more responsible aspect of Ethan's personality that up to now tended to be quite fickle and carefree.
Napoleon has a new quest for Ethan and promises him he will help find Astiza if he accomplishes his newest mission. For Ethan, Napoleon has been both friend and foe, but has no choice but to once again bow and obey when Bonaparte retells the legend of Archimedes Death Ray war weapon, telling Gage he believes it exists on the Greek Island we now call Santorini, and also thought to be the lost island of Atlantis.
This book is packed full of great action, lots of humor, and an abundance of the usual mishaps and madcap adventures we can expect from Dietrich's Ethan Gage novels. Swashbuckling sword fights, duels and explosions, torturous dungeons and sensuous Pirate Queens, all make Barbary Pirates a fine installment, if not maybe the grand finale of this series. I love the first two books, didn't care for book three, but am very happy to say this fourth book for me was the best of the four with the grandest adventure and the one that made me laugh and smile the most.
Barbary Pirates finally wraps up some loose ends with the explanation of why Ethan has been led on a merry chase around the globe since the onset of book one, finding ancient artifacts that are being hunted down by the mysterious cult group The Egyptian Rite. Ethan's trails have led him to find Egyptian amulets, Rosetta Keys, and Thor's Hammer, all at the behest of none other than Napoleon Bonaparte. We also get to witness Ethan's reunion with his beloved Astiza whom he fell in love with in Napoleon's Pyramid, that offers up one heck of a surprise for our fumbling spy and allows us to see a different warmer and more responsible aspect of Ethan's personality that up to now tended to be quite fickle and carefree.
Napoleon has a new quest for Ethan and promises him he will help find Astiza if he accomplishes his newest mission. For Ethan, Napoleon has been both friend and foe, but has no choice but to once again bow and obey when Bonaparte retells the legend of Archimedes Death Ray war weapon, telling Gage he believes it exists on the Greek Island we now call Santorini, and also thought to be the lost island of Atlantis.
This book is packed full of great action, lots of humor, and an abundance of the usual mishaps and madcap adventures we can expect from Dietrich's Ethan Gage novels. Swashbuckling sword fights, duels and explosions, torturous dungeons and sensuous Pirate Queens, all make Barbary Pirates a fine installment, if not maybe the grand finale of this series. I love the first two books, didn't care for book three, but am very happy to say this fourth book for me was the best of the four with the grandest adventure and the one that made me laugh and smile the most.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
"And wise too late.."
6 Mar 2010
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Bristling pirates, the blue Aegeon Sea, and a lost underground city nestled in the bosom of an ancient volcanic island. Hold on to your butts! I'm afraid he's back..."The Barbary Pirates" is Pulitzer-Prize-winning William Dietrich's fourth entry in the Ethan Gage marathon(after "The Dakota Cipher"). It continues the saga of our intrepid hero, who's now in Paris, in 1802, with his three savants, British geologist William Smith, French zoologist George Cuvier, and fellow American Robert Fulton, who invented the submarine. Gage's cronies are well armed. One has a blunderbuss, and another has just purchased a boxed set of two shiny, silver dueling pistols. Good. Adversity lies ahead. Emperor Napoleon engages all four to travel to Greece, and confound the whispers about the fabled mirror of Archimedes, a fantastic prop that can emit a death ray. Gage's old nemesis, the Egyptian Rite, a ruthless gang, is also in on the race to find the death machine. From Paris to the Mediterranean, Gage hooks up with British tigress Lady Aurora, Egyptian lover Astiza, and of course, a few pirates. In the end, Gage finds himself aboard the submarine. Somewhat predictable, and not as good as "The Dakota Cipher", "Pirates" is still a lively read; swarming with action, loaded with aphorisms. Still just looking for a job, Ethan Gage is caught up in the adventure, and he's intrigued by the medieval past, the bastion of historical truth. His quest is leading him back, "back into the fog when time began". "The Barbary Pirates" includes quotes from the scientist Archimedes, and old Ben Franklin as well. "We get old too soon and wise too late..."
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Uneven flow, sterotypical characters
21 Jun 2010
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
This is my first Ethan Gage novel and I have to admit if the others are like this I won't be going back for more. I like the idea behind the story, blending a little adventure with some history, but don't think it was executed the way I had hoped. The characters are all overused stereotypes that are underdeveloped, leaving the reader not really caring what happens to any of them. The story jumps from implausible situation to implausible situation a little too quickly, not really allowing for absorption of what is happening, either by the reader or any of the characters in the book. You would think that all this non-stop adventure would make this book impossible to put down . . . but that wasn't the case. It was a struggle to connect with any of it, it was so unbelievable and not at all engaging with the characters. The thing that irritated me most about this book was the way the author would be telling the story and then suddenly switch to some internal monologue of Ethan Gage then right back to the action. The writing just didn't flow well at all for me. The Gage character has some witty things to say, takes his crummy luck in stride but there just wasn't enough there for me to get super involved or feel very invested in this story. I can see the appeal of this if you are looking for a silly sort of escape, light beach read type book, but for someone looking for more history than adventure I would keep looking.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
