| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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
Product Description
Product Description
In the year 1348, a disgraced Spanish physician crosses a landscape of horrors to Avignon, France. There, he will be sent on an impossible mission to England, to save the royal family from the Black Death....
Nearly seven hundred years later, a woman scientist digs up a clod of earth in London. In a world where medicine is tightly controlled, she will unearth a terror lying dormant for centuries.
From the primitive cures of the Middle Ages to the biological police state of our near future, The Plague Tales is a thrilling race against time and mass destruction. For in 2005, humankind's last hope for survival can come only from one place: out of a dark and tortured past.
Just as Janie Crowe was closing in on contentment, something went clunk in the machinery of the world and everything ground to a painful. Read the first page
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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
Customer Reviews
To start, I liked the choice of characters - seeing the Medieval world through the eyes of a Spanish Jew was a nice change of perspective (acknowleging for a change that the Middle Ages actually did exist outside of England!) And the middle aged heroine in the future was a refreshing choice (you don't have to be young and perky to save the world!)
As someone who's studied history, Medieval history in particular, I take exception with some readers' comments about its being portrayed as too 'nice.' The image of putrifying bodies that permeates that time period is reminder enough that life in those times could be sometimes be nasty, brutish and short. But remember that to the character, a product of that time frame, what he e! xperienced was normal and he should not be expected to express horror with it any more than we express horror about our own lives, as primitive as they might appear to someone living 500 years from now.
I agree that the characters in the future were less well crafted, but then again, I felt the same way about the Doomsday Book. (Which, though I am critizing it, I did actually enjoy.)
Is this a perfect book? No, of course not. There are a few pacing problems, some characterizations are weak and a few leaps of faith are required. But again, I experienced more 'yeah, right' moments in The Doomsday Book than in this.
Personally I read very quickly so the length of the book, which some other readers had problems with, was not an issue. And, please, it's not heavyweight material. You don't have to ponder every word!
Actually, the only thing that gave me pause, at first, was the abruptness of the ending, and the fact that the woman who occupied the heroine role for the major! ity of the book just faded away and the secondary female ch! aracter gained sudden importance.
After giving it some thought, though, it seemed to me that the author was depicting the drive and struggle of all types of life to survive (the selfish gene, Darwinism, etc.) at all costs, including everything from the bacteria to humans and perhaps a mystical or spiritual existence that transcends the physical world, including time. (Do I believe in such supernatural life, no, but there is more to heaven and earth than is dreamed of in your philosophy, or mine...and, for heaven's sake, it's a story. As long as it stays true to its own rules, it works for me.) There was a crisis, a break in the continuity of the keeper of the ancient knowlege. Who's to say that the entire chain of events was not set off to ensure that a successor would be found and the continuity maintained.
I enjoyed the book, though I feel a sequel is a bad idea. The story's been told. But if she were to come up with another premise, I'd be more than willing to give it! a try.
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.
|
