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3.66 AVERAGE
3.66 AVERAGE
adventurous
informative
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Was slightly disappointed by this book, although it was an interesting story I was not desperate to find out what happened, and got quite bored in parts. Everyone else seems to love this book a lot more than I do!
adventurous
informative
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
A fun historical romp. Those aqueducts must have been quite the network. Romans never cease to stupefy.
adventurous
informative
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Volcano stories are never really about volcanoes, just like shark stories are never about sharks, and zombie stories are not about the shambling hordes, but the few that cower from them. Sadly, this volcano story IS about a volcano--or rather it is about the volcano-related research that the author did in order to write it. It's full of sentences like, "They could feel the warmth from the hypocaust, a clever Roman heating system that worked like this..." in which you can feel how Harris is dying to tell you about this cool thing from ancient times. I'm all for cool things from ancient times, but it takes a great writer of historical fiction to make the details seamless, and this one doesn't fit the bill. (Disclosure: I made up that sentence, and it's a bit of an exaggeration, but not too much.)
Story-wise, Harris devised a pretty great premise, and then proceeded to march it forward step by deliberate step, occasionally prodding at it with something sharp, until it was devoured by pumice and ash and noxious gasses in the final 50 pages.
That premise is: Something is wrong with the aqueduct that services the towns around the Bay of Naples, and tenderfoot engineer Marcus Attilius is dispatched from Rome to investigate. The previous hydro-engineer, or "aquarius," has vanished without a trace, and it is all quite mysterious. Except that it isn't. The mystery is neither very complex nor very interesting, even to a reader who like me who NEVER figures out whodunnit and never sees the twist coming. In this case, there is no twist; the answer to everything is volcanoes.
But it's Attilius himself who is the real ball-and-chain of this book. If I had to describe his personality, I'd say...he doesn't have one? I guess he's kind of serious and stoic, humorless, not a good leader of men, not especially bright (though Harris seems to want you to think he is). He has a dead wife, which feels like something from the Instant Characterization Toolbox. "What's that? Nothing interesting about the character? I don't know [rummages through toolbox] here, give him this dead wife!"
Attilius's job in this book is not to be a person, but to convey the story forward. His job is to stay on the path, to go where Harris needs him to go. Go where the action is, fix the aqueduct, meet Pliny, visit Pompeii before and after, and so on. He's an unmanned drone taking us on a tour.
All that said, this isn't the worst way to pass the time. It is competently written, largely devoid of hideously amateur genre prose, and it's about ancient Rome, so it can't be all bad. If you've been to Pompeii, that will probably help. Harris's descriptions certainly do recall the place in recognizable ways. But this is no "I, Claudius." You'd be better off re-reading that.
Story-wise, Harris devised a pretty great premise, and then proceeded to march it forward step by deliberate step, occasionally prodding at it with something sharp, until it was devoured by pumice and ash and noxious gasses in the final 50 pages.
That premise is: Something is wrong with the aqueduct that services the towns around the Bay of Naples, and tenderfoot engineer Marcus Attilius is dispatched from Rome to investigate. The previous hydro-engineer, or "aquarius," has vanished without a trace, and it is all quite mysterious. Except that it isn't. The mystery is neither very complex nor very interesting, even to a reader who like me who NEVER figures out whodunnit and never sees the twist coming. In this case, there is no twist; the answer to everything is volcanoes.
But it's Attilius himself who is the real ball-and-chain of this book. If I had to describe his personality, I'd say...he doesn't have one? I guess he's kind of serious and stoic, humorless, not a good leader of men, not especially bright (though Harris seems to want you to think he is). He has a dead wife, which feels like something from the Instant Characterization Toolbox. "What's that? Nothing interesting about the character? I don't know [rummages through toolbox] here, give him this dead wife!"
Attilius's job in this book is not to be a person, but to convey the story forward. His job is to stay on the path, to go where Harris needs him to go. Go where the action is, fix the aqueduct, meet Pliny, visit Pompeii before and after, and so on. He's an unmanned drone taking us on a tour.
All that said, this isn't the worst way to pass the time. It is competently written, largely devoid of hideously amateur genre prose, and it's about ancient Rome, so it can't be all bad. If you've been to Pompeii, that will probably help. Harris's descriptions certainly do recall the place in recognizable ways. But this is no "I, Claudius." You'd be better off re-reading that.
adventurous
dark
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
Usually I like to be swept up in the story, immersed in the lives of the characters and find myself aligned with their ambitions and emotions. This book isn’t like that. The third person perspective and hopping around characters and locations distanced me from the story and made it feel, in some ways, more real, like reading a plaque next to an object in a museum. The last six pages were, for me, the most impactful. The story had potential for something more intense. So all in all, I’m not sure whether I liked it or not, if I’m allowed to say that. Is it a story we’re supposed to like? Pompeii was a real tragedy that killed thousands and I appreciated the research Robert Harris put into this.
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
enjoyable read
informative
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Never saw the Kit Harrington movie adaptation of this movie and I'm glad I didn't. Reading about that doomed city at the base of Mount Vesuvius and the events in and around those eighteen hours before eruption in a fictional capacity has been exhilarating.
Maybe it's because I had just watched Blood of Zeus, the Netflix anime that has so much potential but is shackled by the streamer's indecisiveness. Anyway, for some reason Attilius reminds me of Heron. Not Heron the demigod, son of Zeus and gifted with lightning but the Heron who is in mourning, headstrong, determined and righteous in his science. Attilius has other qualities that would have made him the demigod of aqueducts - he is an engineer of insanely high intellect and a keen and fine tuned sense of intuition.
I'm convinced that just before a natural, catastrophic disaster takes place - >the earth holds a séance with the soon to be departed souls of the inhabitants within the impact radius. The unsettling atmosphere leading up to the event tells me that the spirit almost knows something is about to happen. More often than not, some sort of tension, unrest - even riots occur just before the event. But then there's The Great Tsunami (Bali and surrounds)of our century and how everyone was just in utter shock and of course the Great earthquakes of Hatay in Turkiye - so yeah, maybe the earth is just shrewd and picks and chooses when to give warning before unleashing hell.
In a race against a volcano that he didn't even know he was racing, Attilius is steadfast, focused and in the zone trying to repair the part that is blocking the flow to several towns along the route of the aqueduct. There is love, there is corruption (seriously, corruption is probably the oldest vice on earth right?), there are slaves, there are free men, desperation, ridiculous wealth and an archivist willing to give his life to document the eruption for all in the future to behold.
Mount Vesuvius is the real protagonist here. And what a might and frightening one at that.
Maybe it's because I had just watched Blood of Zeus, the Netflix anime that has so much potential but is shackled by the streamer's indecisiveness. Anyway, for some reason Attilius reminds me of Heron. Not Heron the demigod, son of Zeus and gifted with lightning but the Heron who is in mourning, headstrong, determined and righteous in his science. Attilius has other qualities that would have made him the demigod of aqueducts - he is an engineer of insanely high intellect and a keen and fine tuned sense of intuition.
I'm convinced that just before a natural, catastrophic disaster takes place - >the earth holds a séance with the soon to be departed souls of the inhabitants within the impact radius. The unsettling atmosphere leading up to the event tells me that the spirit almost knows something is about to happen. More often than not, some sort of tension, unrest - even riots occur just before the event. But then there's The Great Tsunami (Bali and surrounds)of our century and how everyone was just in utter shock and of course the Great earthquakes of Hatay in Turkiye - so yeah, maybe the earth is just shrewd and picks and chooses when to give warning before unleashing hell.
In a race against a volcano that he didn't even know he was racing, Attilius is steadfast, focused and in the zone trying to repair the part that is blocking the flow to several towns along the route of the aqueduct. There is love, there is corruption (seriously, corruption is probably the oldest vice on earth right?), there are slaves, there are free men, desperation, ridiculous wealth and an archivist willing to give his life to document the eruption for all in the future to behold.
Mount Vesuvius is the real protagonist here. And what a might and frightening one at that.