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A review by regnarenol
The Tournament by Matthew Reilly
5.0
Matthew Reilly gets better and better! While his books won't always be for everybody - they're plotted faster than a runway maglev train - he weaves absorbing stories, and this one is no different.. Except that it's set in the 16th century Elizabethan era! Matthew Reilly doing historical dramas, you stutter in shock? It wasn't the train wreck it sounds like - in fact, the way Reilly incorporates what's a good old whodunnit into a tale that's ostensibly about chess and history, only shows that good storytellers can work with any setting.
Historical settings are risky - any verifiable assertions in the story, even with the disclaimer about it being 'all fiction' (Reilly actually doesn't include such a disclaimer, which is commendable) can easily *be* verified with Google and Wikipedia only a hundred milliseconds away - but Reilly manages to construct his tale while keeping major aspects of the real historical people included, mostly intact. I thoroughly enjoyed the history lessons plotted into the story, and while most people might write off Reilly's books as light 'popcorn' reads, this one led me to spend hours on Wikipedia brushing up my Ottoman, so it wasn't so light was it?
If there's a flaw with the book, it's the misplaced sense of moral superiority espoused by some of their major characters, that you can't help but trace back to the author's voice. While opposition to slavery, opposition to barbaric punishments by law and the support of women's rights are admirable, by no means was the England of Henry the VIII a paragon of virtue when it came to these issues. However, Reilly occasionally does take care to point out the hypocrisy of judging the Ottoman rule as barbaric with Henry VIII as your own king, so the moralizing isn't terrible..
Historical settings are risky - any verifiable assertions in the story, even with the disclaimer about it being 'all fiction' (Reilly actually doesn't include such a disclaimer, which is commendable) can easily *be* verified with Google and Wikipedia only a hundred milliseconds away - but Reilly manages to construct his tale while keeping major aspects of the real historical people included, mostly intact. I thoroughly enjoyed the history lessons plotted into the story, and while most people might write off Reilly's books as light 'popcorn' reads, this one led me to spend hours on Wikipedia brushing up my Ottoman, so it wasn't so light was it?
If there's a flaw with the book, it's the misplaced sense of moral superiority espoused by some of their major characters, that you can't help but trace back to the author's voice. While opposition to slavery, opposition to barbaric punishments by law and the support of women's rights are admirable, by no means was the England of Henry the VIII a paragon of virtue when it came to these issues. However, Reilly occasionally does take care to point out the hypocrisy of judging the Ottoman rule as barbaric with Henry VIII as your own king, so the moralizing isn't terrible..