I completed 30% of the book and at least 50% of that has to do with sexual exploits...on and on ad nauseam. Sex wasn't just mentioned briefly, but entire chapters of explicit detail. Sigh.....I read 240 pages and I'm done! DNF ( )

I liked it, as I did Aztec and raptor, and enjoyed it, except the totally useless and baseless part about India that was filled with outright lies. I've no idea why he went with the racism against Hindus. Almost everything was a blatant lie. No, there wasn't a race that inhabited India before Hindus that built the temples, it is painfully obvious since the same temples have been continually erected well into present day. It was the Europeans who were dirty and bathed once a month (the aztecs would follow them around with incense sticks to keep the stench at bay) while the Hindus have daily bathing incorporated into their religion. There's also some dialogs by the Hindu king disparaging the Buddha much as the followers of Abrahamic faith disparage each other, even though worshipping a "hindu" god like shiva and also worshipping buddha aren't mutually exclusive and have been done by the multitude, from peasants to royality. There are so many mistakes in that part, especially about the language and words used (using words like dak bungalow in a pre-british, and that too South India), not to mention the fact that the pashto that a girl speaks in the pai mir is actually today's Hindi, what i mean to say is that there's way too many mistakes regarding India and Hindus and their culture in this book. He said that there are light skinned upper caste Hindus who claim superiority owing to their descent from some foreign race, while in reality it's a term of insult when some dalit calls a brahmin a eurasian or something and claims that he himself is the moolnivasi. Also at that period people in cholamandalam were fans of dark skin, used to rub sesame oil on the skin of their infants to darken it, they were not wannabe whites as is shown here. There's way too many mistakes and i don't have either the time or the will to their light upon all of them.

I can't say about the accuracy of other parts since i only know much about Indian history but I'm sorry to say if everything else in the novel is as historically accurate as that part about India, then I sure regret wasting my time reading this fairy tale. ( )

My least favorite of the books of his that I have read. ( )

A huge blockbuster of a book that held me enthralled for the whole thing. A wonderful story of the life of the traveller extraordinaire, Marco Polo. ( )

I loved this, but not as much as "Aztec." The opening was slower and it seemed a bit more contrived. Like when he left his girlfriend for a year to buy a present for a friend, and when two characters reappear after their story arc is played out, well... you just know what's going to happen! Still, I wasn't disappointed, and Aztec is a tough act to follow. ( )

1,058 pages of delight. Incredible in its detail of customs, culture, foods, et cetera, including the sheer adventure of it all! Not counting the liberal sprinkling of foreign words, I was shocked to find an estimated 300 English words that I had never encountered before (a humbling experience!). On the other hand, although I was not consciously doing proofreading, I did note around 30 typos that jumped off the page. Bottom line: Thoroughly enjoyable and great escape! ( )

NIL

what an adventure ( )