Michael Shouse

Gritty realism. I could picture everything as it happened. I like the way the Postman is not a heroic figure; he backs into situations where he is forced to act. Just like real life.

Gordon's escape from captivity near the end.

He's trying too hard to be "dramatic." He takes strange pauses in odd places, sometimes what seems like in the middle of a sentence. I often wondered if the reader were trying to make this a "stream-of-consciousness" story when it really was not.

No, I don't think so. The action of the story takes place over too long a period of time. It would feel rushed if listened to all at once.

Don't listen to this expecting a replay of the Kevin Costner movie. The moviemakers took greater liberty with the story than in any other instance I can think of. It's almost as if they took the most basic detail--in post-apocalypse America, man finds mailbag--and made up their own story. They're different takes on the same basic premise. Neither is "better." But just remember that the book goes off in a different direction than the movie.

The detail, covering every aspect of Elizabeth's life at that time. More than most biographies do.

That Elizabeth was not always perfect, or right in her decisions.

Nothing. Characters always distinguishable.

Elizabeth's reactions when her friend/servant died.

If you want something zippy and simple, watch a movie. This is a book and acts like it. It takes its time to develop characters and scenes and incidents, as it should. This is history, not an action-action-action thriller.

I was disappointed in one aspect of the book. I didn't read the description closely enough, and expected a full-length biographical novel. This book begins at the time of the Spanish armada, well into Elizabeth's reign. So be ready.

Very near the top. Almost the equal of Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens.

Thomas Hardy's FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD with its female protagonist.

Some of her rural or lower class English accents were very hard to understand.

No laughing or weeping, just satisfaction at a story well-told.

Quite a surprise. My first experience of Elizabeth Gaskell, but it won't be the last.

Unfamiliar with Deutermann, I was trying someone new because Nelson DeMille and Greg Iles don't write fast enough. What a surprise! A wonderful expose of the stupidity of bureaucratic in-fighting and turf-wars among agencies that are supposed to be on the same side, disguised as a fascinating but believable thriller. Kreiss is an intriguing hero that I hope we will see more of. And Dick Hill proves once again why he is one of the best narrators ever. It was his inclusion on this audio program that convinced me to take a chance on an unknown (to me) author.

Only 4 stars rather than five because, as some of the other reviewers have remarked, Hill is less convincing with female voices.