Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon

Burton & Swinburne, Book 3

By: Mark Hodder

Narrated by: Gerard Doyle

Length: 15 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

Africa, 1863. Sir Richard Francis Burton, an explorer, a linguist, a scholar, and the king's agent - or is he a puppet being manipulated by forces he cannot understand? A race to find the source of the Nile! Algernon Charles Swinburne - a famous young flame-haired poet, thrill-seeker, and follower of the Marquis de Sade. For him, pain is pleasure, and brandy is ruin! Back to where the adventure began!

It is 1863, but not the one it should be. Time has veered wildly off course, and moves are being made that will lead to a devastating world war. Prime Minister Lord Palmerston believes that by possessing the three Eyes of Naga he'll be able to manipulate events and avoid the war. He already has two of the stones, but he needs Sir Richard Francis Burton to recover the third. For the king's agent, it's a chance to return to the Mountains of the Moon to make a second attempt at locating the source of the Nile. But a rival expedition led by John Hanning Speke stands in his way, threatening a confrontation that could ignite the very war that Palmerston is trying to avoid!

Caught in a tangled web of cause, effect, and inevitability, little does Burton realize that the stakes are far higher than even he suspects. A final confrontation comes in London, where, in the year 1840, Burton must face the man responsible for altering time—Spring Heeled Jack!

Burton and Swinburne's third adventure completes the three-volume story arc begun in The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack and The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man.

Listen to more in the Burton & Swinburne series.

©2011 Mark Hodder (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

getting harder to follow

I like the twists and turns but sometimes it makes my head hurt trying to figure it out☺

Rest of series helloooooo???????

I've read through 5 on my own now I wanna finish the series being read to, where tf are the rest???!!?!!!??!!?? why is it taking so long???!?! and how do we promote these books??? great books like this only get a couple hundred reviews and because of it anyone seeking adventure would be led astray or amiss because these aren't promoted as much as they should be... sheesh

Almost, but not quite.

In the words of our hero, Sir Richard Francis Burton, “Bismillah!” This book was...not as good as the first two. I hate to say it. It hurts me to say it. I loved the other books so much that I couldn’t imagine where the third could even go. I was giddy. But rather than stomp around England, we spend ~75% of the book traveling from England to the Arabian peninsula to eastern Africa to the mysterious Mountains of the Moon, and maybe 10% dealing with what happens when we actually get there. There’s plenty of action, but also a lot of repetition.

And when we finally get to the end, it just falls a little short. Maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe the author had a tough time wrapping up his myriad storylines into one discreet package. I was disappointed, because I wanted to love this one as much as the others. All that being said, I would still recommend the trilogy to everyone and anyone. Narrator Gerard Doyle, you are my hero.

Terrific Steampunk Thriller!

If you are a steampunk fan you will love this time-traveling, huge-scaled sci-fi novel. It picks you up from the first page and never stops until the last. Loved it.

Not as enjoyable as the others

Where does Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Its a very confusing book that takes place in the present and future at the same time and thus as an audio book (which in a car, you tend to listen for 50 mins at a time) its a very confusing book.

Would you be willing to try another book from Mark Hodder? Why or why not?

Yes, overall the series is interesting and captivating.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Been there destroyed that again.

Fine escapism,great fun

Third in the series starting with Spring Heeled Jack. Great fun and excellent performance. Quite the adventure.

needs rest of series on here

definitely wish the rest of the series was available 9/18/2020 definitely worth every single second

First two were good, but this one was a real slog

Any additional comments?

The first two books in the series were refreshingly different, and time travel stories always appeal to me. But this one, in which our heroes are trudging across Africa not just once, but concurrently in two different times, undergoing mind-numbingly incessant privations, became a chore to finish. It was a big relief to make it to the end. And now I find that there is a fourth book! I will give it a fair chance, but I don't know if I can wade through another 15 hours if it's going to be another downer story. Good thing audible is reasonable about letting you return books you don't like.

Unrelentingly grim, depressing ending

The performance is excellent, and the book is very well-written and colorful, which is why I gave it so many stars. However, it has serious problems.

- The overall plot lacks the fun and adventure of the previous books.

- Africa seems so horrible, I don't know why anyone would want to go there. It makes the explorers seem totally barmy. It's also not much fun to read about bugs and ulcers and watch the horses die one by one.

- Bad thing after bad thing happens, with no relief (except the parakeets), making for a tiring listening experience.

- The author switches focus to the Eugenecists and their plant machines. That's fine, except... they are impossible. It isn't genetics that keeps a tree from reaching 30' maturity in 2 days, it's plain old physics. I could ignore the tech-y impossibilities, imagining they found some way around it (Fornby coal), but the existence of the plant-things broke my suspension of disbelief repeatedly.

- All the female characters in this series have 2 purposes: Serve the hero's supper, and/or die for the hero. Really? In 2012? We can do better.

- The ending. Without giving anything away, I can tell you that it is a complete non-ending. Nothing is resolved. Also, disappointingly cliche.

Reading back, it does sound like I hated the book. I ... guess I did. Thing is, I know myself and I know that I object strongly to things many people actually like. For example, I hate Game of Thrones for most of the same reasons (grim, dark, women are stupid, animals are abused and killed, everyone dies). I think, if you can enjoy books despite, or because of, unrelentingly grim storylines, then you will probably enjoy this book.

Ending still stinks, though.






SPOILER-ISH WARNING: (Lots of characters die here, so brace yourself, or don't read it if that kind of thing ruins a book for you.)

Ended too Quickly

I think even Mark Hodder could agree that these Characters and their steampunk adventure could have gone on for several more books. The only reason I gave this story four stars is because it was too much information in one book, it was hard to keep up! But, it needed an ending and he tied most everything together.

See my review on the first book for my overall thoughts of the series.