To Herat and Cabul

By: G.A. Henty

Narrated by: Stuart Langton

Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

When 16-year-old Angus Campbell finds himself orphaned and his life at risk, he leaves Tabriz and makes his way to Teheran to seek employment with the British ambassador there. His knowledge of Persian, Arabic, Armenian, Kurdish, and Pushtoo secures him a post as a secretary for Mr. M'Neill.

Resourceful and intrepid, he soon finds himself involved in a number of dangerous and daring undercover missions during what has come to be called the First Afghan War. On one of these missions he rescues from certain death a young Afghan chief, and the friendship that develops between them has surprising consequences.

(P)2003 Blackstone Audiobooks

Henty good, narrator bad

I love Henty's books, but I prefer Jim hodges narration. This narrator makes it boring.

good book, recording needs some fixes

Like one of the previous books by this author, that I recently listened to on audible, it seems like there were some sections missing.

All of a sudden, the plot would jump ahead, and some crucial development was missing. Because I listened to this book while driving, I was not able to pinpoint the exact sections where the story skipped ahead, but it happened at least twice.

Also, while the narrator was pretty good, his pronunciation of certain place names and other "foreign" words could've been done better. It was grating on my ear to hear some of his pronunciations.

This was still an enjoyable story, even with these issues, but I hope audible can fix the missing sections.

History Repeats Itself

I found the book interesting in light of our present circumstance. It was not however a must read or a "book" I could not put down. I am glad I listened to it but would not give it a rave review.

skips some.

it was very well read, and a good story, but some of the parts are left out,. I thought I had bumped the skip but, but apparently something was cut out.

Confusion

GA Henry is a great author, and this book is a good one. However the reading is decent at best. Chapters 12 and 13 are mixed up I. The reading order.

No quite complete

It seems that at about 10 min before the end of the book there is some important part missing in the story as to how the hostages were to escape.

Not the best of Henty’s books but still interesting.

Historically Relevant Adventure

My wife and I enjoyed the story and would recommend it .. however, the download package we obtained had three errors in it that were distracting. (a) One of the chapters was out of sequence (14 and 15 were swapped I think), (b) as one chapter ended, previous material reappeared and (c) a few minutes of material were left out in the climax of the last chapter. I hope audible will correct these errors .. I would still recommend the story despite these errors. I would place this just below the Lion of St. Mark for story telling, but their are a few more interesting ethical dilemas that the protagonist must sort out in this story... Also, while tragic in its telling of a British reversal.. the story does illustrate Keegan's thesis in the History of War that war is the clash between cultures. This story offers more to think about ... and provoked many conversations between my wife and I over British imperialism. Western culture seems to need a more serious re-examination today as unserious minds express themselves too frequently in the popular media of our times.

Not his best

This one was a hard one to get through. The narrator does a good job but the content is so detailed and tedious that I had to force myself to finish. The audiofiles are messed up in two places also. I would NOT recommend this book unless you really really like military history and particularly military history in Afganistan, persia, and the area.

Not Recommended

This is not one of Henty's best stories, being a bit dull and repetitive and loaded with too much detail. That said, it would have been endurable had it not been wholly ruined by the poor production of the recording. The deadpan and dispassionate inflection of the narrator made it impossible to maintain an interest in an already slow narrative. His too common confusion of the name of the main character, Angus, with Agnes was exceedingly irksome. Most annoying, however was the fact that the story was read out of order separating events in the narrative that happened successively with events that came later and repeating portions that had had already been read. If you want to read this book make sure you have a hearty interest in the historical context and choose a different version.

Bad audio files

What would have made To Herat and Cabul better?

The audio files for chapter 12 and chapter 13 are flip-flopped. A couple pages worth of audio file is missing from the last chapter.

What did you like best about this story?

I have always loved G.A. Henty. His portrayal of history is always interesting, and while his fiction is fairly repetitive from book to book, it is a story I enjoy. I would especially recommend this story to anyone who wants to hear about the evils of indecision in military leadership.

What does Stuart Langton bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The reader does not put much emotion into his words. Instead, his reading style lends itself to a more formal telling of epic histories or high fantasy in much the same way that I would envision the ancient bards telling their stories.