Waterloo

Masterfully written and beautifully read. You don't have to be a history buff to enjoy this book. But you may become one after reading it.

I was surprised to see this title available for download last week as I'd only been able to find it on cassette recently. So I grabbed it immediately, and it's as wonderful as Frederick Davidson's readings of the other Sharpe's adventures in this series. Thank you, Audible!

Wow.. Is there life after Sharpe. The entire series is as good as it gets!

Access to high quality sound over my iPhone on walks.

Storyline of Waterloo and historical references.

Yes. He consistently reads very will as British which adds to the story.

N/A

No

I'd say this was an outstandingly narrated history of the Battle of Waterloo.
The only thing missing was the smell of gun powder and blood!

Lonesome Dove; the best book I ever read.

First time, and he should work on his singing voice.

Brought close to life the reality of a battlefield in the 1800's.

This is my second Cornwell title. I listened to Agincourt a while back, but this book was very real to me as I actually travelled to Waterloo last year and toured the area. Like anything else, if you've been on the site where the book takes place, you have a better picture of what's going on. Of course, Cornwell adds drama to the book with some fictional characters to make the story even more exciting. The story was fast paced and kept my interest all along the way. I would have given the title 5 stars, but there was a bit of a distraction problem with the performance. The narrator inhales rather deeply as he reads. He seemed to get better, but the first chapters were very distracting and annoying. He does a very good job with voices and European accents and I would guess that the director or producer had him correct the problem as the book progressed. So don't get discouraged at the beginning, it does get better. If you like historical fiction, you'll get a kick out of this. If you are a history buff, you'll like the historical author's notes at the end where he gives justification for what he does with the fiction and what he thinks really happened. I like a wide range of books, but I suppose that this type of historical fiction is my favorite and I wasn't disappointed!

This book gave me a graphic understanding of how bad war was at this time in history. Loved the detail of the battle. It was like being a participant.

I have loved this series for a long time and it's a little sad that this is the last book. But as Douglas McArthur said "old soldiers never die they just fade away" Richard Sharpe certainly deserves to sheath his sword and fade away into comfortable retirement. If I have missed any of the books in this series it was by sheer accident. If I was really, really rich I would collect them all in audio format to listen to when I am in a nursing home and beyond reading. :)

But Cornwell certainly ended the series with a great big bloody bang with this book. His battlefield descriptions were about as graphic as I have ever read. And his description of William of Orange's character made me go running to Wickipedia to see if this was the same William of Orange that was the scourge of Ireland and despised by Clan McDonald. He wasn't. That King William reigned in England with his wife Mary from 1689 to 1694. The William of Orange that Cornwell is writing about in this book was born in 1792 and was subsequently King of the Netherlands. He may or may not have been the jerk Cornwell protrays him as but after the hatchet job he did on Alfred the Great in his Saxon series I don't entirely trust him. What I do trust is his accuracy as far as events are concerned and anyway this is fiction so Cornwell can write whatever he pleases. But I can grumble about it. :)

I read/listened to Agincourt and loved it. I thought I would like Waterloo. The plot, other than the military maneuvers, was weak at best. I could not finish it. Skip this unless you want to know more about the Waterloos military maneuvers. Also, the narrator&'s accent was a bit too British.

It's clear the author loves the material, but this book was just empty for me. I'm not a fan of "series" in general usually, and this book reminded me of why. Patrick O'Brien I was able to get into--his descriptions of nautical life made me want to experience it, but Cornwell's battle descriptions, while I'm sure they are accurate--were strung together in such a laundry list way that the end result was boredom and wandering thoughts rather than a riviting audiobook experience. I'd recommend O'Brien or James Clavell over Cornwell any day.