Unholy Night

By: Seth Grahame-Smith

Narrated by: Peter Berkrot

From the author of the New York Times bestselling Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, comes Unholy Night, the next evolution in dark historical revisionism.

They're an iconic part of history's most celebrated birth. But what do we really know about the Three Kings of the Nativity, besides the fact that they followed a star to Bethlehem bearing strange gifts? The Bible has little to say about this enigmatic trio. But leave it to Seth Grahame-Smith, the brilliant and twisted mind behind Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies to take a little mystery, bend a little history, and weave an epic tale.

In Grahame-Smith's telling, the so-called "Three Wise Men" are infamous thieves, led by the dark, murderous Balthazar. After a daring escape from Herod's prison, they stumble upon the famous manger and its newborn king. The last thing Balthazar needs is to be slowed down by young Joseph, Mary and their infant. But when Herod's men begin to slaughter the first born in Judea, he has no choice but to help them escape to Egypt.

It's the beginning of an adventure that will see them fight the last magical creatures of the Old Testament; cross paths with biblical figures like Pontius Pilate and John the Baptist; and finally deliver them to Egypt. It may just be the greatest story never told.

Not his best work but entertaining story

SGS is a great storyteller. If I told you the plot of this or some of the situations you'd probably not want to listen but it's told in a way that keeps you engaged. You can forgive some of the clichés and predictability. This would be a terrible movie but worth a listen because it's SGS.

Decent story.

Decent story, loved the narrator. It was not what I expected but the narrator was so good that I just kept on listening anyway.

Narrator putting me to bed

Overall story was very interesting and original.

However, the narrator is so monotonous and not able to make it interesting

Good but reads like a screenplay

Stating the obvious that this is a fictionalized account of the birth of Jesus Christ. It doesn't delve into theology though for which I am personally grateful. Instead it focuses on the story of Balthazar and how he (fictionally) fits into the story. There's a lot of action, there's some really gruesome scenes which are pretty disturbing and graphically described. There's so much description of action that it almost reads like a screenplay and knowing that he is a screenplay writer and his previous books have been made into movies it felt, at times, like he was writing it for a movie rather than writing it to be read as a novel. For example, there's a lot of beheadings - a lot - and they're done so effortlessly and cleanly, at times by pretty feeble people that it seems very movie-ish because in reality, it's not easy to slice through a spine. Peter Berkrot as the narrator was spectacular.

very descriptive

I understand he wants us to hate the bad guys but man it was hard to hear about his little brother's death. at least we can be pretty positive the centurion had a bad ending.