EMPEROR: The Gods of War, Book 4 (Unabridged)

By: Conn Iggulden

Narrated by: Paul Blake

Length: 15 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's Summary

The fourth volume in the acclaimed Emperor series, in which Conn Iggulden interweaves history and adventure to recreate the astonishing life of Julius Caesar - an epic tale of ambition and rivalry, bravery and betrayal.

©2006 Conn Iggulden (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

A LOT DISAPPOINTING

I usually like Conn Iggulden's writing: his first novels were excellent and the Wars of the Roses books were very entertaining. Unfortunately, I came to this Caesar series after I had read Colleen McCullough's awesome Masters of Rome series, and the historical inaccuracies and outright plot-device inventions totally spoiled the listening experience. Colleen gives all her characters depth and credibility, apparently by extensively exploring their historical backgrounds and documented actions to extract an author's sense of motivation and complexity for her characters. Conn on the other hand has paper-mache characters who have little depth at all: Caesar, Brutus, Pompey, Cleopatra etc - these are non-fictional people whose names and reputations have survived for more than 20 centuries but in this reworking of a series of well documented events they resemble secondary characters in a TV soap opera and therefore would hardly survive the next commercial break.

On the other hand if you know nothing or little of the period and have no urge to find out more than the bare dramatic details then you wont be disappointed.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Good story, fair story teller

Caesar's story is compelling. The narrator is a little stiff, the pronunciation of names sounds contrived.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Absolutely fantastic

Beyond words. So much detail and description by the author incredible read highly recommended for all very very impressive story and most importantly all historical facts are given in detail at the end of each book! A+++

Wonderful

Great story, geat narration. This series was recommended to me and now I will recommend it to others.

Deeply satisfying

A satisfying end to a marvelous series. While one knows, of course, how Caesar meets his end, the story as told here was so believable and compelling it doesn't disappoint.

Emperor Series

Easy and exciting listening. Five years ago I read the series and now find myself listening to the story with the same level of interest. The reader's outstanding performance adds an additional dimension to the overall experience.

Awesome

I have enjoyed this series of books tremendously. The author is one of a kind! I recommend everybody to check it out.

1 of 2 people found this review helpful

So brilliant, that it saddened

Would you listen to EMPEROR: The Gods of War, Book 4 (Unabridged) again? Why?

No

Who was your favorite character and why?

Marcus, Julius,octavian

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

His accent was much different from the previous narrator and his prounciation gave me a new different perspective to the names like Cabrera Gaditicus

If you could take any character from EMPEROR: The Gods of War, Book 4 (Unabridged) out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Marcus, I was sad to realize that he will betray Julius and try talk him out of it...Julius could have achieved much more if he was on the side...or may take Julius to talk him to treat and appease Marcus as much he swayed the people.

Any additional comments?

Looking forward to get my credits renewed tomorrow to get the next book...

1 of 2 people found this review helpful

I'm addicted

Can't get enough of these books. Kind of a guilty pleasure but rip roaring good stories. Great book and great narrator.

1 of 2 people found this review helpful

Interesting novel series. Bad bad Audible service!

What did you love best about EMPEROR: The Gods of War, Book 4 (Unabridged)?

The book is involving, just as other books in the Emperor Series. The reader's performance is good. However, I do agree with some reviewers that his pronunciation of names is somewhat unusual, and for me it was even tougher since I had listened to the first two books of the series in a language other than English.

Any additional comments?

But... Audible service is a misunderstanding. Why can't you download audiobooks in a NORMAL format such as mp3? It has been a standard for sound files for years. And these are audiobooks you BOUGHT! Plus there are also restrictions on how many times you can burn your audiobook to CD. That's ridiculous! There is no way I am staying with Audible past the trial period. It is cheaper and more convenient to buy the same books on CD off eBay - and then I can do anything I like with discs. Of course there are workarounds to convert .aa format to .mp3, but why waste time and effort to "crack" a product for which you PAID? I hate to spell it out, but such restrictive policies (DRMs, etc.) do nothing to fight piracy, they only encourage it.

1 of 3 people found this review helpful

Changed the Reader!

A brilliant series. My only gripe is that they switched readers for the second half of the series and he pronounces all of the character names differently which jars as he reads: Servillia becomes Serwillia; Octavian becomes Octarwian.

12 of 12 people found this review helpful

Dodgy pronounciation!

Narrator consistently mispronounces characters. Although this may be historically more accurate, it is distracting considering previous narrators have set precedents. Very off putting.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

Beware the Ides of March!

In a way it’s almost tempting to say that this author has cheated, after all how can you fail to write a good story when the life of Julius Caeser was so utterly fascinating. Of course that would be doing Iggulden a massive dis-service as he once again brings history to life for us. This book is fast paced and full of all the elements that we have come to expect from this series including some of the most famous characters of ancient history.

This part of the story contains a lot of action and brings the friendship between Caesar and Brutus to its bloodthirsty conclusion. The brooding sickness of Brutus providing a strong counterpoint to the glorious light of Caesar throughout.

As with the previous book the narrator is once again Paul Blake who I personally enjoy. I think suffice it to say that if you were okay with him on the previous book you will be with him for this one. Book 5, the concluding book of the series has yet another narrator who seems to have been getting even poorer reviews . . . some trepidation again as I move on. It would be such a shame if a series as excellent as this one were to end badly through poor narration.

Finally I’d like to mention the inclusion of the authors “Historical Note”, I find it fascinating to get some further insight into the history and the writing process.

In summary an excellent series continues.

7 of 8 people found this review helpful

Emperor: The Gods of War by Conn Iggulden

Despite the occasional historical digression this is a cleverly constructed novel that intertwines the imagined lives and feelings of the historical characters with the recorded events and artifacts of the era. A brutal and idealistic society is graphically described alongside the hedonism that underpins enduring legend of the most famous Caesar.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Some attention to detail by the narrator would of been beneficial

Good story teller however the narrator could of done even some basic Latin pronunciations - it's sissero not kickero.

It grated after a while.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Fascinating Series

I loved this series, I learnt so much about Roman History and Julius Caesar, even though the author does admit taking a little poetic licence with the some of the timelines and historic facts to make more of a story, but this didn't detract from it at all for me. Nor did Paul Blake's narrative, which yes, is different from Robert Glenister who was also excellent, but I think he does a brilliant job in interpreting the cast and giving them each their own different characterisation. A thoroughly enjoyable series. I can't wait to start Conn Iggulden's Emporer series.

2 of 3 people found this review helpful

Great tale TERRIBLE narration.

Despite the terrible narration and mispronunciations, this book is well worth a listen. Why an English speaker cannot pronounce Octavian, Veni Vidi Vici, is beyond me! These are only a couple of examples of a catalogue of errors.

Absolutely murdered by the narrator.

Would you try another book written by Conn Iggulden or narrated by Paul Blake?

Yes I'd recommend a book by Conn Iggulden, but unfortunately I can't recommend Paul Blake as I think he's hilariously bad as a book narrator for a number of reasons. There is the elephant in the room speech impediment/lisp, the total lack of regard for pronunciation, disregard for the characters the previous narrator set out and total lack of context and character in general.

What did you like best about this story?

Gives an excellent new human dimension to historically immortal characters.

Would you be willing to try another one of Paul Blake’s performances?

Sorry, but I don't think he's ever going to be on my list of recommendations for anything. Absolutely murdered this book in every way. I had been exercising a level of tolerance for someone who obviously has a speech impediment, but quite why you a producer would ever choose him to narrate a historical, factual fiction is beyond me. When he pronounced the immortal line "Vendi Vidi Vici", I could have cried with laughter/pain. Wendy Weedi Weeky. Agony.

You didn’t love this book--but did it have any redeeming qualities?

The story, research etc are great. I wish I'd read it.

Any additional comments?

Just can't express how baffled I am by the production of this... audiobooks are really expensive. For the production team to think this is an acceptable standard of narration compared to the chap who did books 1 & 2 is quite remarkable.

Awful narration

Although I had got slightly more used to the change of narrator after the first two books this is still a massive negative for the series in my opinion, will not listen to any books narrated by Paul Blake in future, and hopefully audible stops using him.
Also noticed that the final book in the series changes narrator yet again! What the hell is going on, spoiling one of the best written stories I’ve had the pleasure to listen too

excellent

I've loved this series, I look forward to the next book, conn tells a great story.