• The Eagle in the Sand

  • Eagles of the Empire, Book 7
  • By: Simon Scarrow
  • Narrated by: Russell Boulter
  • Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (354 ratings)

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The Eagle in the Sand  By  cover art

The Eagle in the Sand

By: Simon Scarrow
Narrated by: Russell Boulter
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Publisher's summary

If you don't know Simon Scarrow, you don't know Rome!

The Eagle in the Sand is the action-packed seventh novel in Simon Scarrow's best-selling Eagles of the Empire series. Essential reading for fans of Bernard Cornwell.

Judaea in AD 46. Roman centurions Cato and Macro have been posted to Judaea for a 'hearts and minds' operation. The Empire needs to win over the locals after some of their religious figures have started revolts - and since the Romans crucified the last charismatic Judaean leader, the natives' rebellions have become bolder.

Not only are these small villages causing trouble, but there are also thousands of Parthians eager to fight Rome. With the threat of suicide attacks and even all-out war, Cato and Macro have their peace-keeping work cut out....

©2006 Simon Scarrow (P)2012 Headline Digital

Critic reviews

"Scarrow's [novels] rank with the best." ( Independent)

What listeners say about The Eagle in the Sand

Average customer ratings
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  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Well done

Excellent read all around. Its difficult to find an author with the love of historical accuracy and detail, while being imaginative enough to spin a good yarn.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Entertaining Romans in the Field

What did you love best about The Eagle in the Sand?

So glad this was not abridged. The friendship between the two centurians welds this story together and provides a good adventure. Although the author does not delve into Roman camp life as much as I would like, the story is still cohesive and the characters believable. All together a good story and fine narrator. I'd like to see more non-abridged works by Simon Scarrow.

If you’ve listened to books by Simon Scarrow before, how does this one compare?

Better than any of the abridged books.

Have you listened to any of Russell Boulter’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Solid performance.

Any additional comments?

More non abridged books by this author.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

MORE!

Any additional comments?

I want more Simon Scarrow! Stop messing about with the abridged versions and make available the unabridged!

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

made Christianity look idiotic

I've liked all these books except for this one Scarrow doesn't know his Christian history

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Great

Narrator is incredible, and story is just as good as previous titles in the series

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Could have been set any time up to modern era …

I haven’t listened to the first 6 books. This one stands on its own, so doing so isn’t essential; mostly they aren’t available from audible at the time of this review.

I’ve listened to 5hrs and I just don’t care. The plot is unsophisticated; predictable. It seems to be written for teen readers. The characters, reading and story don’t draw me in; and I’m a fan of this style of book: Falco series, Medicus Ruso, Ship of Rome, etc.

The characters seem unfleshed and they behave with inconsistency; both within their own development and the “Roman” setting. This could be due to the reading; voices that I can see in a TV series (Spoiler? I think Sean Bean would play Macro in the style of “Sharpe”), but detract from the drama for me. They frustrated me.

I’m Australian so the voices chosen probably are less satisfying because the accents haven’t resonance although that hasn’t been a problem with other books’ readings. The best voices are of the non-Romans.

Could have been set any time up to modern era … French Foreign Legion?

The volumes between the narration and the dialogue vary quite a bit, so listening with head phones might be a problem.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Confused over a small part of the backstory

The only complaint I have is that I am not sure of the Jesus or “j’hashua” mentioned in the backstory is meant to be the actual Jesus, or one of the off-shoot messianic figures that cropped up in history. The reason it confuses me is if it’s really meant to be Jesus, then Scarrow needs to read the Bible again. The things he claims that Jesus taught is way off the mark, such as that his whole purpose was to liberate Israel from the Romans. That is what the Jews THOUGHT He was supposed to do, they didn’t see that what He was doing was so much bigger than Rome vs Israel. Anyway, small complaint, the story is still STELLAR and the performance is outstanding. Well worth listening

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Narration too low compared with rest of speaking.

Narration too low compared with rest of speaking. The speaker needs to adjust the levels of the performance. Hard to listen in a car.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Action aplenty.

Swords, daggers, combat, good guys, bad guys, biblical references, what's not to like? Moves the action to the desert.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Unimaginative

Historical fiction has given us such classics as War and Peace, The Red Badge of Courage, the Glass Palace and As a Driven Leaf. all of these books and many others were able to dramatize a period while also teaching us about what it must have been like to live in that time and place. The best of these even force us to grapple with the intellectual currents that shaped that world. This book has none of that. It is little more than a series of made-for-TV battle vignettes with a little bit of conspiracy mongering surrounding Jesus's crucifixion. Even the English is pedestrian and hackneyed. Look elsewhere if you really want to immerse in the cultural milieu of 1st century Judea.

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