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This was quite a bit of fun, and if you're looking for a rather boisterous fantasy heist, this is going to be right up your alley.
This was not my absolute favorite fantasy heist book (though wow do I love having choices; that is fantastic), but I will definitely be picking up the sequels, because I enjoyed this quite a bit.
The humor was a bit overblown for me in a few places (it reminded me a bit of Discworld, which is probably a huge endorsement for some but kind of ended up a series I didn't quite "get"), and the characters, while rather charming, weren't quite fully dimensional enough for me--they felt a little too much like tropes, which is perfectly fine for a fun ride but not quite as good for anything deeper.
The story (once it gets going--this is a slow start) is quite a bit of fun, with twists and turns galore, and lots of quick clever little comments from our characters (I keep wanting to call them a "party", like a D&D party). This is more of a burglary than a con, in case you were wondering exactly what flavor of heist you had signed up for, and it remarkably light-hearted for the material it contains.
The biggest problem with the story itself is that it feels a little all-over-the-place at times. Part of the slow start was due to that--there was a lot of jumping around before everything was established, and there are an awful lot of characters to keep track on top of it, so things were a tad confusing at times. Not really "I will understand this once everything is revealed" confusing, but "Er, wait, are we over here for a particular reason now?" confusing, which is not as much fun.
I will definitely be picking up the rest of the series eventually, because they absolutely are pleasurable reads and now I feel invested in the characters.
This book was provided to me for free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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This was a lot of fun.
Ancient Egypt is one of those things that's always been of interest, but it's weirdly difficult to really dig into in school unless you specify in it (and also unless you live in a place where even your college offers courses on it; I do not).
Listening to this was like taking that college class I really wanted to take but couldn't, and I'm grateful.
I liked how things were organized--mostly chronologically but with a few lectures set aside for specific subjects, like mummification--and the speed at which things moved. I felt like I got solid amounts of detail without feeling bogged down.
Bob Brier might be one of my favorite lecturers, too. He's so obviously *excited* about everything he's talking about, and he really wants you to be excited, too. The last lecture with the discussion of where to go from here really drove that home. He recommended lots of different ways to continue learning (including a shout-out to the Amelia Peabody mysteries, which as he rightly points out were written by an actual Egyptologist) whatever you were most interested in, and he genuinely sounds like he's so psyched that you're going to be able to learn more things and pick out what is most interesting to you.
This is my first really in-depth nonfiction book/audiobook on Ancient Egypt, so I can't speak to how much was left out (I presume, given how much history is covered, a lot, simply due to time), but it felt like a really solid basis for continued studies and I've already poked about looking for what else is available to me.
Ancient Egypt is one of those things that's always been of interest, but it's weirdly difficult to really dig into in school unless you specify in it (and also unless you live in a place where even your college offers courses on it; I do not).
Listening to this was like taking that college class I really wanted to take but couldn't, and I'm grateful.
I liked how things were organized--mostly chronologically but with a few lectures set aside for specific subjects, like mummification--and the speed at which things moved. I felt like I got solid amounts of detail without feeling bogged down.
Bob Brier might be one of my favorite lecturers, too. He's so obviously *excited* about everything he's talking about, and he really wants you to be excited, too. The last lecture with the discussion of where to go from here really drove that home. He recommended lots of different ways to continue learning (including a shout-out to the Amelia Peabody mysteries, which as he rightly points out were written by an actual Egyptologist) whatever you were most interested in, and he genuinely sounds like he's so psyched that you're going to be able to learn more things and pick out what is most interesting to you.
This is my first really in-depth nonfiction book/audiobook on Ancient Egypt, so I can't speak to how much was left out (I presume, given how much history is covered, a lot, simply due to time), but it felt like a really solid basis for continued studies and I've already poked about looking for what else is available to me.
dark
informative
slow-paced
