Samarkand

Samarkand #1

by Graham Diamond

The fabled city of Samarkand is besieged by the Mongols.

Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Historical, Fiction, Historical Fantasy

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

In 2015 Venture Press Ltd, UK contracted to reissue seven of Graham Diamond's most noted titles. Among them was THE HAVEN, Diamond's renown cult classic. Others include the EMPIRE PRINCESS series:
LADY OF THE HAVEN; DUNGEONS OF KUBA, THE FALCON OF EDEN, THE BEASTS OF HADES.
In addition, the two part SAMARKAND and SAMARKAND DAWN were released to new worldwide audiences.

Graham Diamond began writing as a fantasy and science fiction author. He was born in Manchester, England, after World War II, and his family moved to the United States when he was a young child. He was raised in New York City, on the Upper West Side, and graduated from the High School of Music and Art. He attended CCNY in NY, and the Art Students League of New York.

He worked for the New York Times as a production manager in Editorial Art for many years. He has also taught creative writing in New York and California.

-Wikipedia

Reviews

[Hikari Saaya · Rating 3 out of 5]

I suppose it's my own fault I didn't enjoy this book. It was rich and deep and detailed. ..oh so detailed. I have to confess that I ended up skipping alot of the details to get to the meat. I did enjoy the book but as a lover of romance, the love story in this book didn't quite get me. I hoped it would happen but when it did it just seemed to be a fact. it was stated but not fleshed out. the relationships didn't feel as real to me as the environment. overall, good book but I wish there was more feeling and more attention paid to relationships between the characters

[Charles · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this one a lot. It looked like a book right down my alley. Exotic adventure. Swords and sorcery. But unfortunately it seemed to move very slowly to me and there wasn't a lot of action. It was OK, but I've never read anything else by Diamond.

[Venture Press · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is published by Venture Press.

[Michael Bierbaum · Rating 3 out of 5]

Worth the read

For the first third of the book the author strove to impress with high-flown prose and a thesaurus by his side. Pity he didn't quite grok the full definitions of things. One of his favorite words to be misused was "carrion." He consistently confused the scavenger birds with their preferred food. Vultures are "carrion fowl" they feed on the dead and dying, and that is "carrion." Also he sets up his characters as followers of Islam but often has them drinking wine and is inaccurate about Ramadan. It seems nitpicky but in a story this good it is the lack of attention to this kind of detail that yanks me out of the world he has built and the story he is telling. These are things a good editor should have caught and kept this a 4 star read instead of the 3 stars it currently merits.

[Sandy Frediani · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my usual genre, but chosen for some variety. It is different and an interesting story, but there are some things that brought the rating down. There are long periods of lyrical prose, which is fine except that they're too long and too many. Descriptions ramble too long and too detailed. Much of it could be cut without diminishing the story. And then there are the wrong words used - thrashing knives, curdled blood, bailed lightning and so on. I also stumbled across one formatting error. It's not bad. It could be a lot better.

[Mandie Curtin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book very hard to skip read

It was interesting, intriguing and easy to get into. Right from the beginning the characters caught me and I wanted to see them develop. Thank you for a good read.

[Kenneth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember reading this in Jr. High, or sometime around there, and picked it up again. This wasn't terrible, but at 70% I realized I wasn't all that invested either. So I set it aside. There's better historical fiction out there waiting for me and I'm off to find it.

[Katie Murphy]

I don't know what you're talking about. I've NEVER READ THIS BOOK!

[Peter Baran · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember reading this when I was a teenager and being quite impressed by its mixture of historical fiction and fantasy, and liking its devotion to a non-Western subject matter. I have to say it doesn't stand up quite so well these days, it doubles down on exoticism and mysticism a bit too much and its grasp of Islam is patchy (but not bad for a book written in 1980). But taken as a rollicking adventure story it still turns the page well and the baddies get what for. Which is more or less what I was really remembered.

[Ricky Kimsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Asian Historical Fantasy

This is a historical fantasy set in the 4th century city in the title. This centers on a princess who goes through many trials and tribulations.

[Mary Holbert · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful

Uneven description after description. I couldn't finish the book. I did read the ending and yeah, didn't miss anything. Sorry, author.