More Seth Books Item ID: #174The Time of Terror: A NovelProduct Information:
Item DescriptionIn the Time of Terror, friends turn against friends, patriots are betrayed, and lovers must pay the ultimate price. 1793 : British navy commander Nathan Peake patrols the English coast, looking for smugglers. Desperate for some real action, Peake gets his chance when France declares war on England and descends into the bloody madness of the Terror. Peake is entrusted with a mission to wreck the French economy by smuggling fake banknotes into Paris. His activities take him down Paris streets patrolled by violent mobs and into the sinister catacombs beneath the French capital. And they bring him close to famous characters of the day : the English feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, her American lover Gilbert Imlay who acts as George Washington’s agent in Paris, and the British/American writer and revolutionary Thomas Paine. As opposition to the Terror mounts, Peake fights to carry out his missionand to save the life of the woman he loves. Item Reviews6 Responses to “The Time of Terror: A Novel”Leave a Reply |
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This is a good read, but is not what it appears to be. The cover and blurb would lead one to believe that this is a nautical adventure, when it is in fact a tale of the French Revolution with some nautical aspects. In fact, the nautical elements are the weakest parts of the book, with a description of the “Glorious First of June” that is inaccurate and shallow. Marines didn’t serve on sloop-rigged brigs like the Nereus, and you don’t have remove the wadding on a carronade after it fires, not to mention the idea of a commander taking over a division of guns on a “first rate”. Compare this awful description with Cornwell’s superb description of Trafalgar in “Sharpe’s Trafalgar”.
The book is at its best describing Paris in the Terror, the horror of the mob, and the political characters are well-drawn and come alive. The author has a gift for changing gears in his writing style as he moves from Paris (spy novel), London (satire) and the sea(nautical). The central character, Nathan Peake is sympathetic and well drawn. Although he is certainly not an O’Brian or a Forester, I look forward to his next work.
Time of Terror is a great read. Commander Nathan Peake is not Horatio Hornblower or Jack Aubrey. He is refreshingly different from both. And Seth Hunter spins a lively yarn which puts Peake in among some very interesting historical characters, who aren’t always what they seem. He manages to be in the salons of London with his very liberal mother, in the Admiralty with some very stuffy politicians playing sailor, at sea with his salty crew, and in Revolutionary Paris during the terror that is the setting of this novel.
Hunter does a fine job of creating not only characters but realistic settings in which to employ them, and compelling events to surround and affect them. The prose is easy to follow and it’s the sort of book that’s fun to curl up with before bed, though difficult to put down when it’s time to put out the lights. The nautical terms did not weigh the story down and the language used gives the feel of the 18th century without making it difficult to follow, a feat similar to that pulled off by David Liss in his historical novels.
I don’t want to provide any spoilers for this story so I shan’t. Suffice it to say you’ll be hooked by the first page. Peake’s adventures are well written in an internally consistent world. His troubles, when they arise, do not seem contrived or artificial and Hunter does not make his hero play dumb to heighten the tension. You can do everything right and still have things not turn out as planned.
I look forward to further adventures and I can’t wait to see where Peake’s orders put him next. The French Revolution is not over, and the Napoleonic Wars beckon.
To begin with I would say one of the best points about “The Time of Terror” is that author Seth Hunter has definitely done his research in writing the book. Taking place in the late 1700′s the story revolves around the events of the French revolution and all the political intrigue that era could muster. The main character, Nathan Peake, is a fictional British Naval Officer who interacts with many historical figures, such as Thomas Payne, Georges Danton, and Gilbert Imlay, to name a few. It is hard to fault the author when he goes to this extreme to make sure the story is relatively accurate in the historical sense.
Unfortunately, that is about the only truly positive thing I can say about the book. First off, Peake is just not that interesting of a character and written way beyond his young years, therefore ending up rather unbelievable. Second, the plot jumps all over the place. The reader gets to see Peake in so many different but equally dangerous scenarios, such as in a sea battle with a French Frigate, almost being lynched by a French mob, trolling through the catacombs of Paris, back to sea for a pitched battle with the French fleet, thrown into a French prison, and so on and so on. One especially annoying feature is that Peake seems to just pop up in many places without much of an explanation of how he got there.
But honestly the thing I hated the most was the fate of one main character at the very end of the book. The resolution of this person was rather shocking and in my opinion must have been inserted for shock value, for I can see no other real purpose, no advancement of the plot. I guess the reason for such a fate may become apparent in subsequent volumes of what appears to be a series in the making but it shall always remain a mystery to me. I have no plans to ever pick up a Nathan Peake book again. The Peake character just was not interesting enough for me to overcome the many problems the story has. And that is a shame because I do love a good British Naval yarn.
My apologies to Mr. Hunter but this book was not for me. I liked the main character, Nathan Peake and the premise of the novel sounded interesting and exciting. I read the Historical Note at the end of the book and it appears that Mr. Hunter has done his homework. The writing was good, the characterizations were interesting, I liked the setting and the history.
Unfortunately, I had a difficult time getting past the detailed sailing jargon. I wanted to continue reading to find out what happened to Nathan but I found the constant sailing details overwhelming and distracting. This could be the perfect book for someone else unfortunately it wasn’t for me.
I think it’s obvious that the author has worked hard to create an interesting novel. Unfortunately for me my lack of knowledge about sailing made this a difficult book for me to read.
6yYgrN Real brain power on display. Thanks for that answer!
It’s fasincating that while the French Revolution is one of the bloodiest events of world history and it took place so close to the American Revolution, it does not loom large in the American consciousness. Other than a vague sense of the guillotine and Marie Antoinette’s notorious “let them eat cake,” many Americans do not place the French Revolution in the pantheon of transformative world events (such as the assassination of Julius Caesar).
Seth Hunter (pseudonym) tries to change all that with “The Time of Terror,” a grim novel that throws the reader inside those terrible days where Parisians murdered each other by the wagonload in an insane game of politics and revenge. Ostensibly, the novel is about British attempts to destabilize France during these crucial days by flooding the French economy with counterfeit bills. The novel shifts from smuggling and cannonfire on the high seas to the streets of Paris as our heroes and villains – including real-life figures such as Robespierre and his enemies – grow less and less concerned with economics and the price of bread and more focused on whose head will leave which shoulders on a given day.
This is a dark, grim book. Sure, there’s plenty of adventure and derring-do, along with quite a bit of humor (our hero may be a capable guy, but he’s far from a nineteenth-century superhero). But Hunter’s book really takes off when he throws the reader into the madness that was The Terror. The book’s most compelling pages focus on the madness and inhumanity of the Revolution’s bloodiest days. And while the book ends on a somewhat hopeful note, the scars of the Revolution are deeply set in both the survivors and the reader.
All in all, an excellent book and a reminder that even the most enlightened people, in times of high passion and paranoia, can be murderous, treacherous, and evil.