Customer Reviews

Light of Machu Picchu (Incas 3)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

After reaching the end of the third book of this trilogy, I was left with the following impressions:

1. The most interesting thing about this trilogy is that it focus on a subject that is almost forgotten in historical fiction: the Inca civilization. That alone is reason to buy the trilogy, for those who are interested in the subject.

2. The books are a blend of accurate history and a somewhat corny and water-and-sugar clicheed love story; there are better books on similar subjects, like Gary Jennings' "Aztec" and Collen MacCullough's "First man in Rome" series.

3. The authors chose to portrait too many characters, sometimes confusing the readers, especially when concerning Inca characters. Excluding the Sapa Incas, the other native pre-columbian characters are almost always variations on the same one.

4. When Gabriel, the spanish central character, is not part of the plot, the chapters just drag along, many times boring and tiresome. Anamaya, the main Inca character, lacks strenght.

5. As I read the books, I realised the trilogy starts very well, but ends badly. This should not be a trilogy, but only one book, better edited, with a better-developed plot. The authors focused too much on dead-end fictional characters, while historical figures, when they appeared, were always portraied as evil people.

The third part is very similar to the first two, and the three books should be read as one.

After closing this third book, I felt I liked the trilogy, but could have enjoyed it more, due to the reasons stated above. But as this is the only (as far as I know) fictional account of the Inca civilization, it should get the attention of historical-fiction addicts.

Grade 8.0/10

Volume one of this translation from the French is a sparkling story set against the conquest of Peru and the Inca Empire by Pizarro. The Puma's Shadow tells the story of the blue-eyed - and therefore mystical - Anamaya who was abducted by the Incas when her village was razed as a child. An outcast she becomes the wife of the Sun King's Huayna Capac Sacred Double after he passes the secrets of the ancient Incas to her on his deathbed.
Her life at the Inca Court becomes fraught with danger as the warring family factions seek to become the new Sun King as the prince designate Atahualpa refuses the crown. With the attentions of Manco, Guaypar and Inti Palla she is mentored, begrudgingly at first, with pride later, by the High Priest Villa Oma as her visionary abilities begin to flower. A world away, a dashing Don Gabriel is freed from Spanish prison of the Inquisition, disavowed from his family inheritance and joins Capitan Pizarro petition to conquer the New World and find the endless rivers of gold of Peru.
As each's fate comes closer together, the lives of Don Gabriel and Anamaya are intricately woven into a powerful tale of mystery, romance and breathtaking exhilaration as the fate of a peoples is unravelled in this novel.
The author has created a gripping historical fantasy at the time when old and new worlds collide and has certainly ensured reading the next volumes.

Anyone who wishes to read a better novel about the Incas might want to try 'The Incas' by Daniel Peters - more action, better characterization, less soppy romantic cliche.

Having been recommended this book by Amazon and hearing reviews comparing it to Gary Jenning's Aztec, I was expecting a whole lot more. It was like expecting Raiders of the Lost Ark and getting Remo Williams instead.

This book is painfully slow and I found myself stuck on the first 200 pages. The story of the Incas centers on the death of the current ruler. He has not named a successor though his various sons are vieing for the privilege. Just before his death the ruler had confided in a blue eyed girl who was stolen from another tribe. After his death everyone wants to know what was said to her and whether the ruler named a successor.

Meanwhile in Spain, there is a kind of scoundrel named Gabriel who escapes the Inquisition and somehow ends up with Pizarro. Pizarro tells of his gruelling trip to Peru and the gold that awaits there. He is trying to get together an invading force to sail to the New World and exploit the gold. All of this sounds way more interesting than the book actually is.

The book is followed by two more but I think I'll stop at this one. Read Jennings instead. The story of Cortez's invasion of Mexico is way better!

I tried very hard to like this book. But in order to like it, I had to finish it. So I tried very hard to read this book. Twice. And I put it down after about 60 pages both times.

I love the whole mythology and history surrounding the peak of the Incas and the ensuing Spanish Conquest. This book and the full "Incas" series revolves around that time period, but this book is just bad. I keep thinking that it may be the translation since the book was reprinted from its' native french in numerous other languages. Though my wife pointed out that just because it's printed in different languages doesn't mean that it's read in different languages.

The plot is actually the least of the problems. The characters are extremely weak and come and go with neither rhyme nor reason. There's no subtly to their development and after numerous chapters covering over a year of time, there was very little hope that the book was going to get better. There were glimmers of hope, but then characters would disappear and reemerge as if they'd never been missing. It's so poorly written, I imagine that something went seriously wrong in the translation.

I can deal with a good bit of melodrama...if only it was interesting and even reasonably well done. In this case, it wasn't.

There's so little historical fiction surrounding this amazing period in time. It's a total shame that "Incas" couldn't have been better.

Loved the historical aspect of this story about this oft neglected civilization.It is good to see both sides of the story it is written in a easy to read and follow style.

This book was well writen very well and I am very glad I ordered it from Amozon. I will probably order book again.

Good, but not great. Very good historical information, but a bit too mystical for my taste. Interesting characters; however, there were references to events that were not previously covered in the book. Otherwise worth reading.

I've read this first part of the trilogy. And i think the book was okay, but did rather poorly in dragging me into the inca world and mythology.. I Certainly didn't like to have to flip to the end of the book to find out what "Ushnu" means.

The story is somewhat romanticizing the conquest, which doesnt make it any REAL to the reader (so to speak). G. Jennings had alot of real shocking elements in a story about a shockingly cruel yet poetic and complex civilization. But when it came to Human Sacrifices in this book it was entirely averted (we know they sacrificed people... lets not sidestep the issue to make it comfortable to readers!). It has a bad romantic story involving the two main characters of the story in what can only be described as a typical french passion, which can only be a story to target the female reader. Alot of the side characters come in and out of the story in a flimsy uninformative manner and they feel kind of left out. They should also have studied more on other tribes surrounding the empire, as Jennings laid out in his book, before the spanish arrived. Either that or the Andes was a real boring place to visit before the conquest.

But i'll read the next 2 parts as i've already bought them, and they kill time at work..

Nowadays, the reader has to be careful about historic fiction. There is a big number of authors who, having made the smallest research about some point or other in history, give birth to terrible books advertised as "historic fiction", whereas "historic" is some tiny background barely mentioned in the plot, and the "fiction" is the worst possible.

I must admit I had this feeling about the Inca trilogy, but since there is very few fiction books concerning the Inca people, and I enjoy reading about pre-Colombian people, and (best of all) I received this one as a gift, I fave it a try.

About the author: in fact there are three authors (Antoine B. Daniel is a kind of compilation of their names); one of them is a history scholar, the other one is a awarded fiction writer, etc, and the story behind the book is that they gathered to write about the Incas like Jennings wrote about the Aztecs.

"The puma's shadow" (in Brazil, like in France, the title is "Princess of the sun") is the first part of the trilogy. In this first volume, we get to know the Inca empire shortly before the arrival of the spanish: the struggle for power between Huascar and Atahualpa, based on the visions of the female main character of the book: the strange, blue-eyed Anamaya. On the other side, in Spain, we are acquainted with Don Gabriel, a deserted young man, who seeks fortune in the new lands of Peru.

The first part of the trilogy is where the reader knows the backgrounds (the dying days of the Inca empire) and the motivations of the main characters.

I think this may be the slowest book of the trilogy, but it's very well written and the research seems well done. The three authors deserve the praise to have acomplished a good book with an unusual theme and fairly developed characters.

Grade 8.8/10