Customer Reviews

Prince of the Clouds

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this book between flights because the jacket promised that "like Louis de Bernieres's Corelli's Mandolin, Gianni Riotta's charming and provocative romance explores large and small matters of love and war, shifting between the turbulence of post-war Sicily and the great battles of ancient and modern history." Corelli's Mandolin is one of my favorites as is Italy so I bought in and I'm not sorry I did.

Like Corelli's Mandolin, this book has significant flaws made tolerable by vivid and loveable characters. Riotta takes a little too long to get things going, but once he does it's well worth it. The book's military strategy theme works well and is extremely interesting. Riotta makes strategy fun and enjoyable, reminding me of Ayn Rand's vocational architecture backdrop in the Fountainhead.

My favorite Italian novel is Lampedusa's The Leopard. Prince of the Clouds provides another interesting view of the decline of Sicilian nobility and I think readers will appreciate either one more having read the other. Appropriately, Riotta acknowledges his debt to Lampedusa by having him make a brief appearance in the book.

A tour de force. Blending history, romance and the examples and perplexities of battles over the centuries, from Alexander the Great's legendary conflicts to World War II. Our hero Terzo is very Italian ... .in all good ways. The other characters are memorable and its a book a reader will remember for a long time. Not to be missed!

It is a story that engages your mind and your heart. It makes you think and it makes you cry. At the end of the book, I cried. For the loss of young people and what it might have been of them. But it is also a book of hope, in the good of people and their ideas. Above all, it is a great story. You cannot stop reading when it comes to the central episode of the book (a battle of poor, unarmed men, women and children against mafia killers). It makes you feel that each person counts, that you count. At the same time, history of mankind counts. Ancient and recent. There aren't many books like this!

I bought this book since the blurb promised it would be as good as Captain Corelli - Wrong! I found the characters very distant and I could not get involved in their stories. On the other hand, this book is beautifully written and the depiction of ancient battles, and the way the author relates them to the modern day story of Captain Carlo, is very good indeed. The scene at the beginning of the book as Carlo relates a battle tale to Count Ciano (Mussolini's foreign minister) and to his future wife is truly ace. This is a book for an intelligent reader and I am sure there are many Amazon readers who consider themselves to be that!

Prince of the Clouds follows the life of Colonel Carlo Terzo, a brilliant military strategist who has never seen action. His life is utterly changed by the arrival of Emma, a Russian aristocratic, who may not be all that she appears, but who gives his humdrum life passion, meaning, purpose...and, inevitably, tragedy.

This beautifully told and written (or translated?) story by Gianni Riotta had me spell-bound from the first to last page. It is populated by colourful and well-delineated characters who linger in the brain long after you have put the book down. I never thought that a novel which spends so much time describing battle strategies could be so engrossing, but Riotta manages to pull it off because he makes it concise and to-the-point, (there are no longueurs in the book) and makes it a key element to both the character of Colonel Carlo Terzo and to the plot. This is a superb book. Read it and enjoy. I can't wait for Riotta's second novel.

I stumbled on this book on the UK Amazon website, and I really loved it. I bought it because of the comparison to Corelli's Mandolin, and it held up well in that comparison. I couldn't put it down, and the descriptions of battles were fascinating. A beautifully written novel, and one well worth reading.

A very nice read overall. A visually beautiful journey through life, romance and military history. I thought that the theme of applying the lessons of the great battles of the past to the situations we face in life was well done. There was a certain sad absurdity in the vision of the arch strategist who had never fought a battle though versed in the strategies and tactics of Ceasar, Alexander, Hannibal, Napoleon, etc. Until, that is, he is called upon to command a battle fought between landless peasants and hired bandits. There is also a theme floating through of the sadness of a defeated and occupied italy, of the missing italian soldiers who were sent to fight in places like russia and never came home. I've read this book several times now and find that i always, inevitably return to it again.

Being an avid history and historically related books and issues (yes, including TV and cable history programs), I can't resist in getting this novel. Having read the like of Steven Pressfield, who is a master in war strategy books, I am taken by the way Gianni Riotta has done for his exquisite war strategies research, especially on Carthaginian-Roman wars.

Compounding to these strategies, Mr. Riotta really has a touch in writing romance novels. Never having like reading too romantic novels, the author has done an excellent job for taking me in.

This novel is basically about a colonel in WW II Mussolinni era. After the retirement, his extensive knowledge of war strategies are put into tests. He and his entourage even having to implement these knowledge into real battle actions. His life passions were entwined into a romantically written novel, spiced up with battle stuffs.

A four-star reading for me. Why not a five star? Because I have read other books which is much better written, though this book is also very well written. I am hoping Mr. Riotta will write more books!

It is a story that engages your mind and your heart. It makes you think and it makes you cry. At the end of the book, I cried. For the loss of young people and what it might have been of them. But it is also a book of hope, in the good of people and their ideas. Above all, it is a great story. You cannot stop reading when it comes to the central episode of the book (a battle of poor, unarmed men, women and children against mafia killers). It makes you feel that each person counts, that you count. At the same time, history of mankind counts. Ancient and recent. There aren't many books like this!