Customer Reviews

The Religion: A Novel

5 star:		(49)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

THE RELIGION is intermittently salacious, frequently overwrought, and utterly bloody-handed.

It is, in short, a ripping good yarn.

The Booklist review above stating that "readers of unsubtle historical fiction will be hooked" cuts a bit close to the bone, but what redeems this story from being just another cheesy epic is Tim Willock's ability to memorably depict action, and his motley cast of characters. Is the book absolutely unbelievable? Yep. But like the unholy progeny of James Clavell and Robert E. Howard, Willock plunges into this story with so much gusto, it's almost impossible not to just pull in one's oars and get swept up in THE RELIGION's currents.

WARNING: The book's prologue is bereft of the humor that redeems much of the rest of the story, so don't judge the book on the introduction's merits alone. I nearly bailed out after reading it, but now I'm glad I did not.

WARNING II: Avert your gaze from the most unwholesome spectacle of the author's photo on the jacket sleeve.

Suspend just a bit of disbelief about the "over the top" hero and villain, sexual exploits in a hot tub in the midst of a horrific siege, maybe a few other things, but relax and enjoy a long and gripping narrative about one of the more interesting military episodes of the 16th century. The heroic defense of Malta by the Knights of Saint John deserves an epic retelling and Tim Willocks is up to the job. Take it to the beach or onto the plane, anywhere you can lose yourself for hours. Highly recommended for those who enjoy top-grade action-packed historical fiction -- think Flashman or Aubrey & Maturin.

In 1540 in the Fagaras Mountains of Hungary, Muslim scarlet horsemen abduct twelve year old Mattias Tannhauser, the son of Saxon metal-smiths. They train him as a holy warrior whose entrance to heaven is to die in combat. However, he eventually obtains his release and settles in Sicily where Mattias taking advantage of having solid feet in the competing religious camps becomes a successful arms broker.

In 1565 widow Contessa Carla La Penautier arrives in Sicily to hire Tannhauser to find her illegitimate twelve years old son Orlandu, whom she reluctantly abandoned at his birth due to uncaring pressure. Unable to resist her siren's call, Mattias agrees to go with Carla to Malta at a time that the Turkish Ottoman Suleiman the Magnificent declares a jihad to eradicate the affluent influential Knights Hospitaller of St. John, a monastic order based in Malta. On the disputed Mediterranean island, Mattias and Carla struggle to survive when the Turks begin their assault on the St. John knights. However, even more dangerous to the pair than the war is the arrival of dreaded Inquisition monk Ludovico Ludovici, working under order of Cardinal Michele Ghisleri, who deviously plans to bring Malta under papal rule after he takes care of a certain twelve year old indiscretion that he sired on a teenage Carla.

This is an exciting swashbuckling look at a real sixteenth century religious war mostly from the perspective of the dashing hero who is one of the few people who seems to understand both sides of the conflict. The story line is action-packed, but it is the cast who brings to life 1565 Malta as the prime triangle (Mattias, Carla and Ludovico) seem genuine and the combatants fighting in God's name appear real. Readers will appreciate this terrific historical holy war thriller that grips the audience from the opening kidnapping until the final confrontation with more to follow.

Harriet Klausner

This is a historical novel about the Ottoman siege of the Knights of St John on Malta in 1565. The book is well researched and historically accurate. The problem is that the views expressed are entirely contemporary and pertain to current wars and views of religious conflict. The tone is too modern; no one with the possible exception of a few philosophers thought like this in the 16th century. The author editorializes too much, detracting from our appreciation of what is otherwise a good historical novel.

Knowledge of history does not make up for literary technique. The protagonist of the book is Mattias Tannhauser, a Christian kidnapped from his village as a child by the Turks who went on to serve in the Ottoman forces as a Janissary captain, became disillusioned and wound up as a trader and tavern owner. He is a multi-cultural, liberal and incongruously well-educated hero inserted into a world of combatants repeatedly described as `fanatics'. Tannhauser is drawn into the conflict by the machinations of the Knights of St John and also by his own infatuation with Carla, a countess bent on getting to Malta before the Turkish blockade is complete. Tannhauser, is a Richard Sharpe type character, for those familiar with Bernard Cornwell. Unfortunately this book does not compare favorably to Cornwell's works. The descriptions of war are inspired by Cornwell, but the repeated allusions to body fluids lose their shock value after a while and seem unnecessary. Unlike Sharpe, Tannhauser is not a believable character which makes it difficult to sympathize with him. In the opening chapters he kills a priest with no remorse and with unrealistic disregard of the institutions of the day. Later he delivers high-sounding monologues that read like a modern editorial. A man so deeply damaged that he feels no remorse is also one who should be incapable of selfless acts. In some way the book is about his transformation and redemption, but this change does not come across as believable.

The supporting characters are clichéd and stereotypical. There is the brawny, but not too bright side-kick, a tormented but heartless inquisitor of the Catholic Church playing the obvious villain, a luscious countess and her even more luscious companion needed to set up a love triangle. The portrayal of the Inquisition is shallow. The outcome is fairly predictable although it turns out to be more anguished than expected. On the whole the book is interesting for its historical aspects but is weakened by unnecessary modern sermonizing and is too long, allowing the tension to dissipate.

I am nearly at the end of narrating for the Library of Congress all 620 odd unabridged pages of this book by Tim Willocks, and what a bloody journey it has been. Whow! The great Siege of Malta in 1565--re-enacted in glorious technicolor as it were, down to the last defecation of the dead and dying. If it's blood and guts you wallow in, with a certain amount of sex (mostly in a barrel of brine), then this is the book for you. There are plenty of philosophical and religious meanderings, and description after description of the horrors of war--though I must say that in the half dozen set-piece battles in the book, it does not seem too repetitive: a mixture of Braveheart and Gladiator, and sometimes one thinks (especially in the dialogue) that Tim Willocks has hoped that Russell Crowe would play the part of his weird hero--Tannhauser, captured by the Turks as a child after the murders of his sisters,the (necrophiliac)rape of his dead mother, and the beheading of the rapists by a Turkish commander. All described, of course, in gory and precise anatomical detail. There are countless beheadings, and heads often explode in a bursts of gore as Tannhauser hits them with balls from his wheel-lock musket or his pistol (he is a wonderful shot with both--and, God, what a swordsman). Guts spill in coils from bellies, faces are shot away, pints of pus, excrement in abundance, congealed vomit, wounds that are always suppurating, eyes that are very often dark pools or stygian in the blackness of their depths, and members that are only too easily tumescent. Willocks is never at a loss for a simile or a metaphor or an adjective--he is pretty good at them all, actually.
It is almost operatic. Tannhauser the tenor of course, the wicked Inquisitor Ludovico, the baritone, Contessa Carla (who seeks Tannhauser's help to find her bastard son, born in Malta and sired by Ludovico,and taken from her at birth)--the comic Bors, Tannhauser's English mate (a bass), and the wispy, strange Amparo, the Contessa's companion whom she found as a sort of 'wild child' in the forests in Spain. And plenty of choral work for all those Knights of St. John, the brave and sturdy Maltese, and the monks (black-robed, of course) with their religious processions and plain-song chants. And, by the way, Carla is a real ace on the viola da gamba--boy, does she weave a spell and a half over Tannhauser when he hears her play.
But, all in all, it is a ripping yarn, though most of the ripping is of human flesh, and the author certainly demonstrates, in the book's authenticity of historical detail, the results of what was obviously fairly intense historical research.
If you have any yen for historical fiction, crusaders, battles, love interest (poor Tannhauser, torn between Carla and Amparo) then this block-buster novelistic rendering of the Siege of Malta--which was indeed a momentous event in the history of the Mediterranean--is a book you should read. Maybe not every single word, as I have done!

I receivd an advance version of the audio. At 21 CD's it was a long listen, but extremely well done. Simon Vance's narration is thrilling. He gives distinct voices to the many characters. I found myself looking for reasons to drive so I could continue the story.

"The Religion" is in the great tradtion of swashbuckling adventures with a larger than life lead character, beautiful damsels, and dastardly villains. But Willocks puts his own stamp on this story. He does not shirk from the dreadful realities of siege warfare. The story of a war fought nominally between two great religions does not give the edge to either side. Tannhauser, with a foot in each religion, tends to view it all with a cynic's skepticism. The heights of courage and the depths of depravity are shown on boths sides of the siege.
I was reminded at times of the fiction of Dorothy Dunnett. If you enjoy this read her book "The Disorderly Knights" to get another view of the Knights Hospitaler.
I look forward to the next installment o fhte Tannhauser Trilogy

After watching his family butchered by renegade mercenaries, twelve-year-old Mattias is abducted by the Muslim leader who will become a father figure and mentor, his future cast with his captors: "War was now his master and his trade". Renamed Ibrahim, the boy is trained as a janissary; as a man, he is a skilled soldier of fortune who has made his wealth in trade with two partners, a Jewish merchant, and Bors, a seasoned Christian soldier. Mattias, who has taken the last name of Tannhauser, is content to avoid war, including the incipient battle at Malta. If the Turks conquer Malta, Europe will be exposed to Islamic terrorists, but Suleiman's greatest ambition is to exterminate the Knights of St. John, healers and monks so devout that they style themselves "the Religion". Mattias and Bors are drawn into the fray through a request to aid a French countess, Carla La Penautier, who is seeking the twelve-year-old son taken from her at birth. Never one to deny a beautiful woman, Tannhauser and Bors agree to accompany the woman and her companion, Amparo, straight into the mouth of hell.

Larger-than-life, Tannhauser is thrown into a seething cauldron of fanaticism, faith and political intrigue, the clash of battle paling before the Machiavellian schemes of the father of Carla's son, the Inquisitor Ludovico Ludovici, the two men matching wits to the bitter, bloody end. Mattias must use every skill and deception to survive, while Carla and Amparo create an island of peace in devastated Malta, brief comfort in the eye of the storm. Then the difficult becomes nearly impossible, Mattias finding Carla's son only to leave him behind, Ludovici's machinations threatening at every turn. Perhaps it is Ludovico who is the most fascinating character, serving the God of War and purging the land of heresy, a zealot in the name of religion. Carla is his fatal flaw, lust the beast that stalks him from within, defying his mission as a priest. Surrounded by death, the feelings he thought slaked are reignited on Malta; marked by this bifurcation, Ludovico is a monster, a heartless murderer in the name of God.

All is awash in the gore of war and the stench of death, thousands of mutilated bodies, fatal wounds, blood flowing freely from the doomed: "We're surrounded by the Called. They're hacking each other to pieces as we speak." Yet there are moments of serenity, where it is possible to imagine a future without the threat of extermination. Willocks paints his gory portrait on this hellish canvas, religion vs. religion, Malta the battleground. As dense and complicated as the grand ambitions of religious sovereignty, this epic novel captures the spirit of Muslim and Christian belief, mercenary and true believer facing the steady attrition of death, Mattias slashing his way through overwhelming odds and at a terrible price, the subtleties of affection surviving the bloodshed, albeit barely. An ambitious undertaking, The Religion delivers a powerful message of God, war and redemption, the power of faith and the cost of honor: "Win? Time renders all such victories null, without exception. Luan Gaines/2007.

I found this to be an absolutely first-rate historical novel. The epic scope and insight to the period was reminiscent in some ways to the best of James Clavell (although representing very different parts of the world, of course).

Some have complained about the gore, and, yes, without question the author vividly depicts the cruelty and inhumanity of the age. But to fail to do so would have first been dishonest. However, the cruelty of the outside world also serves as a strategic backdrop that highlights and enhances the passion and utter humanity of the main characters and their relationships.

Highly recommended.

If there were 100 stars that is where I would rate it. A dashing soldier of fortune as a hero, with several ususual and intrigueing sidekicks. A couple of lovely heroines. An evil,yet, fascination villain. A well researched description of one of the greatest sieges in history. Lots of violence, gore and sex, just the things that make a good story. Seriously, I have been reading as many as 3 books a week for 70 years--mysteries, adventures, serious literature, and non fiction histories--and this is one of the best combinations of the above I have ever read. Its a keeper, to be saved and reread.

Wow! This is one of those dream books, which I picked up by accident while browsing the aisles in the local bookstore. It is a wonderful book, the characters are vivid as is the details, it is almost as if you are at Malta in the midst of the siege. It is brutal in its descriptions, and a glorious book in every way. If you love historical fiction, with vivid realistic battle scenes combined with glory, honor, love, human misery and the wonderful time period of the 1500's then this book is for you! Mr. Willocks, I salute you! Great job and please do write more!!! I give it six stars and two thumbs up!!!!