False Ambassador

Byzantine Trilogy #2

by Christopher Harris

"False Ambassador is a circular journey through a world just emerging from the Middle ages, forced by war and discovery into new ways of living and thinking." "The Renaissance. The dawn of modern civilisation? Or the last spasm of mediaeval brutality? Thomas Deerham, soldier and would-be scholar, has deserted from the English army in France. What should he aim for: wealth or wisdom? Pleasure or redemption? Who can help him? Not the deserters and brigands that swarm over France. Barely human, they offer nothing but death and destruction." In his search for a purpose, Thomas encounters fools and philosophers, friars and merchants, humanists and heretics. He is consoled by the Secrets of Love, discovered in an old book, but his curiosity leads him to commit a terrible crime. Released from prison, he must begin a second quest: to save his soul. He goes to the East, where two faiths are fighting for the greatest city in the world. He endures defeat and slavery, but a surprising encounter in Rome seems to offer the hope of redemption.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction

100 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2001

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Christopher Harris, born in 1951, is a British science teacher (biologist) and writer.

Reviews

[Liviu · Rating 5 out of 5]

(original read aug 2011) This is a very good book but falls short of the masterpiece it could have been with a scattered last third that reads like a collection of vignettes more than a novel.

The first 2/3 following narrator Thomas Deerham - a page of an English nobleman in the 100 Years War - from the siege of Orleans where his master dies, to his induction in the ranks of a mercenary company and then later to accompany the noted humanist (and future Pope) Picollomini on a diplomatic mission followed by his return home - are excellent; great picaresque hero/action though in a darker and grimmer mode than the usual such, pitch perfect atmosphere and all that i expected from the book; sadly after that the book starts jumping all around and while we follow the author, the coherence loses and while the images (shipwreck, Morea, Constantinople, slavery...) are vivid they just do not really add up.

Only at the end the novel regains some unity and the ending is pretty good so I plan to pickup Mappamundi soon

reread (dec 2012) as I finally got Mappamundi; struck again by how powerfully written this book is and how close it is to a masterpiece with maybe 50-100 pages more filling in various periods that are skipped in the book

[Estarianne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Starts out as a historical description of the life of an unpleasant, whiny teenager. About 30% through it inexplicably turns into porn. I *might* have liked it if it had made Thomas even remotely likeable, but instead I gave up at about 50% when it became clear that consent was optional, in general, and not particularly important even to Thomas. Definitely period appropriate, but not very appealing, and added to the generally unpleasant mood of the story. I didn't see any delight at all, just miserable people in miserable situations.