AUDIBLE BOOK REPORT KINDA

I just completed listening to the first three books written by S.M. Stirling "Dies The Fire", "The Protectors War" and "A Visit At Corvallis".

First of all it was well done. The narrator only made a few mistakes;  

The main characters name is  Mike Havel not Mike Hovel.

The town of Philomath is not pronounced Pillow Math.

The town of Umatilla is not pronounced Yooma Tee ya, it ain't Spanish. Pronounced Yooo ma tilla uh.  

And while the narrator did a decent job of varying the many voices in these books, please take some Posh Brit lessons so that Sir Nigel does not sound like Colonel Plum.  Please.

Speaking of Sir Nigel Loring.  I have discovered to my horror that Mr. Stirling will have his fun. He jacked the name from the story "The White Company" By Conan Doyle.  Sir Nigel in that book is not nearly as heroic as Junie's Sir Nigel.  And there is another character in same book with similar name of Sir Nigel's son.  I have ordered the book and will soon dive into the company of archers during the Hundred Years War.  Bother.

Oh and Sam Aylward and the very large Hortle could both use  some more Southern accents. Ya?

While I ordered the audible versions of these I also ordered the audile version of "Island In The Sea of Time"  because when the event happened in most of the world, the hunk of world that went to 1250BC had some haunting correlations. 

Right off the first "Easter Egg" I found was that of the guy the Signe Larson dated at their ranch in Montana.  Man named William Walker the baddest of bad guys in 1250BC.  Am confident that he would have been just as bad if he had stayed in Montana. 

Speaking of William Walker, this evil, wicked, bad and nasty (who looks like a gorgeous young Sundance Kid) was loosely based on a real historic person.  The real William Walker was a short man with a Napoleonic complex who talked people in to following him to Mexico and Nicaragua for invasion purposes, he so annoyed Cornelius Vanderbilt that the man ultimately met his fate in front of a firing squad.  There was a 1987 film staring Ed Harris as Walker and Peter Boyle as Vanderbilt.  The reviews were not favorable.

The next Easter Egg was Dennis Martins and his brother John Martins, Dennis stayed in The Hopping Toad and John was in Nantucket during the event and he made many swords because he was a very talented blacksmith.  He taught Bronze age folk how to forge iron.

Also I somehow missed the conversation Sir Nigel held with the Abbot at Mt Angel where they discussed the state of the Church in Rome.  Sir Nigel reported that Cardinal Gregory was one of the men in charge and the Abbot was pleased. When the book was released Pope Francis was not in the picture.

One of the last Easter Eggs was in both worlds.  William Walker stole a stallion from Nantucket and he mused later on that perhaps riding an uncut stallion was carrying machismo a bit far.

Norman Arminger, the Lord Protector also mused about his mount that perhaps riding an uncut stallion was carrying machismo a bit far.

And now I must do a little bit extra research and read all about being an archer in the 14h Century.