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The Sword and the Scimitar
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List Price: £8.99
algeria.mktgs.co.uk Price: £6.99
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
Manufacturer: Arrow Books Ltd
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780099457954
ISBN: 0099457954
Label: Arrow Books Ltd
Manufacturer: Arrow Books Ltd
Number Of Pages: 624
Publication Date: 2004-08-05
Publisher: Arrow Books Ltd
Studio: Arrow Books Ltd
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Racist book.
Comment: After reading this book, I am convinced the author has let his personal predilictions run riot. From the very beginning, the book portrayed the Muslims as savages and the crusaders (ie-christians) as noble warriors (eg-the 'noble knights' of St. John in Malta).
Worse than this, the book is historically flawed, to the point that it is an attempt to pervert historical events. For example, the author has the audacity to state that the crusader campaign in Europe was an attempt to force jewish settlers out of European lands. Nothing could be further from the truth. Historical evidence clearly demonstrates that these campaigns were instigated to commit genocide against the Moors and whatever survivors remained would be exiled or forced to convert to christianity (see Bettany Hughes channel 4 documentary - 'History of the Moors'). Unbiased historians will reveal that the Moors were actually a Godsend to the Europeans (in fact the visi-goths requested Moorish rule upon their lands, since they were desperate for civilised and honourable rulers).
This civilised society is in stark contrast to the crusaders, who in their initial campaigns, en-route to Jerusalem, invaded outlying villages, butchered the inhabitants and cooked the bodies on a spit. Furthermore, the 'noble knights' of St. John were far from noble, since they were actually a masonic cult of assasins.
I have no qualms with authors writing history based novels, but what is disgusting is when they attempt to pervert actual historical events. David Ball has clearly allowed his prejudices to dictate this book, which further fuels hatred towards anything of Middle East origin.
If I were able to, I would give this book zero.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Readable but not quite great
Comment: An entertain story though perhaps a little simplistic from a historical perspective. Yet it presents an interesting insight into life in the 16th centaury and is sympathetic to both the Christian and Muslim view points. The story revolves around a pair of siblings who separated by a slave ship grow up on the different sides of the conflict, Nico becoming Ottoman whilst his sister Maria staying Maltese. It charts the life of the two as their paths diverge and ultimately come back together as the battle for Malta begins.
Whilst fairly readable for the most part, the book has rather annoying coincidences, with characters being killed of almost it seems, when the author is unable to decide what to do with them. Similarly all the love stories in the book are far too convenient, though for the most part characters are well rounded and contain enough ambiguity in them so as not to be defined as wholly good or wholly bad. Ultimately the book is pointlessly too long and perhaps could do with 200 pages or so edited out.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Vividly brings to life an often overlooked period of history
Comment: Spanning a period of over a quarter of a century from the Malta childhood of the two principal characters, "The Sword and the Scimitar" culminates in the siege of the island in 1565. In between we are transported to North Africa, France and imperial Istanbul. The cast of characters includes, knights, pirates and the Ottoman court. David Ball's novel is a spellbinding read - historical fiction of the highest pedigree. I absolutely loved this book and highly recommend it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Everything you could ask of a Historical Novel
Comment: I love this book and also David Ball's other historical novel Empires of Sand. I think you can judge a good historical novel from the interest in generates in the period it is depicting. I was, until reading this, unaware of the historically significant siege of Malta. I was encouraged by this beautiful novel to find out more about Malta, the island's history and in particular the Knights who occupied and fortified the island. The story itself is the telling of the life and adventures of a brother and sister separated and brought up in two very different religious communities. And how, ultimately, they were became involved on different sides in an age old (and ongoing) sectarian war. I think to go into anymore detail would spoil the enjoyment of this fabulous novel. However, I was very interested to see a recent publication by Tim Willocks called The Religion. This novel covers the same events in history and I am encouraged to see it is receiving excellent reviews just like David Ball's Sword and the Scimitar. My only bone of contention with Mr. Ball is that he doesn't seem to have written much. The only other novel aside from Empires of Sand that I believe is from the same author is called China Run, but this seems quite a step away from the historical, romantic adventure story we have here.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very good but biased.
Comment: First of all this book is very good and I couldn't put it down until the last page. It also covers the historical events of its time in a good and detailed way. Although in general it tries to be in equal distance from both sides (Christains(Order of St. John) and Muslims(Ottomans) of 16th century) by giving the good and bad aspects of both civilizations but when it comes to the human factor it is clearly biased against the Ottomans(or Turks, or Muslims. The distinction disappears throughout the book). There isn't even a single Ottoman with a good character in the book. All of them are portrayed as blood-thirsty savages, looking for sex, rape and profit. When it comes to Christians though, all the characters get a chance to show their good aspects even if they're worse than their Muslim counterparts.
e.g. even the priest in the book, who rapes one of the female characters at the beginning of the book, gets portrayed as a -good- person at the end of the book. But I must give credit to the author for at least highlighting the fact that the Ottoman Empire was based on the values of talents of human beings but not their race.
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