The Gold Eater (The Gold Chronicles Book 2)

The Gold Eater has 3 ratings and 0 reviews. The Gold Eaters is book 2 of The Gold Chronicle leondumoulin.nl their victory against the Spanish.
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Truss me Tricksey is not 4 kids she has had several. You know what I really love about other people's kids nuttin"x ept I can send them home. Feedback If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us. Here's how terms and conditions apply. Customers who bought this item also bought. Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1. The Last Days of the Incas. From Columbus to the U.

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Constitution Cartoon Guide Series. Turn Right at Machu Picchu: Death in the Andes. Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists: About the Author Novelist and historian Ronald Wright is the award-winning author of ten books published in 16 languages and more than 40 countries. To get the free app, enter mobile phone number. See all free Kindle reading apps. Start reading The Gold Eaters: A Novel on your Kindle in under a minute. Don't have a Kindle? Visit Amazon global store. Explore products from global brands in clothing, electronics, toys, sports, books and more.

Riverhead Books; Reprint edition 1 November Language: Be the first to review this item Would you like to tell us about a lower price? Customer reviews There are no customer reviews yet. Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a product review. Most helpful customer reviews on Amazon. While some of the people had an inkling that this was not going to be a good thing, others who were disgruntled with the reigning Incas made alliances with the Spanish, leaving the door open for Pizarro and his forces to come in and take over.

The fact that there had recently been a civil war in the empire also made it possible for the conquest to happen so easily. My take on this book is this: Wright has to tell here, the novel could have been much more forceful in the telling. It's a compelling story, to be sure, but I found his writing style to be a bit sedate, at least for me. Considering the importance of Felipe's character here, he often comes across as a bit flat at least I found him to be so.

Review: Ronald Wright’s The Gold Eaters chronicles the conquest of Peru through Incan eyes

However, as far as I know although I am definitely not an expert on all things books , The Gold Eaters may just be the first large-scale, fictional epic dealing with the conquest of Peru, so it is most definitely worth the read. It may not be, in my opinion " truly the gold standard to which all fiction — historical and otherwise — should aspire," as noted where ever you turn for info about this book, originally accredited to Buzzfeed , but it does bring something new to the table.

Aug 29, Amie's Book Reviews rated it it was amazing Shelves: This program is a wonderful way to discover new authors and soon to be released books. Winning books is a great way to expand your library and to read titles that intrigue you, but that you may have overlooked if not for the giveaway.

The word "epic" is consistently overused in the world of fiction. Many books which claim to be "epic tales" are not worthy o Rating: Many books which claim to be "epic tales" are not worthy of that claim. It outlines true events from sixteenth century Peru and weaves them together with fictitious characters. This achieves the effect of bringing personalization to the long ago timeline and draws the reader into the tale.

The story begins with a Peruvian boy named Waman who is on the cusp of manhood. He lives what seems to me, an idyllic existence in a tiny fishing village in Northern Peru. Waman is like every other teenager throughout history. He seeks independence and adventure, as well as the ability to prove that he is old enough to make his own life choices. When he decides to leave home to seek his future upon the sea, he visualizes a life filled with adventure, much like the life in the stories he has heard all his life from his grandfather. Little does Waman know that the adventure he seeks will be found and will be much more difficult to endure than he ever could have imagined.

In fact, it quite possibly might be than he can handle.

June 2017 The Gold Chronicles with Jim Rickards and Alex Stanczyk Part 2

On his very first sea voyage, Waman ends up captured by a Spanish sea captain who is seeking the fabled land of Peru. He plans to use Waman as a forced interpreter. Chained and kept in the bowels of the Spanish ship, Waman immediately regrets following his rash impulse to run away from his boring, but safe life in Little River village. The story may begin with a simple Peruvian villager, but that young man soon finds his fate tied not only to the Spaniards, but also to the Inca King of Peru as well as his descendants.

Ronald Wright's descriptions of the sixteen century Peruvian landscape and their amazing social structure are simply stunning.


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It is impossible to read this book and not have vivid pictures appear in the reader's mind. I was utterly fascinated by the details of how the Peruvians were able to rule over such a vast geographic area and yet ensure that everyone had enough to eat and poverty simply did not exist. One has to wonder what this amazing civilization might have accomplished had the Spanish never invaded and brought with them the plague of smallpox.

After discovering his amazing ability to weave fact and fiction into a compelling and fascinating tale, I plan to read any and all of his books as soon as possible. Jan 25, OLT rated it liked it. In the early to mid s Spanish conquistadores were hot in pursuit of gold and glory in the New World. Of course, not speaking any native languages, they needed interpreters and translators.

The most famous and universally known of these natives used to facilitate communication were Malinche in Mexico and Felipillo in Peru. Felipillo, as he was named by the Spaniards, is considered a national disgrace by Peruvians. Calling someone a "Felipillo" is to call him a traitor of the worst kind, a pers In the early to mid s Spanish conquistadores were hot in pursuit of gold and glory in the New World.

Calling someone a "Felipillo" is to call him a traitor of the worst kind, a person you believed to be on your side who betrays your trust, often charged with political corruption or a turncoat in foreign affairs. But just whom did the original Felipillo betray? According to the Peruvians, it was the Inca Atahualpa when he acted as go-between with Pizarro, with the resulting capture and death of the Inca at the hands of Pizarro.

But in the minds of the Spaniards, Felipillo betrayed them, especially during the in-fighting between Pizarro and Almagro. Wright, in this book, tries to be fair and impartial, showing us shades of gray and the complexity of the dealings Felipillo had to face with both conquerors and natives. There also had to be a conflict of interest because of Felipillo's own ethnic origin and the fact that he was abducted and forced to work for Spain. There are many historical sources Wright consulted to do his research, writings by Spanish conquistadores and priests, natives and mestizos such as Inca Garcilaso, many of them contradictory at times.

As other reviewers have mentioned, this is written in historical present, a tense that is not my very favorite. However, after a chapter or two I was able to read without being bothered by this. The story is fiction but tries to stay as close to fact as is possible. One thing to note is that, while it is believed that Felipillo was killed by the Spanish as a traitor in , Wright has him alive in Why not, I say. He has gotten such a bad rap all his life, perhaps he deserves a few extra years here of relative 'happiness'.

When you finish reading this account, you won't, probably, admire the Spanish conquerors with their greed for gold and glory and their imposition of the Catholic faith upon native cultures, but you will see the hardships they faced at the beginning and note that the backgrounds of many left them little option but to leave Spain and search for something better for themselves. Unfortunately, in finding that fame and fortune they left devastation in their wake, both through violence to the natives and through the spread of Old World diseases, in particular smallpox, which reduced a thriving indigenous population of over 20 million to under 9 million in just one outbreak of the disease.

This is the story of the Inca Empire, which was a highly developed, socially sophisticated system before the Spanish arrived. Remnants remain in the highlands of the Quechua language and certain customs and foods but the lives of the highland Indians now is much less structured and socially advanced, thanks to Spanish suppression of the natives centuries ago. A trip to modern-day Cuzco is illustrative of this. You'll see Spanish structures built on the foundations of what were great buildings in the capital of the Inca Empire. One such building is the Cuzco Cathedral.

Then go inside and enjoy the artwork. You'll find paintings such as "The Last Supper" by Peruvian Marcos Zapaca Inca, which features Jesus and his disciples sitting down to a last supper of guinea pig and other native delicacies. One wonders what Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia and the rest of Latin America would be like today if the Spaniards had never arrived.

But then, if not Spain, it would have been some other country, one supposes. I should probably mention here that my husband is Peruvian, I lived in Peru for several years, and my children spent some of their formative years studying at a Peruvian school, where history of the country and indigenous peoples was an important part of the curriculum. In spite of this, Wright's novel sent me off several times to check out books and the internet about things I had never known or had forgotten.

This is an interesting, thought-provoking read of the invasion and conquest of a country, prior to its colonization by the conquerors. Oct 07, Krista rated it it was ok Shelves: The Gold Eaters starts out as an adventure tale: Ready to prove himself worthy of his newly bestowed adult name, a year-old Peruvian fisherman, Waman, runs away from his village home to sign on as a deckhand on an ocean-going trading ship.

Shortly into the voyage, the ship is captured by raiders — a so far luckless scouting trip led by Francisco Pizarro — and in addition to the much needed supplies and coveted riches, Pizarro and his would-be Conquistadors take the young Waman with them as a The Gold Eaters starts out as an adventure tale: Shortly into the voyage, the ship is captured by raiders — a so far luckless scouting trip led by Francisco Pizarro — and in addition to the much needed supplies and coveted riches, Pizarro and his would-be Conquistadors take the young Waman with them as a hopefully trainable interpreter.

After some months of Spanish lessons, Waman is brought along as Pizarro makes first contact with an Incan village, and after seeing for himself the wealth of gold and silver that the natives possess, Pizarro forces Waman to accompany him back to Spain in an effort to secure royal backing for a full-on assault against the Incan Empire. Although the point of view shifts between several characters, this is primarily Waman's story and we follow him back and forth across the ocean as he unfavourably compares the squalid Spanish society to the idyll he had once known; watch through Waman's eyes as the Spanish and Incas clash towards the tragic ending we are familiar with.

It sounds like an adventure tale, but ultimately, plodding and superficial writing creates too thin a storyline on which to hang so much fascinating history, and the result is pretty boring. Author Ronald Wright is known for several nonfiction books that he has written about South America and I have no doubt that he put together a factual timeline he does acknowledge in an afterword that historical accounts about Peru can be vague and contradictory, but I certainly defer to his expertise.

And, as Wright has also written some other historical fiction, I understand his desire to flesh out dry historical facts with human elements, but it just doesn't work here. I didn't learn anything about how Waman felt, there was nothing urgent about the violence that is witnessed, and although there is promise of a love story from the dust jacket: I knew enough of this time period to have heard of the kidnapping of Emperor Atawallpa and the betrayal by the Spaniards after he paid them a ransom of one storeroom of gold and two of silver, but didn't realise that he was Emperor only after smallpox thanks to the Spanish had wiped out much of the royal family and Atawallpa had wiped out the rest: But after Pizarro and his Vicar decide to betray Atawallpa, his dispatch takes a sentence or two: Interspersed with the plodding writing are some attempts at lyricism that felt out of place here: The mist has fallen below the terrace.

They are standing under a deep-blue vault still lit by the last stars. Slowly, Waman turns full circle. The town and the valleys around are smothered by a billowy white surf.

The Gold Eaters by Ronald Wright | leondumoulin.nl

The sun leaps from behind a ridge, changing the surf to smoke and fire. Not the gelatinous red sun of the desert, but a blazing sphere of gold in a sky so clear the eye, if it could look, might see the eternal firestorms raging on the solar face. The last sentence of that passage, in particular, strikes me as nonsensical.

The Gold Eaters

Also, frustratingly, much of the action takes place off the page and even important events are given no more prominence than a passing line about the effects of inbreeding among the Hapsburgs or the patterns woven into Peruvian cloth. Even Pizarro's eventual death, despite there being several early sections from his point of view, is merely noted in passing after a jump of eight years. And having sections from a Spanish point of view doesn't create any kind of understanding for their motivations: I was intrigued by the comparison between the Spanish and Incan Empires the latter totally without poverty, the Emperor feeding the masses from his granaries in times of famine and providing massive public works for sanitation and communication , but when every detail of society is compared to the Incan advantage, it seems to deny the reader to opportunity to weigh the facts and draw her own conclusions Like everyone in Cusco, they are divinely drunk.

Not the private drinking of Spaniards but a communal drunkenness hosted by the state in honour of its gods and institutions. So, there's even a morally superior form of drunkenness. Okay, all of this is to say that The Gold Eaters didn't work for me as a novel and it wasn't even a satisfactory vehicle for delivering the bare facts. Not a waste of time, but frustrating for what this could have been. Jan 09, Teresa Lavender rated it it was amazing. Won this here on goodreads.

I am not really a big historical fiction fan, but this book broke the mold for me. Very easy to read - I got caught up right from the start. It begins with a young Peruvian boy called Waman. Waman lives in a small fishing village on the coast with his parents and cousin, Tika. At the cusp of manhood, Waman is itching to experience the world. He wants to take the sea and earn the respect of his family. Waman sets off one morning with just the clothes on his back and some food in search of adventure. But adventure finds him.

He secures a place on the crew of a ship which has only just set sail when it is taken by Spanish sailors and Waman becomes their hostage. Though he fears he will soon be killed, instead the sailors teach Waman their language and he becomes the only person who can interpret for them. What began as a search for a little bit of adventure turns out to be a long and arduous one. The story takes us from Peru to Spain and back again.

Anyone can put words on a page. But very few can make them come to life as Ronald Wright does. Not only did his characters leap off the page, complete with unwashed beards and brandished swords, but each setting was drawn down to the last detail. Built on the bones of history, the story is fleshed out and brought to life on the page. Their society before the invasion of the Spaniards was not only socially equitable, but extraordinarily advanced.

I came away from this book with a great admiration of Incan society, and find myself wondering what they could have accomplished had they not been derailed by the conquering Europeans. This is a book that will teach you as much as it entertains you. I particularly loved the structure of the book.

In telling the story from the perspective of Waman, we get to see both sides of a brutal conflict and come to care about the family he left behind, as well as some of the sailors who help him survive along the way. It is a clever narrative choice that makes every event in the story feel immediate and personal. It takes so much work to get used to the setting and often the linguistic style , and the subject matter is often heavy.

But I was pleasantly surprised by how easy this book was to get into. Though historical fiction, The Gold Eaters feels like fantasy and is full of adventure on the high seas. Whether you are into historical fiction, love an action-packed adventure story, or want to learn more about Incan history in a narrative and entertaining format, this is a book you are guaranteed to enjoy. Review first published on Rain City Reads. Oct 01, Chelsea Dyreng rated it really liked it. The tragedy of reading any book about indigenous people of the Americas is that it never ends well for the natives ah…spoiler?

Reading books like this is like watching a bull in a bullfight that gets pricked and stabbed and jabbed until the bull finally rolls over and dies. However, this is an insightful, well-researched book, and one that I would recommend to anyone who is interested in learning more about the colonization of Peru and the fall of the great Incan civilization.