The Man with the Golden Torc (Secret Histories - Book 1)

While good in theory, this book is flawed in that it inroduces too many elements too quickly. Similar to some of the Bond movies, this book takes random ideas and strings them together into a huge conspiracy that jumps around on cool things while missing out on plot and key character development.

For example, in the car chase scene, there are several different types of monsters that attack Shaman, and he has a counter for all of them. It seems that Green has a lot of good ideas and simply tries to list as many as he can in as few pages possible.

The same thing happens again in the list of magical entities Shaman talks to when he becomes an outlaw Drood, again with the Drood "superweapons," and once again with the outlaw Droods in hiding.

Overall a 3/5, but I do not see myself continuing this series.

Simon R Green's Drood series is definitely better than his Nightside series.
Here there are no crazy names, no wasteful paragraphs on characters that are described extensively but killed off in the next sentence, no over-simplified endings. The Drood series is one that really clicked, strong story-lines, good characters, and great pacing. If you wanna try out his books, try this. You won't regret it.

This is probably the most entertaining book I've read in quite a while. Not only does it have a marvelous plot and engaging characters, but it has a great sense of humor--I found myself laughing out loud at some of the characters' comments. Parody, melodrama, mystery, fantasy--it has it all!

This book has some very interesting concepts and looks like it builds to a creative series. But whatever you do, dont get the audio book!
The narrator has the most ludicrous voices for character. Female characters come out as cartoonish. There are only 2 or 3 sensible voices in the book. It is an absolute chore to listen to.

Good story fairly well written. Characters a little flat but the action is great. The description of it being a supernatural Bond series is very accurate since Bond isn't what you'd call a deep character either.