Rating: 
Summary: An excellent spy story, if you manage the first 200 pages
Review: Starting this book, it felt like I was reading a well-written historical novel. I found it more educating than entertaining, especially since it has to do with an era I knew very little about. However I did like the storytelling style - chapter by chapter, the two main characters alternate in the narration. One is an Anabaptist religious fighter, the other one his adversary, a spy in the payroll of a very powerful high-ranking Vatican official.
One thing I can say for sure is that the story gets better and more gripping as one reads along. After getting through the first 200-250 pages, I found myself more and more reluctant to put the book down, as it evolved into one of the best and most exciting spy stories I have ever read. From Muenster,Germany to Holland and on to Venice (with quite a few detours along the way) the reader is carried along in the swirls of a fascinating (although a bit complicated) plot.
In a few words: keep persisting in the beginning, you'll see that it's worth it.
Rating: 
Summary: "Who will carry the sword that will run the wicked through?"
Review: The turbulent years of the early Reformation are the focus of this novel of ideas written by four young people who call themselves, jointly, "Luther Blissett." Thomas Muntzer, a leader of the Anabaptists, believes that Martin Luther has become too close to the prince bishops, from whom he accepts protection, to be an effective leader. Gustav Metzger, the speaker, is one of Muntzer's followers, accompanying him during the trauma of the Peasants' Revolt (1524 - 26), which Luther opposes, and serving as an on-the-scene observer. When the revolt fails, villages are leveled, the rebels are put to the sword, and many of the leaders of the revolt are arrested, tortured, and then beheaded. The revolt fails, in part, because of a spy named Qoelet (Q), whose diaries and letters to Cardinal Gianpietro Carafa, reveal his duplicitous actions. As the Anabaptist speaker escapes from one bloody crisis after another, changing his name whenever he changes locations, Q tries to track him down and to counteract the increasingly dangerous effects of Protestantism. Each of the speaker's failures is related to Q's countermoves, as the speaker travels throughout Germany to Switzerland and the Low Countries, following the spread of ideas. Twenty-five years after surviving the Peasants' Revolt and vicious reprisals against the Reformation everywhere he travels, the speaker, now known as Tiziano Rinato (Titian), arrives in Venice with the financing he needs to distribute "heretical" pamphlets. He and Q finally meet for a showdown. The authors' casual, slangy style, filled with profanities, conveys the frustration and trauma of these four-hundred-year old events in a language with which the contemporary reader can easily identify. United primarily through the beliefs of the Reformation, the novel is episodic and not particularly suspenseful because the tension between the speaker and Q is not strong. These men do not know each other, and neither the reader nor the speaker can see Q's maneuverings until after the fact. The complex events of the early Reformation have shaped the intellectual and historical destinies of western civilization, and the novel reflects this complexity, with the narrative alternating from 1555 to 1517 and from 1538 to 1527, and back. The reader must create his/her own timeline, though the events within each episode are clear. Filled with exciting, hair's-breadth escapes from disaster, fascinating and memorable depictions of (real) historical characters, insightfully presented intellectual conflicts, and dramatic events coming fast and furiously for over seven hundred pages, the novel is a rewarding adventure for the reader with a serious interest in the Reformation. Mary Whipple
Rating:
Summary: "Who will carry the sword that will run the wicked through?"
Review: The turbulent years of the early Reformation are the focus of this novel of ideas written by four young people who call themselves, jointly, "Luther Blissett." Thomas Muntzer, a leader of the Anabaptists, believes that Martin Luther has become too close to the prince bishops, from whom he accepts protection, to be an effective leader. Gustav Metzger, the speaker, is one of Muntzer's followers, accompanying him during the trauma of the Peasants' Revolt (1524 - 26), which Luther opposes, and serving as an on-the-scene observer. When the revolt fails, villages are leveled, the rebels are put to the sword, and many of the leaders of the revolt are arrested, tortured, and then beheaded. The revolt fails, in part, because of a spy named Qoelet (Q), whose diaries and letters to Cardinal Gianpietro Carafa, reveal his duplicitous actions. As the Anabaptist speaker escapes from one bloody crisis after another, changing his name whenever he changes locations, Q tries to track him down and to counteract the increasingly dangerous effects of Protestantism. Each of the speaker's failures is related to Q's countermoves, as the speaker travels throughout Germany to Switzerland and the Low Countries, following the spread of ideas. Twenty-five years after surviving the Peasants' Revolt and vicious reprisals against the Reformation everywhere he travels, the speaker, now known as Tiziano Rinato (Titian), arrives in Venice with the financing he needs to distribute "heretical" pamphlets. He and Q finally meet for a showdown. The authors' casual, slangy style, filled with profanities, conveys the frustration and trauma of these four-hundred-year old events in a language with which the contemporary reader can easily identify. United primarily through the beliefs of the Reformation, the novel is episodic and not particularly suspenseful because the tension between the speaker and Q is not strong. These men do not know each other, and neither the reader nor the speaker can see Q's maneuverings until after the fact. The complex events of the early Reformation have shaped the intellectual and historical destinies of western civilization, and the novel reflects this complexity, with the narrative alternating from 1555 to 1517 and from 1538 to 1527, and back. The reader must create his/her own timeline, though the events within each episode are clear. Filled with exciting, hair's-breadth escapes from disaster, fascinating and memorable depictions of (real) historical characters, insightfully presented intellectual conflicts, and dramatic events coming fast and furiously for over seven hundred pages, the novel is a rewarding adventure for the reader with a serious interest in the Reformation. Mary Whipple
Rating:
Summary: Probably the best book I've read this year!
Review: This book was written by a team of Italian writers who chose the pseudonim of "Luther Blisset", a soccer player who briefly played for AC Milan in Italy during the 80s. Having said this, the book has nothing to do with soccer or Italy, it's the story, set in Europe in the 16th-17th century of an erethic fanatic, who embraces several different heresies, and his life-long fight with an inquisitor named Q who looks very similar to nowadays secret agents. The story can be read on two different levels, on the surface it's just a very intriguing spy-story, set throughout Europe in the XVII century, during the Lutheran reform. But below the surface, there is the detailed description of the reasons that helped Martin Luther to succeed, its quick acceptance by the German ruling classes who saw this as a way to get free from Rome and the Pope, and how this set in motion a series of heretic groups very similar to today's terrorists. The purpose of these heretics was mor often a social one, they instigated revolts in the german and Dutch cities, who ended up with the massacre of the rich and the powerful, a sort of rehearsal of the French Revolution! There is not, in any way, a political stance, although the positive attitude towards yesterday's erethics (and therefore this century's political terrorists to which they can be easily compared!) shows the political attitude of the writers. All in all a very good book, it will help you to understand the historical and political situation that created the Lutheran Reform and it will make you think a lot, but in the meantime it will entertain you with a very well written spy-story. Read it, you won't regret it!
Rating:
Summary: Probably the best book I've read this year!
Review: This book was written by a team of Italian writers who chose the pseudonim of "Luther Blisset", a soccer player who briefly played for AC Milan in Italy during the 80s. Having said this, the book has nothing to do with soccer or Italy, it's the story, set in Europe in the 16th-17th century of an erethic fanatic, who embraces several different heresies, and his life-long fight with an inquisitor named Q who looks very similar to nowadays secret agents. The story can be read on two different levels, on the surface it's just a very intriguing spy-story, set throughout Europe in the XVII century, during the Lutheran reform. But below the surface, there is the detailed description of the reasons that helped Martin Luther to succeed, its quick acceptance by the German ruling classes who saw this as a way to get free from Rome and the Pope, and how this set in motion a series of heretic groups very similar to today's terrorists. The purpose of these heretics was mor often a social one, they instigated revolts in the german and Dutch cities, who ended up with the massacre of the rich and the powerful, a sort of rehearsal of the French Revolution! There is not, in any way, a political stance, although the positive attitude towards yesterday's erethics (and therefore this century's political terrorists to which they can be easily compared!) shows the political attitude of the writers. All in all a very good book, it will help you to understand the historical and political situation that created the Lutheran Reform and it will make you think a lot, but in the meantime it will entertain you with a very well written spy-story. Read it, you won't regret it!
Rating:
Summary: Not an easy book, but worth the effort
Review: This is not the type of book you attempt half-heartedly -at over 630 pages of story, you need to be committed if you are going to finish. But if you do see it through to the end, you will be well rewarded with an interesting, informative and involving tale. Through the book we follow a man of many names, one of them being Gert of the Well, as he follows his radical Anabaptist beliefs into a struggle that leads to anarchy and defeat. After two failed uprisings, he comes to question his convictions, and drifts from the cold of Northern Europe to Switzerland and then Venice, along the way falling in with fellow revolutionaries and reactionaries, continually putting himself in the face of danger, not always sure why. His densely packed story is continually juxtaposed with the writings of his nemisis Q, a spy inthe pay of the manevolent Catholic Carafa, a man who is to ultimately become Pope. Gert and Q are two sides of the same coin - men fighting for strongly felt principles, yet not always sure that they believe in those principles anymore. This book is very involved and dense with information. Based on true events and characters, it can occassionally drift into textbook-like recreations. But it saves itself with some vivid storytelling - sieges, madness, the richness that was Venice in the 16th century. And there is a gripping story throughout - never knowing if and when Gert and Q will come face to face. Stick with this book - it improves as it goes along, and the section in the last quarter or so, set in Venice, is the best. When you have finished you will feel rewarded not only for having finished such a huge book, but for having been privy to such an interesting story
Rating: 
Summary: Are hambUrger and hambErger the same?
Review: To a Reader from Bothell: Of course, English and German spelling of geographical names sometimes differs: Munich/München, Nuremberg/Nürnberg, etc. But 'Berg' and 'Burg' are not just variations of spelling, those are two different words: 'Berg' stands for a hill or mountain (hence names analogous to, e.g., English BunkerHILL), 'Burg' stands for a (walled) town (like in English JamesTOWN). Wittenberg and Wittenburg are two DIFFERENT cities. That Germans would make such a mistake seems to me very unlikely. In our information age, they even have a separate website for each city: Lutherstadt (that is, Luther-city) Wittenberg (wittenberg.de), and just Stadt Wittenburg (wittenburg.de). And, finally, looks like this ERROR (because it IS an error) will be corrected in the upcoming paperback edition by the Arrow Press.
Rating:
Summary: Are hambUrger and hambErger the same?
Review: To a Reader from Bothell: Of course, English and German spelling of geographical names sometimes differs: Munich/München, Nuremberg/Nürnberg, etc. But 'Berg' and 'Burg' are not just variations of spelling, those are two different words: 'Berg' stands for a hill or mountain (hence names analogous to, e.g., English BunkerHILL), 'Burg' stands for a (walled) town (like in English JamesTOWN). Wittenberg and Wittenburg are two DIFFERENT cities. That Germans would make such a mistake seems to me very unlikely. In our information age, they even have a separate website for each city: Lutherstadt (that is, Luther-city) Wittenberg (wittenberg.de), and just Stadt Wittenburg (wittenburg.de). And, finally, looks like this ERROR (because it IS an error) will be corrected in the upcoming paperback edition by the Arrow Press.
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