Helpful Score: 6
I enjoyed this book alot. It seemed to have been based on alot of factual knowledge about the times and the technology of the aqueducts. The story was engaging and kept me turning the pages! I happened to have visited the ruins at Pompeii about 8 years ago, and reading this book i could visualize the town I walked, but alive with people and commerce. I recommend this to people who enjoy historical fiction.
Helpful Score: 6
Fascinating historical novel. You will learn much about Roman life, engineering, and poloitics set against the eventual eruption of the Mount Vesuvius.
Pompeii is a fictional story by Robert Harris revolving around the 4 days prior to the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. Attilius an aqueduct engineer from Rome was sent to replace a missing engineer Exomnius for the Aqua Augusta.
Attilius arrives and is immediately faced with a plethora of natural and manmade problems revolving around the water supply. The story evolves as Attilius tries to unravel the problems with the water and the missing Exomnius. Robert Harris has written this historic fiction well grounded in the technical information from this historic period.
So this is how I like to my facts well mixed up with murder, mayhem with an explosive ending.
Attilius arrives and is immediately faced with a plethora of natural and manmade problems revolving around the water supply. The story evolves as Attilius tries to unravel the problems with the water and the missing Exomnius. Robert Harris has written this historic fiction well grounded in the technical information from this historic period.
So this is how I like to my facts well mixed up with murder, mayhem with an explosive ending.
Helpful Score: 4
What a great story! I thought to myself it's Pompeii, I know how it turns out, but it actually had a very interesting ending. Captures the time and place so well.
Helpful Score: 2
Terrifically written, and keeps you turning the pages even though it's like a detective story where you know the ending. As a geologist, I really appreciated the clues interpreted and followed by the engineer to figure out what was happening. It's one of those historical novels that makes you want to know more about the characters - which ones were fictional and which were real, and how much was real about the non-fictional ones. Also makes me want to revisit what else I ever knew about Pompeii and the volcano and the archeology. Fascinating.