My Favorite Books

The Walking Drum
Ender's Game
Dune
Jhereg
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Curse of Chalion
The Name of the Wind
Chronicles of the Black Company
The Faded Sun Trilogy
The Tar-Aiym Krang

Thursday, May 30, 2024

Review: Mesoamerican History & Mythology: Aztec, Inca, Maya, Toltec, Zapotec & Central American Myths, Legends, Mysteries & History Uncovered

Mesoamerican History & Mythology: Aztec, Inca, Maya, Toltec, Zapotec & Central American Myths, Legends, Mysteries & History Uncovered Mesoamerican History & Mythology: Aztec, Inca, Maya, Toltec, Zapotec & Central American Myths, Legends, Mysteries & History Uncovered by History Brought Alive
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Book: ***
Performance: ***

A Good Survey of MesoAmerican History

At just over 3 hours (for 120 pages), this a a very brief overview of the history of Mesoamerica; a history that has largely been ignored by most people outside academia and tourism. As a summary, this was quite good; my only real compliant that it was way to short to be very satisfying, but what was they seemed to be well researched and pretty solid … in fact, the addition of the Teotihuacan civilization was new to me (I had previously learned the city was created by the Toltecs). The narration was good as well, especially with the many names and terms that I presume he was not familiar with, but I hesitate to mark it much better that having Alexa read it to you (it is tough getting a high performance score for what is arguably a history lecture). Regardless, I enjoyed the topic and would recommend it to any who are curious but have not yet started to explore mesoamerican history.

Chapter 1 - Mesoamerica (12:43)
Chapter 2 - The Olmec Civilization (16:06)
Chapter 3 - The Zapotec Civilization (17:02)
Chapter 4 - The Teotihuacan Civilization (19:23)
Chapter 5 - The Maya (19:45)
Chapter 6 - The Aztec Civilization (10:51)
Chapter 7 - The Incas (14:12)
Chapter 8 - The Spanish Conquest (14:05)
Chapter 9 - Mesoamerican Religion (14:32)
Chapter 10 - Mesoamerican Mythology (12:03)
Chapter 11 - Mesoamerican Legacy (15:14)

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#MesoamericanHistoryAndMyth #FreeAudiobkFacebkGrp #KindleUnlimited


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My Ratings Explained ...

  • [ ***** ] Amazing Read - Perfect story, exciting, engrossing, well developed complex characters, solid plot with few to no holes, descriptive environments and place settings, great mystery elements, realistic dialogue, believable reactions and behaviors; a favorite that I can re-read many times.
  • [ **** ] Great Read - Highly entertaining and enjoyable, exciting storyline, well developed characters and settings, a few discrepancies but nothing that can’t be overlooked. Some aspect of the story was new/refreshing to me and/or intriguing. Recommended for everyone.
  • [ *** ] Good Read - Solid story with a 'good' ending, or has some other redeeming feature. Limited character development and/or over reliance on tropes. Noticeable discrepancies in world building and/or dialog/behavior that were distracting. I connected enough with the characters/world to read the entire series. Most of the books I read for fun are here. Recommended for fans of the genre.
  • [ ** ] Okay Read - Suitable for a brief, afternoon escape … flat or shallow characters with little to no development. Over the top character dialog and/or behavior. Poor world building with significant issues and/or mistakes indicating poor research. Excessive use of trivial detail, info dumps and/or pontification. Any issues with the story/characters are offset by some other aspect that I enjoyed. Not very memorable. May only appeal to a niche group of readers. Recommended for some (YMMV).
  • [ * ] Bad Read - Awkward and/or confusing writing style. Poor world building and/or unbelievable (or unlikeable) characters. Victimization, gaslighting, blatant abuse, unnecessary violence, child endangerment, or any other highly objectionable behaviors by Main characters. I didn't connect with the story at all; significant aspects of this story irritated me enough that I struggled to finished it. Series was abandoned. Not recommended.