The Road to Samarcand

by Patrick O'Brian
Category: "Fiction - Historical"
Pages:269
Year of Publication:1954
Date Added:11/05/2014
Date Read:01/18/2016
Notes:Derrick is a teenager whose missionary parents were killed in China. He sailed for a while on his uncle Sullivan's schooner in the China sea. Then, with the crew of this schooner, another uncle who happens to be a professor and a Mongolian teenager, the set off to cross Asia for reasons that are never very clearly stated. They have run-ins with Chinese warlords, barbarian hoards, violent lamas and a yeti or two. After almost dying in a blizzard in a mountain pass, they find a perfectly good helicopter buried in the snow and fly out to civilization even though none of them have flown before.
My Rating: 5

Reviews for The Road to Samarcand

Review - Road to Samarcand, The

Written, I suppose, as a boys' adventure book. But the trip has no purpose, the characters are inconsistent, the dangers are escaped too easily and implausibly and the magical helicopter is ridiculous. The end with no accomplishment of any goal just underlines the goofiness.

Reviewed by Roger on 2016-01-18 14:06:00

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