Ninety-Three

By: Victor Hugo

Narrated by: Harry Shaw

The year is 1793. The French Revolution is at its bloodiest, under attack from within by Royalists and from without by foreign armies. If England successfully lands its army in France, the Republic is likely doomed. Ninety-Three is the story of the Marquis de Lantenac, an exiled French nobleman snuck back into France to raise a Royalist army which will make the English invasion possible, Gauvain, Lantenac's great-nephew leading the Republican army to thwart him, and Cimourdain, a former priest and Gauvain's teacher and mentor, tasked to keep Gauvain on the right path. And in the end, who will face the guillotine?

Public Domain (P)2019 Harry Shaw

A must read

A book all readers of classic literature should read or list. Excellent performance by narrator and brilliant story.

Great story and narrator

I love the story, but I really hate Victor Hugo‘s incessant preaching. It’s the thing that made me really not like Les Miserables. He tells great stories and he should have just stuck to that. His preaching and trying to talk about the moral or immoral issue of the story seems irrelevant It seems to take away from the power of the story. It also comes off as patronizing to the reader like he thinks the reader is too stupid to figure it out on their own. I see a lot of Victorian era authors that did this, and it’s the one annoying thing. I know that’s review seems negative but I really did like the book in the story.

Great but somehow flawed

The story has elements of something great, yet some aspects seem incomplete. Hard to articulate so soon after my first exposure to it. It seems the focus on the individual personalities of the narrative leaves the history, hinted at in the conversation between Robespierre, Marat and Danton, lacking. The reader was very good.

Disappointing ending

Great story, fascinating historical details about the chief protagonists and their forms of social life. Incredibly gripping until Gouvain frees the Marquis— not very believable given the profound danger of letting this fanatical reactionary loose on the Vendee again! On the performance of the reader, very nicely done but why allow simple mistakes to remain in the final version; eg, uses 1973 instead of 1793 at
the beginning, and my favourite annoying malapropism—- Calvary instead of cavalry!

Decent story, but not Hugo's masterpiece

I had high hopes after hearing Les Miserable. This story comes across as a little bit forced, with too many unlikely coincidences. It has a grandiose melodrama that feels a little outdated. This story fell just a bit short of the genuine feelings inspired by his earlier works.