The Road to Kandahar

A Novel of the Second Afghan War, 1878-80

By: David Smethurst

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

October 6, 1879. The roar of guns and the shout of men reached a heightened pitch as the Highlanders and Gurkhas crested the ridgeline and attacked the Afghani trenches. Khaki and green uniforms mixed with the scarlet of the Afghans as the battle sea-sawed for a few minutes. Then the line of scarlet-clad Afghani troops wavered and broke. British Army lieutenant Robert Burton watched as thousands of Afghani troops fled in headlong retreat. The British had seized the first line. The Road to Kandahar is an historical fiction novel about a forgotten period of history when Britain and Russia fought the very first Cold War in the heart of Asia. In this book, a British political officer, Robert Burton, and his friends, Richard Leary and Ali Masheed, fight a battle of wits against a cunning Russian political officer, Count Nikolai Kuragin. Against a backdrop of the high passes and deserts of Afghanistan, Burton, Leary and Ali must stop a potential Russian invasion during the Second Afghan War (1878-80) and fight against treachery and injustice within their own ranks.

Great story, horrible narration.

This is a great story about a period of history many people aren’t aware of. It feels like a spiritual successor to pulp fiction and the works of R. Kipling.
The decision to use an AI narrator was unfortunate. The narration is dull and monotone. You listen to it for a while and suddenly realize your mind drifted off a while ago, and you missed everything from the past 5-10min. It’s the worst part of being back at school. The narrator also constantly mispronounces names and places, using a different pronunciation almost every other sentence; it also frequently mispronounces words by substituting their homographs (words that are spelled the same, but have different meanings). One example is pronouncing the word “lead”, as in the metal, as “lead”, as in to lead troops.
Ultimately, I would love to see this production re-recorded with a proper narrator.