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Tom Swan and the Head of St George Part Two: Venice Kindle Edition

by Christian Cameron (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 468 ratings
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Venice: part two of a fast-paced serialised novel set in the turbulent Europe of the fifteenth century.

A young Englishman, Tom Swan, travels to Italy in the bodyguard of a Cardinal. He finds it a different world. Food is delicious, women are beautiful, men are quick to make friends and quick to draw knives. Swan likes it, and dives into the politics and the plotting, the art and the fashion - and the bordellos - of Renaissance Italy.

He's not a professional soldier. He's really a merchant and a scholar looking for remnants of Ancient Greece and Rome - temples, graves, pottery, fabulous animals, unicorn horns. But he also has a real talent for ending up in the midst of violence when he didn't mean to. Having used his wits to escape execution in part one, he begins a series of adventures that take him to street duels in Italy, meetings with remarkable men - from the pope and Hunyadi János to Sultan Mehmet II - and from the intrigues of Rome to the Siege of Belgrade.

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  1. Book 2 of 6
    Tom Swan and the Head of St George
  2. Print length
    108 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  5. Publisher
    Orion
  6. Publication date
    September 20, 2012
  7. File size
    1367 KB
  8. Page Flip
    Enabled
  9. Word Wise
    Enabled
  10. Enhanced typesetting
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  11. See all details
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00GU38HWY
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Orion (September 20, 2012)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 20, 2012
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1367 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 108 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 468 ratings

About the author

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Christian Cameron

Christian Cameron

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Christian Cameron (also Miles Cameron) is a military veteran and a life-long reenactor and history addict. He lives in Toronto, Canada with his wife and daughter and one cat. He writes three to five books a year, mostly about history. Christian can be found on his website at www.hippeis.com or as Miles Cameron at www.traitorson.com

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
468 global ratings
Excellent Novella
5 Stars
Excellent Novella
Continuing Story of Tom Swan with his escapades his friends against the Turks helping the Bishop. Anybody who loves historical fiction, and loves a rogue character who gets in his scrapes and gets out of them you'll appreciate this story. Well done...
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Top reviews from the United States

Michael Puttre
5.0 out of 5 stars Growing character
Reviewed in the United States on December 23, 2012
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Italy finds Tom Swan recovering his swagger after the humiliations suffered in the wake of being on the losing side in the Battle of Castillon. In Rome, the former captive is finding his footing in the retinue of the French Cardinal who saw more then meets the eye in the Englishman.
Other reviewers have commented on author Christian Cameron's ease with period details, so I'll only add that they are astonishing. You read historical novels like O'Brien's "Master and Commander" series and you accept them utterly. The effortlessness of your belief in this other, earlier world only comes because the author writes like he was there. And so Cameron puts you there. It's an amazing accomplishment of research and craft.
In this second installment of the series what really reached me was the character of Tom Swan. You have to live in this world through him. Swan is our surrogate, guiding us through places that time has made utterly alien. Swan's not so much a fish out of water as a fish in a different pond. He's a man of his time, but but of place. Like the somewhat learned but untraveled Swan, the reader will catch familiar touchstones of Rome, Venice, and Constantinople yet be seeing, smelling, and responding to the events as if experiencing them as they unfold. Cameron treads a fine line between making his character a real person of his time and also someone who can interpret that time for us.
So, sometimes Swan's a jerk. Sometimes he's gallant. He can fight, but others fight better. He knows a lot, but others know more.
Also, he's very accepting of other cultures. Is that utterly realistic of a man of arms of that time? Who am I to say? Ask Cameron. All I know is that Tom Swan is a guy I would like to travel with. In that time. On to Constantinople.
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andrew review
4.0 out of 5 stars All good
Reviewed in the United States on October 23, 2014
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The second in Cameron's serial adventure starring Thomas Swan lives up to the promise of the first installment. Fun, easy to read, with a dollop of history thrown in for good measure--it's a winner !
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Peter
5.0 out of 5 stars Very Readable
Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2012
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Christian Cameron embarks on an unusual experiment; a historical fiction serial. Serials were very popular in the past and Mr. Cameron is following in the footsteps of many notable authors. It will be interesting to see if this format will work for him. I hope it does.

This is part two, by the way. Part one already has several reviews so I thought I would add this one here.

The serial deals with the travels and adventures of one Tom Swan, an Englishman initially captured in France at the end of the Hundred Years War. What happens to him and how he manages to get himself into and out of various scrapes is both entertaining and highly readable.

Mr. Cameron compares the Swan adventures to the Flashman books by Fraser; an apt comparison in some ways but not so much in others. Swan is a very likeable individual, something that I would never write about Flashman. The comparison is closer in the deep knowledge that both authors display about their period.

Swan is thrust into various situations which remind us of the complexity of European politics, intrigue and conflict in the Middle Ages and at the end of part two, introduces the Ottoman Empire into the mix, just in case we thought that Italian politics were too simple.

I don't want to spoil anyone else's enjoyment of the episodes but suffice it to say that I will be following this series with great interest and I hope that they are so popular for Mr. Cameron that he will continue to write them. Looking at his schedule on his website, he does have a very busy time of it for the forseeable future.
One person found this helpful
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars First of Many
Reviewed in the United States on April 21, 2014
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I bought this book quite a few months ago and finally got around to reading it one sleepless late night. I finished it before dawn and immediately bought the next three books in the series. This first book gives you a look at the main character and the basis for the storyline. It deals with the Church of Rome and the turmoil of the high Renaissance as told by a soldier, scholar, adventurer, lover, etc. A good read as you want to keep going to find out what happens next. I enjoyed the first book and have worked may through the third one at this time. An enjoyable read by an author that takes the time to investigate and research his subject and timeline thoroughly.
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Richard Benefield
3.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps it is the break between each of these short ...
Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2014
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Perhaps it is the break between each of these short stories but there did not appear to be any reason to continue reading the meanderings of Ton Swan
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J. C. Tate
4.0 out of 5 stars Read in ONE day!
Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2013
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And Mr. Cameron's mostly believable short stories feathering Tom Swan keep the action rolling. These are fun to read as well. Enjoyed this book and directly headed on to the next.
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R. N. Sulentic
5.0 out of 5 stars In the Most Serene Republic...
Reviewed in the United States on September 26, 2012
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Christian Cameron continues his adventures of Tom Swan, this time in Italy and points east.

Swan embarks from Venice (after some intrigue in Rome) and journeys to Constantinople, not long after the place had been finally conquered by the Ottomans. Again, not a time and place one usually visits in historical fiction.

Cameron manages to make sense for the reader the confusing historical realities of the interplay between Christian and Turk and Jew, Italian and Greek and everybody else and so forth that made the Eastern Mediterranean such an odd place in the middle of the 15th century at the beginning of the Renaissance.

There are duels and ambushes, sea battles and pretty girls--this is lots of fun and I can't wait till the next installment.
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Great
Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2020
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These books are so entertaining. I love that it takes me to a little known part of the world (to me) in a time period I am less familiar with than others. Like all Cameron’s other works this is a fantastic Part 2 of the series.
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Top reviews from other countries

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M. W. Broscheit
5.0 out of 5 stars Teil 2 von 6.
Reviewed in Germany on April 26, 2016
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Man sollte die sechs Teile der Romanserie, oder besser des Serienromans über die Erlebnisse von Tom Swan im Auftrag des Basilios Bessarion als ganzes betrachten und lesen. Ausführlicher habe ich mich bei Band 1 dazu geäußert.
 Tom Swan and the Head of St George Part One: Castillon
Eine Empfehlung für Freude von fundierten, historischen Romanen.
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SJATurney
5.0 out of 5 stars Swan battles on
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 14, 2012
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I was hit by the freshness and difference of the first Tom Swan installment after the general available array of somewhat serious, dark historical fiction. I had wondered whether a second installment might not live up to the first as it would lose something of that 'new' feeling. I was wrong.

After a brief mental dragging through my memory to do a quick 'Last week on Tom Swan..." I launched straight into it and started thoroughly enjoying it straight away. What the second part loses in novelty, it gains in immediacy. There is no need to introduce the characters or their world, so you are dropped straight into the story and the action.

In part two, at last, the relevance of the title is made clear and it has given me a strong indication of where the series is going. This short story is filled with duels and bribes, moneylenders and organised criminals, princes and liars, sea-battles and subterfuge. It has it all. Moreover, the settings really hit me as the book is set in Rome, Venice, Athens and Constantinople, all places I have been and love, and can picture the scene perfectly.

The new characters introduced in this are excellent, and the book ends on a traditional serialised cliffhanger. I cannot wait to read the next installment, hopefully this week. I hope that Cameron's experiment with this serial has proved successful for him, as I'd hate to think there will be no more Tom Swan books after part 3.
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Jimbo
4.0 out of 5 stars It continues
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 11, 2013
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As part one, a good read, did not want to put it down, again short in its length, so know what to expect in that respect, looking forward to part three.
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Great Teacher Andrew
5.0 out of 5 stars Another great instalment
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 15, 2012
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Even though it's only the second book, the Tom Swan series has hit its stride. The first story was relatively self-contained, as befitting a pilot chapter so to speak, but in this one there's more of a sense of an overarching plot developing. Despite the title, the action is fairly far-flung, starting in Rome, and moving swiftly through Venice to Constantinople. Christian Cameron's clearly done his homework on daily life in the Middle Ages, and he manages to make topics such as selling antiques and buying new clothes engaging and humorous. The characters are developed, too. Tom Swan's likeable and quick with his wits, but it turns out he's also too quick with his blade, with interesting results. Suffice to say that Tom has a lot of potential as a recurring character.
All in all, it's a short, breezy read, and one that's highly recommended. I've heard through the grapevine that Tom Swan's not selling too well, but hopefully the solid reviews it's getting will convince people to buy more - and it's only 99p! How could you go wrong, really?
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markwilliam
3.0 out of 5 stars Kept me reading
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 8, 2013
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Was as good as the first one in, it kept me reading and left me wanting more, but what I will say is that again this book the same as the first is too short to be value for money and if you are looking for a book to take on holiday you do need to buy all four otherwise you will be left disappointed.
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