Aidan is comfortable in the company of humble monks, marauding, barbarian Vikings, exalted emperors and sultans. Throughout these disparate lands, languages and cultures moves a protagonist who is incredibly skilled in diplomacy and who's polyglot virtuosity moves him in circles he might not normally find himself traversing so readily and so gracefully. The story begins and ends in an abbey in Ireland but takes the reader to such far away places as Constantinople, Scandinavia and Persia. As others have commented, the book does start off a bit slow but that is perhaps to better portray and contrast the life of Aidan the monk with that of Aidan the adventuresome hero. This, I believe, is the case with Byzantium. Some stories are so great, however, that a less than comparable narration cannot detract so much as to make the listening a totally rewarding experience. Less than stellar performances can detract from a book's greatness to the point that an audiobook becomes a totally ruined experience. Great narrations have the potential to make a mediocre book great.
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