I have to admit that I couldn't finish this book, or even get most of the way through it. The way the author describes women is just disgusting. I can't imagine someone taking two prostitutes to bed at a time a characteristic of a worthy emperor. And the way he picks up an orphan and forces his mother and grandmother to care for her is despicable. If you want to rescue an orphan, you are a grown man with a job, do the care-giving for god's sake, it's not like this book is set in 1950. Because of this overall tone of the novel (in fact, given my background research on the author, it seems that Selcuk Altun hates his mother and uses that as a theme in his mystery stories), I could not suspend my disbelief. I wanted to like this book, had no idea about it or the author going in, but I'd much rather read Elif Shafak or Pamuk or probably any other Turkish writer. I'll never pick up one of his books again.

This is my first Selçuk Altun novel, though I’ve been meaning to read him for almost four years. Like Ayşe Kulin, Altun is one of the few contemporary Turkish novelists whom I frequently see widely available in English translation here in Turkey, but who isn’t to my knowledge well known internationally. Unlike Orhan Pamuk, Elif Şafak, or Yaşar Kemal, he doesn’t seem to have much of a reputation, good or bad, outside of Turkey, and despite my interest in Turkish fiction, I didn’t know much about him.

A quick glance at good old Wikipedia indicates that Altun is a retired banker and self-identified bibliophile (aka book collector) who set out to “read some 4,000 books before [he] sat down to write,” eventually publishing his first novel at age 51. It turns out that Altun himself paid for the translation to english of his fourth novel, Songs My Mother Never Taught Me.

The Sultan of Byzantium was a rompy, quick read, though I think my enjoyment of it was heavily colored by the fact that I have a pretty active interest in Istanbul and Byzantine history, and have visited nearly all of the places featured in the novel (Istanbul, Athens, Mistras, Antakya, Sumela, Trabzon, Uçhisar). The premise: on the eve of his 33rd birthday, a bourgeois Istanbullu is informed that he is the emperor-in-exile of the Byzantine empire, and is sent on a historical scavenger hunt to claim his throne and avenge his ancestors. Fun, right?

It is, for the most part, though I kept waiting for the real conflict to arise. The “tasks” that the inexplicably unnamed-until-the-very-end protagonist is set to are ridiculously easy and obvious, and while I don’t want to spoil the plot, there really isn’t much “mystery” or intrigue to be found here. I think a reader unfamiliar with the region or with Byzantine history would find a lot less to like than I did, and even with my particular interest, it was pretty uninspiring. That said, it was a fast read with a lot of great details about the various Byzantine locales, especially Istanbul and Athens, and I’d be interested to read another of Altun’s novels.

I didn't take to this book, any of the characters in it or the author at all. To me it seemed the author was showing off everything he knew about the Byzantine Empire in an annoying know it all kind of way. I found the main character very unappealing and far too clever for his own good. And what was it with the author appearing as a minor character. One thing that did make me smile was the reference to one of my favourite fictional detectives, Kinsey Milhone. I was just thinking to myself-isn't this the town where Sue Grafton's novels are set?-when up pops the heroine herself. There is a series I do recommend by the way. Sadly not for me.

I picked up this book in advance of my first trip to Istanbul, and I must admit that I enjoyed this book as a travel book more than as the thriller it may have intended to be.

As a thriller, The Sultan of Byzantium reads as a knock-off Dan Brown novel. The protagonist, a foreign-educated Turk from the Galata neighborhood, learns that he is the descendant of the last emperor of Byzantium, Constantine XI, whose death in the melee was never verified.

But this where the plot becomes more and more contrived. To prove his worth, Halâs must study the history of the Byzantine Empire (understandable) and travel to all parts of Türkiye to collect purple blocks hidden among mosaics (not understandable). He also manages a love story with an exotic archaeologist while maintaining an affectation for prostitutes right up to the proposal. The plot is just crazy.

As a travel guide, however, this book really pops. Altun is great at describing setting, and the descriptions of Istanbul, Trabzon, and Cappadochia were worth the price of the book. Here's a quote I marked:

The Byzantine monuments, which I was sure I was seeing for the first and last time, existed in symbiosis with their environment. They took a step forward to today while their neighbors took a step backward to yesterday, both of them meeting at a central point in time, looking like they were all wearing the same pale, faded clothes.

That's great stuff, just the words I want to have in my mind on a visit to Istanbul, exploring these monuments for myself.

I'm glad I read TSOB, despite its obvious flaws. For Turkish travelers I recommend it with some reservations.

A fun read, with a few literary jokes embedded in it for mystery readers.

A love letter to Byzantium, a travelogue through long gone empires, a tear for the fall of the diverse, polyglot entities Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, that bound the Eastern Mediterranean for centuries. Narcissistic, knowing, and a tad smug, nevertheless a fun read.

I heard the author on NPR and thought the book sounded fascinating. It was a very interesting read - the author was a character and the protagonist listed the books that he was using to research in the text. I found this fascinating and actually the way that it was written was much more compelling than the story itself.

If I could rate 3.5 I would.
I think a lot of the impact of the prose has been lost in translation, as well as the culture gap. Would be a 4 but it took me about two-thirds of the book to become invested in the plot.