Showing results by narrator "Christian Rodska" in All Categories

Field Marshal Tamas' coup against his king sends corrupt aristocrats to the guillotine and brings bread to the starving. But it also provokes war in the Nine Nations, internal attacks by royalist fanatics and greedy scrambling for money and power by Tamas' supposed allies: the Church, workers' unions, and mercenary forces. Stretched to his limit, Tamas relies heavily on his few remaining powder mages, including the embittered Taniel, a brilliant marksman who also happens to be Tamas' estranged son, and Adamat, a retired police inspector whose loyalty will be tested to its limit.

In the ninth instalment of the series, C.S. Forester transports us to the quaint village of Smallbridge. Predictably restless and eager to embark on his next adventure, Horatio Hornblower dreams of returning to the seas and commanding his next ship. Now happily married to Lady Barbara Leighton and widely celebrated for his recent successes with the navy, Hornblower has been knighted and appointed a commodore. Fortunately for Horatio, his uneventful days as village squire are soon interrupted.

The tyrannical rule of the Deacon and his Jerusalem Riders has unleashed upon the world a sea of bigotry and hatred, where Unbelievers and Mutants are massacred in the name of God and Peace. And the long-vanished Jerusalem Man is now considered a saint of the new order. To speak ill of his memory is heresy. But when the church in Pilgrim's Valley is burnt to the ground and its congregation is slaughtered, a rider appears and hunts down the killers. And word spreads - the Jerusalem Man is back!

The 19th novel in Julian Stockwin's acclaimed Captain Kydd series. It's 1808. Parted from his new bride, Captain Sir Thomas Kydd is called away to join the Northern Expedition to Sweden, now Britain's only ally in the Baltic. Following the sudden declaration of war by Russia, and with the consequent threat of the czar's great fleet in St Petersburg, the expedition must defend Britain's dearly won freedom in those waters. However, Kydd finds his popular fame as a frigate captain is a poisoned chalice....

In Roman times, the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World held a deep fascination. Two of them were in Egypt: the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Lighthouse at Alexandria. Marcus Didius Falco's wife Helena Justina is determined to see them before her next confinement. Conveniently, he has an uncle with a house in Alexandria. For this innocent reason (he says) they sail to Egypt. As soon as they arrive in Alexandria, a suspicious death occurs at the famous Great Library.

By 1941, after serving in North Africa and Crete, Guy Crouchback has lost his Halberdier idealism. A desk job in London gives him the chance of reconciliation with his former wife. Then, in Yugoslavia, as a liaison officer with the partisans, Crouch becomes finally and fully aware of the futility of a war he once saw in terms of honor.

The young nation of Fatrasta is a turbulent place - a frontier destination for criminals, fortune hunters, brave settlers, and sorcerers seeking relics of the past. Only the iron will of the lady chancellor and her secret police holds the capital city of Landfall together against the unrest of an oppressed population and the machinations of powerful empires.

Having received strict and confidential orders from high above, C.S. Forester's inimitable hero must recapture The Flame, a brig which has been taken over by a band of mutineers. Voyaging to the Bay of Seine in order to rescue the captive Lieutenant Augustin Chadwick from his disloyal crew, Horatio Hornblower must once more fight for the freedom and safety of his people and country.

Her Majesty's ship Sutherland is a humdrum ship of the line. But in command is none other than the heroic Captain Hornblower and, with his crew from the Lydia, he looks set to take on commando raids, hurricanes at sea, and Napoleons's gun batteries.

Horatio Hornblower sails South American waters and comes face to face with a mad revolutionary in a novel that ripples with risk and gripping adventure. Throughout his escapades, Forester's hero remains resourceful and courageous.

Can you imagine writing to Father Christmas and actually getting a reply? Every year, the children of J.R.R. Tolkien would write to Father Christmas, and the letters they received told wonderful stories of his adventures at the North Pole. These humorous tales are brought to life by Derek Jacobi as Father Christmas, John Moffatt as Polar Bear, and Christian Rodska as Ilbereth the Elf, complete with specially composed music.

Between 1485 and 1688, England became a Protestant country under Henry VIII. His daughter, Elizabeth I, battled for succession and supremacy at home, and the discovery of 'the round world' enabled a vast continent across the Atlantic to be explored. While this new era was spawning the beginnings of modern America, England was engaged in a bloody civil war and sustained a Republican experiment under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell.

Safe houses and secret message drops, double crosses and defections - it sounds like the stuff of sophisticated espionage, but these agents are only schoolboys engaged in harmless play. Not that John Creevey knows this. To him, the messages he decodes with painstaking care are the communications of dangerous and evil men, and as he comes face to face with the fact of his beloved wife Jennifer's defection, he begins to see a way to get back at the man she left him for.

Hornblower becomes a national hero when he escapes a French firing squad. But the 'Terror of the Mediterranean' becomes Europe's most wanted man, forced to fight alone for England - and liberty.

Described by Len Deighton as ‘a classic writer of espionage fiction’, Ted Allbeury based his many acclaimed spy novels on his own real-life experiences. In World War II, he served as an intelligence officer with Special Operations Executive, and subsequently ran agents across the border between East and West Germany during the Cold War. He began writing in his fifties, and went on to pen over 40 bestselling books, five of which are dramatised here alongside three plays specially written for BBC Radio and two bonus documentaries.

This second naval adventure follows the life of Thomas Paine Kydd who sails into Portsmouth a hero after a ferocious battle against the French. Soon the sea beckons and Kydd sets off aboard his beloved Artemis for another adventure.

Guy Crouchback, determined to get into the war, takes a commission in the Royal Corps of Halberdiers. His spirits high, he sees all the trimmings but none of the action. And his first campaign, an abortive affair on the West African coastline, ends with an escapade that seriously blots his Halberdier copybook. Men at Arms is the first novel in Waugh's brilliant Sword of Honor trilogy recording the tumultuous wartime adventures of Guy Crouchback.

For the first time ever all three much-loved series featuring the legendary creations Uncle Mort and Carter Brandon are brought together in one collection. As the pair tour Britain, Uncle Mort's recollections make for some hilarious moments. Uncle Mort and his Yorkshire based family first appeared in Tinniswood's novel A Touch of Daniel which earned them a run of four series of I Didn't Know You Cared on BBC TV from 1975-1979.

Adopest has fallen.... Field Marshal Tamas returns to his beloved country to find that for the first time in history, the capital city of Adro lies in the hands of a foreign invader. His son is missing and his allies are indistinguishable from his foes, and reinforcements are several weeks away. With the Kez still bearing down upon them and without clear leadership, the Adran army has turned against itself. Inspector Adamat is drawn into the very heart of this new mutiny with promises of finding his kidnapped son.

The hounds at our heels will soon know we are lions.Tamas's invasion of Kez ends in disaster when a Kez counter-offensive leaves him cut off behind enemy lines with only a fraction of his army, no supplies and no hope of reinforcements. Drastically outnumbered and pursued by the enemy's best, he must lead his men on a reckless march through northern Kez to safety, and back over the mountains so that he can defend his country from an angry god.