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    The Mirror Thief
    The Mirror Thief
    The Mirror Thief
    Audiobook21 hours

    The Mirror Thief

    Written by Martin Seay

    Narrated by Edoardo Ballerini

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    A globetrotting, time-bending, wildly entertaining masterpiece in the tradition of Cloud Atlas Set in three cities in three eras, The Mirror Thief calls to mind David Mitchell and Umberto Eco in its mix of entertainment and literary bravado. The core story is set in Venice in the sixteenth century, when the famed makers of Venetian glass were perfecting one of the old world's most wondrous inventions: the mirror. An object of glittering yet fearful fascination-was it reflecting simple reality, or something more spiritually revealing?-the Venetian mirrors were state of the art technology, and subject to industrial espionage by desirous sultans and royals world-wide. But for any of the development team to leave the island was a crime punishable by death. One man, however-a world-weary war hero with nothing to lose-has a scheme he thinks will allow him to outwit the city's terrifying enforcers of the edict, the ominous Council of Ten . . . Meanwhile, in two other Venices--Venice Beach, California, circa 1958, and the Venice casino in Las Vegas, circa today--two other schemers launch similarly dangerous plans to get away with a secret . . . All three stories will weave together into a spell-binding tour-de-force that is impossible to put down-an old-fashioned, stay-up-all-night novel that, in the end, returns the reader to a stunning conclusion in the original Venice . . . and the bedazzled sense of having read a truly original and thrilling work of art.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMay 10, 2016
    ISBN9781501919862
    The Mirror Thief

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    Reviews for The Mirror Thief

    3.5/5

    48 ratings6 reviews

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    • 1/5
      fiction (stories from different time periods sandwiched within each other a la "cloud atlas"). I read to page 180-something, then decided I didn't care about all of the stories' so called "suspenseful" missing details to bother reading another 400 pages. I found the author's tone (which changed from story to story) to be at times dry, at times impersonal--kind of an interesting way to impart a character's coldness or a period's atmosphere, but not effectively riveting for me.

      note that this book did get some significantly good reviews, so if you like long sagas of interconnected stories, by all means check it out from your library.
    • 3/5
      Common denominators in the three stories: Mirrors/glass and Italy - the real Italy (Venice), fake Italy (2003 Las Vegas, NV) and references to real Italy (Beat era, 1958, Venice Beach, CA). Plus there seems to be a book that unites them all: _The Mirror Thief_ by Adrian Welles. As indicated in some of the other reviews: There is an excess of step by step narration - whereas some editing might have worked to make things more cinematic, less clunky. Perhaps a clue on page 350: "Every worthwhile initiative is a collaboration, a conspiracy, a series of coded messages passed across the years from hand to anonymous hand." [in progress]...
    • 1/5
      Comparing this to Cloud Atlas (or any of David Mitchell´s works) is like comparing rat poison to cheesecake - sure, both are technically edible, but given the choice, I´d rather have the cheesecake. I won´t deny that I started this (with great annticipation)because of its favourable reviews & comparisons to Mitchell, but after almost 200 pages of mindnumbing verbosity, waiting for *something* to happen, I aborted. This is probably the 2nd time in 20 years I didn´t force myself to finish a book I wasn´t enjoying, but I honestly couldn´t bear the thought of investing any more time in it. Perhaps it´s my loss; however, I don´t think so.
    • 4/5
      Veronica, a minor character in THE MIRROR THIEF, teaches Curtis Stone about art. She uses her background in art history to inform him that the primary goal of art was to create precise representations of reality. This often meant tracing a camera obscura image. Photography made this approach less important. Thus the modern era in art began by exploring how perception alters reality. “Now it’s all about two eyes and a brain in between.” This conversation helps to understand Martin Seay’s novel because it focuses on how a particular book changed when read. As an art form, writing has always emphasized how characters respond to reality. “Books always know more than their authors do. Once they are in the world, they develop their own peculiar ideas." The centerpiece of Seay’s novel is another book of the same name. Stanley Glass obsesses over it because he thinks it reveals secrets about magic. That book is set in 16th Century Venice and tells of a plot to steal the technology behind the creation of mirrors. The protagonist, Vittor Crivano, is a physician and alchemist. The book's author, Adrian Welles, uses poetry and obscure references to magic to tell Crivano's story. These seem important to Stanley and thus they drive him to cross the country to find Welles. “Mister Welles, I would really like to know just how much of your goddamn book is true.” Seay uses many genres and three settings to tell his story. The original Venice and two recreations focus on gambling and grifting during the Renaissance, the Beat era in California and contemporary Las Vegas. In spite of its excessive length and tendency to drift into all forms of minutia, the plot is engaging. The evocations of its three settings and the use of interesting and nuanced characters make this novel a compulsive read. Seay manages to unify these three quite different stories under one motif—mirrors. The 16th Century Venetians believed mirrors had magical powers over the souls of men. Thus they were willing to risk their lives to own them. In the 1950s, a beat poet’s bathroom mirror contains the quote, “this is the face of god you see.” This suggests that mirrors may reveal things about ourselves. In the end, Stanley realizes that the magic in Welles book may never have been there. Instead it may have been a reflection of his close reading of the book. Like modern art and mirrors, a difficult book reflects and distorts reality. “The reader, not the poet, is the alchemist.” Stanley reflects on the three-card Monty con he was running during his youth on the boardwalk in Venice Beach. He says: “At any given moment, you may be certain of the cards, but the other man—your opponent, your mark—you can never be certain of what he perceives, what he thinks, what he will do” In the final analysis, Seay has written and intriguing, but flawed novel. He seems to embrace style at the expense of clarity. One has to struggle to understand obscure references that divert attention from the story. The narrative tends to meander for pages into obscure philosophizing. Too many loose ends in the plot remain unresolved. One is left with a strong impression of having been conned by an expert.
    • 5/5
      We begin in glitzy Las Vegas, 2003, as a war weary, ex-marine tracks down a con artist gambler, who happens to be an old family friend. We then shift to Venice Beach, circa 1958, where a runaway, New York teenager is in search of a poet, that wrote a little book called The Mirror Thief. It is about an alchemist from the sixteenth century. And finally, you guessed it, we travel to Venice, in the late 1500s and follow this alchemist, as he plans to steal an enchanted mirror.How the author weaves these stories together, is a marvel, especially for a debut. A nifty blend of thriller, historical fiction and magical realism, anchored by some exceptional prose. Smart and ambitious.I have seen comparisons to Cloud Atlas, (high praise indeed), but I am not so sure about that, other than in a very general way but it does stand on it's own. Bravo!
    • 3/5
      “The Mirror Thief” weaves together the stories of Curtis Stone in a Venetian-themed casino/hotel in present-day Las Vegas, Stanley Glass and author Adrian Welles at Venice Beach circa 1958, and Crivano in 1592 Venice, Italy. In present-day Las Vegas, Curtis finds a book called “The Mirror Thief” and suddenly the story switches to Venice Beach where, in 1958, the narrative follows Stanley and Adrian Wells, the author of the book. In 1592, readers meet Crivano, who is the subject of the Mirror Thief book.As readers follow the three divergent stories, they realize each man searches for something hidden behind the mirrors.This sweeping novel, at nearly six hundred pages, weaves together the three stories with mystery, obsession, and violence. Unexpected plot twists, haunting poetry, and a complicated story spin out tales of quests and enigmas to an unexpected ending.Recommended.