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Abraham Merritt
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The Ship of Ishtar (Annotated) Kindle Edition

by Abraham Merritt (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
3.5 3.5 out of 5 stars 53 ratings
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The goddess of love and beauty was adrift on an enchanted ocean in a magic world. The myriad forces of satanic evil plagued the vessel of the red-haired, passionate goddess. Only one man, John Kenton, the American adventurer, could save Ishtar's priestess from the black magic which divides her world from ours.

Additionally you'll get to see some interesting images and you'll get Summary of every story you read
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  1. Print length
    197 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publication date
    March 16, 2019
  5. File size
    5504 KB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Alphonse Daudet, né à Nîmes dans le département du Gard le 13 mai 1840 et mort à Paris le 16 décembre 1897, est un écrivain et auteur dramatique français.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07PNXXCHG
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 16, 2019
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 5504 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 ‏ : ‎ 197 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 179182224X
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.5 3.5 out of 5 stars 53 ratings

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  1. A. Merritt

    A. Merritt

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Customer reviews

3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5 out of 5
53 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

G in Ohio
5.0 out of 5 stars Justly famous
Reviewed in the United States on May 27, 2021
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Action-packed from start to finish, a rousing and romantic adventure with memorable characters, amazingly described and inventive world, and a plot that will keep you guessing. Not at all PC. Pre-Tolkien fantasy so no dwarves or elves, but ancient gods and civilizations, mysterious artifacts, and men caught up in divine feuds.
2 people found this helpful
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A. Meyer
4.0 out of 5 stars Great classic story!
Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2014
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What a great story this was. You have all the elements of a good story here: love, hate, action, comradeship, tragedy. Even though this story deals with many absolutes there is much that seems to lie beneath, just tugging at you, seeping into your unconscious. This edition from Piazo Publishing is very nice. The artwork is incredible inside and truly adds to the story immensely. I will surely be coming back to this story again
4 people found this helpful
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Keith John Bowen
1.0 out of 5 stars Wretched edition.
Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2020
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Firstly, this book is NOT annotated, nor is it complete. Someone should explain to the publisher that "annotated" is not the same as recapitulated!

This is not Merritt's best book. Written in the mid-1920's, the purple prose and ornate dialog seem unneccessary. Be aware that most editions, including this one, are incomplete with multiple pages from the story as originally published in Argosy-AllStory Magazine missing (a problem that goes back all the way to the first book edition).

I should also note that the cover is completely inappropriate for this story. Titanic, indeed! If you try to buy a physical copy (as opposed to the Kindle version), you won''t be able to as Amazon has it accidentally cross-linked to the poems of Sappho!

If you must read this story, buy either the pricey memorial edition, the original multi-part serial, or the single issue reprint in a 1948 issue of Fantastic Novels Magazine.
5 people found this helpful
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Douglas Kullen
3.0 out of 5 stars More Pulp Than Fantasy
Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2014
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I purchased this book because the title was listed in a bibliography of authors who had influenced J. R. R. Tolkien. The hardcover book itself was good quality with fine illustrations. However, the story is obviously of the pulp adventure fiction genre, not fantasy, despite the overleaf's claims that A. Merritt was the "Lord of Fantasy." Perhaps that was true in the United States of the 1920's, when this book was written, but it is definitely not from a limb on the literary-historical tree that branches from Lord Dunsany to Tolkien. The story itself is something of a potboiler in the vein of an R. E. Howard adventure set in a semi-fictional Babylonian past. The author references cutting edge (i.e., 1920s) Middle Eastern archaeological discoveries to anchor certain scenes and characters, but repeatedly uses the same deus ex machina to rescue his hero from impossible situations. This work does not stand proudly on the same shelf as Tolkien in my collection of fantasy works, but it does lean comfortably among my set of Conan the Barbarian novels.
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M. Thompson
5.0 out of 5 stars fantastic - in great condition.
Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2017
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a great old re-print of a fantastic takes expert author of the late Victorian American writers era - fantastic tale and the kind of adventure so many of us seek and never find..., would gladly buy from this seller again!
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James R. Vogus
4.0 out of 5 stars classic fantasy still entertains
Reviewed in the United States on June 16, 2015
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Very evocative language in the book. Merritt maintains a mood of the fantastic, of adventure, and romance.
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Gilles Benson
5.0 out of 5 stars great fantastic story very much in the style of Merritt
Reviewed in the United States on August 1, 2014
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great fantastic story very much in the style of Merritt; a 20th century (or was it 19th...?) gentleman is sent back 4000 years in Mesopotamia to fight an ancient evil; great reading for teenagers back in the fifties.
One person found this helpful
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Manly Reading
3.0 out of 5 stars A new presentation of a classic tale
Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2009
This review is of the Paizo "Planet Stories" reprint of The Ship of Ishtar, first published in the 1920's. The format is of a classic pulp magazine, with a two-column layout and 10 full-page pieces of Virgil Finlay artwork.

The Finlay work is beautiful and atmospheric, and a fitting complement to the text.

The story itself is well enough described in earlier reviews: a modern (1924) man, with more than a touch of Indiana Jones about him, is cast into an alternate world where gods do battle, only to be locked in stalemate. Our Hero, John Kenton, breaks the age-old impasse with the help of doughty companions, finds love (and sex!), only to have it all snatched away and require a quest to recover.

The characters are well-rounded and developed, and the tale for the most part moves at a cracking pace. The language however may be a little difficult to overcome. For the modern reader, there seems to be an incredible surfeit of both dashes and exclamation marks. There is no doubt but that this is deliberate, and part of building a rhythm in the narrative, but it was jarring after several pages and did not cease to jar hundreds of pages later. Unfornately, I can't divorce the gripping tale from the telling, and while I enjoyed the book - and hope in a future re-reading it to enjoy it more - it was good but not great. It would make a wonderful movie, I think, without having to struggle under punctuation on the written page.
4 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic fabulous fantasy
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 22, 2013
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If I could give this a higher rating I would do so. This is a masterpiece of the genre. Oh, there are the usual props, a world weary handsome hero, a beautiful heroine, a wicked villain, references to ancient myth, but it is how Merritt pulls them all together which is pure genius. Imagine the conceit of the action taking place in two Time Zones, two very different worlds? One world is ours, the other a world manufactured by jealous gods so they can play with the human beings at their mercy. The story begins with our hero receiving a block of stone in which lies a magical jewelled ship crewed by jewelled toy mannikins. The hero is transported from our world into another where the jewelled ship is a real ship crewed by flesh and blood men and gorgous women. Again and again after spending many hours in the other world our hero is forced back home...to hear by the ticking of a clock only a few hours have passed in our world.
Merritt's mastery is in his rich language, his feel for ancient myths which touch the heart and imagination, his love of warrior women who never lose their femininity and with whom the hero is not afraid to count as fighting comrades in arms. Read this story and you will never forget it.
2 people found this helpful
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Hidechi
4.0 out of 5 stars メリットの古典的名作
Reviewed in Japan on September 22, 2013
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　日本語でのいくつかの訳がありますが、原典と見較べながら読みたいと思い購入しました。資料を速攻で入手できるのは kindle store のメリットです。
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Greycynic
1.0 out of 5 stars Written in 1924 and it shows
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 19, 2018
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Apologies to all you fantasy fans out there for this rating. The simple truth is that I absolutely hate this book. I got so bored with it that I gave up about a quarter of the way through. I just could not take any more of it. This is very unusual for me. There have been periods in my life when I read maths and physics texts in the way most people read novels. I can cope with dry text but not this book. I found the idea intriguing but the execution just failed to catch my imagination.
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Philip M. J. Carteret
3.0 out of 5 stars Sorry to say, I was somewhat bored.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 25, 2019
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I was reminded of some old Victorian novels that I met in my childhood.
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Penelope
1.0 out of 5 stars Review of The Ship of Ishtar.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 9, 2018
Verified Purchase
This book was too much into false gods and magic for me. I.e. Did you know that Ishtar was a false god of fertility and gross immorality was inacted in the rites of worship to her. Also it is where we get the celebration of Easter from., chickens, baby rabbits, eggs and so forth.
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