A review by bergsteiger
The Physician by Noah Gordon

4.0

Definite overtones of "The Walking Drum" here. The book started out very good-I enjoyed the young life of Rob Cole and found it to be very plausible. Loved how he was driven by a singular, and nearly impossible, dream. As he makes his way across Europe and eventually joins a caravan, his plan begins to take shape and a little bit of skepticism seeped in for me. In fact, this middle part of the book was very astutely skipped over in the movie (which, like Bird Box, made some plot changes but still captured the overall feel of the story quite well). Then we come to the goal of young Rob Cole, the great hospital of Ibn Sina, and you certainly delight in his learning and experience the tension of dealing with the Shah. The ending requires an even greater leap of faith and is a little too neatly tied together for my tastes, but didn't ruin the tale. My only other commentary is that it read a little bit like old school fantasy books with some needless and detailed sexual encounters, detracting, for me, from the feel of the book. It's really a 3.5 star book, but the good pace of the plot and subject matter of the book, made me want to round it up. Pick it up off the shelf if you have the time.