The Man with the Golden Torc

Written by Simon R. Green

Narrated by Stuart Blinder

New York Times bestselling author Simon Green introduces a new kind of hero, one who fights the good fight against some very old foes in the first novel in the Secret Histories series.

The name’s Bond. Shaman Bond. Actually, that’s just his cover. His real name is Eddie Drood, but when your job includes a license to kick supernatural arse on a regular basis, you find your laughs where you can.

For centuries, his family has been the secret guardian of Humanity, all that stands between all of you and all of the really nasty things that go bump in the night. As a Drood field agent he wore the golden torc, he killed monsters, and he protected the world. He loved his job.

Right up to the point where his own family declared him rogue for no reason.

Now, the only people who can help Eddie prove his innocence are the people he used to consider his enemies …

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781705053935

Simon R. Green

Simon R. Green is a New York Times bestselling author whose works include Drinking Midnight Wine, Beyond the Blue Moon, Blue Moon Rising, The Adventures of Hawk & Fisher, and the Deathstalker series. He lives in Bradford-on-Avon in England.

Reviews for The Man with the Golden Torc

[csdaley-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a four just barely. I was not thrilled with the ending. I felt like their was too much explaining in an attempt to set up the world and the next book.

The book was pretty action packed and that slowed it down a little. I think Green fans will like it. Clearly a James Bond Nightside and feels like Nightside might fit right inside this world.

[jalenv_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Man With the Golden Torc is the first book in Simon R. Green's Secret Histories series. I checked it out because I'd checked out book 11, Moonbreaker, from my library's new audio books section and loved it! Yes, I'm spoiled for a number of things in the series, but I don't care. I loved book 1, too.

[seschend · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A very fun read from a while ago. An interesting conceit of "What if James Bond worked for a magical secret society?" I've been meaning to find the sequels for when I've the time to read them.

[forevermasterless · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I was at C2E2, sitting in on a panel that had Simon Green, Mary Robinette Kowal, and some other authors I didn't know. At the time Mary was the only author I had heard of, and Green was just as unknown to me as the rest.

After the panel was over some penguin PR person made an announcement that there would be free books at some booth out on the show floor, and this was one of the books. I, being the thrifty bibliophile that I am, of course wanted all of the free books I could get my hands on, whether I had heard of the authors or not. When I got to the free-books booth Simon Green and the aforementioned PR person were the only people there, and Green was signing things. He offered to sign this book for me and, not knowing or caring who he was and being an impolite jerk, I said, “that's okay.” He just smiled and insisted, bless him, and I let him sign it. It is by far the sloppiest signature I've ever gotten, but that only makes him more endearing. He looked and sounded every bit the raconteur. Old and British; wearing a leather jacket over a waistcoat. Even if I hadn't know him to be an author I'd probably take one look at him and think, “I bet that guy has some stories to tell.”

Anyway, I read some reviews of this book before writing my own, and the general impression I got was that it's not as good as a lot of his other work. I consider that a good thing, because I did genuinely enjoy the hell out of this book, flawed as it is. I'll definitely look into his other work at some point. It was unabashed fun, and genuinely one of the funnier books I've read. It was exactly what I needed at the time. Something light with dry humor that didn't take itself even a smidge seriously. It threw in as many pop-culture and mythological references as possible without stopping to worry whether they had any justification for being there. I really liked that. Sorry for dismissing you, Mr. Green. Turns out your books are pretty damn fun.

[nodosaurus · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the first book of the Secret Histories novels, in which a family, the Droods, uses ancient secrets of science and magic to protect the human population from a large assembly of evils, demons, monsters, aliens, etc. Except the official story conceals a dark secret. Eddie Drood does what the family asks of him. Being independent, he isn't satisfied living under the roof and rules of the family matriarch, so he works among the normal humans, fighting the family's fight. Until he is sent on a mission, doomed to fail, and is declared rogue by the matriarch with a kill-on-sight order. Most of the book is his story of trying to find out why this happened. The book is full of odd and fun characters, each is a creative creation with an interesting story. There is also a large array of odd artifacts, each also creative and unusual. The author almost gets in the way of the story. He enjoys setting up a situation, and then adding a one-liner to build its opposite. This happens in the characters' stories, in idioms, settings, all too much. Some of them are very good, which keeps them from getting entirely stale, it is just part of his sense of humor. The book has several allusions to James Bond. Eddie operates under the moniker Edwin Bond, and has an uncle James Drood with a history that sounds like James. This character sets a high-mark for establishing Edwin as a major operative. The beginning of the book was a bit difficult to get through. As the author set the scene, he set up Edwin Drood as a masterful and powerful agent with a powerful tool. It felt like Deus-ex-Machina as he pulled new skills out to defeat opponents. But this was all stage setting to familiarize the reader with his abilities. The book definitely improves. Toward the end of the book, it became a page-turner for me. The situations were exciting. However, I was quite disappointed in the ending, in which an entirely misunderstood plot element suddenly just solved all the problems. Oddly, it didn't feel like it ruined the book. The story was good enough to carry the novel, the humor was good, and it was interesting. I will make time to read the second novel.

[dementomstie · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a fantastic book. I picked it up because I read the description and was intrigued. I don't usually read horror novels, and I don't really read spy novels, but the idea of a family that all has magical armor and suddenly one of their own turns against them and has to find out why he's a target suddenly sounded like a good book. I was pretty happy with it right away when there was a Doctor Who reference within the first 3 chapters. And some of the ideas that are presented in this are down right terrifying. Like the Scene Setters... Damn but that's a creepy idea. I love that part of the book, but only because the basic idea of it is so creepy and well written that it scared me more than the rest of the novel as a whole. I thought that this was a really fun and well written novel. Lots of fun to be had and lots in interesting action and world building.

[krumbs_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A good base for a new series. A never-ending romp--the characters go from one crises to another but the action is well done and the pacing is pretty good. Then it's all a bit conveniently resolved (really? nobody else is able to defeat this one member of the family?) but I don't think it could have ended any other way. A big conspiracy is set up for future books; I hope it doesn't linger for too long. The paranoia can get old.

[bookaddictdiary · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Paranormal save the world novel? Tongue-and-cheek James Bond references? Quirky dialog with just as quirky characters? What's not to like about the first installment in this new series from Nightside author Simon R. Green?That's what I thought when I picked up The Man with the Golden Torc, and that's what I got -no more, no less.Golden Torc introduces Eddie Drood, member of the famous Drood clan, who has spent generations protecting mankind from the monstrous things that go bump in the night. Eddie has always been willing to take on this role -until his family declares him rogue and goes after him. That's when Eddie discovers the truth and his life changes forever.Golden Torc offered everything that I liked about Nightside and added in a different twist. Sure, no underside of London where it's always 3 a.m., but an interesting concept with Green's signature quirks, characters and great dialog. Where the Nightside feels like it has recently become stale, Golden Torc injects a compelling freshness into Green's universe, complete with somewhat cheeky, but fun, James Bond references.Though, admittedly, Golden Torc is almost too much like the Nightside. Eddie feels like a slightly livlier clone of John Taylor, and Molly could be Shotgun Suzie's cousin, plus many of the storytelling elements are eerily similar to previous works. But, you know what, that really didn't bother me too much. Golden Torc is a fun ride that feels like Green has finally found something new to get excited about.For fans of the Nightside, Secret Histories is a worthy successor.

[homelovebooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

So as discussed in previous posts I am all about exploring this genre and trying new things. I've noticed lately that I read mostly books written by women authors, and it's not that I don't like male authors it's just how things happened to be. So I figured I would try out a book written by a man so here we go.The concept of the series is that there is a family that protects the world and humanity from basically any and all things that threaten the way of life. It takes place in a world similar to ours, in London, although with the added magical/supernatural elements. The Drood family accomplishes this because each member of the family has their own Golden Torc, which essentially makes them invincible. Eddie is a member of the Drood family, who is a field agent, so basically if there is a supernatural problem, Eddie is one of the agents called in to take care of the problem. However, somehow Eddie is declared to be a rogue, so basically suddenly the entire family is out to kill him, this story is how Eddie finds out not only why he was declared a rogue but the truth of his family altogether.Eddie meets some very amusing people along the way while trying to find his own way. One such character would be Mr. Stab (aka Jack the Ripper) as well as some other very colorful characters. Eddie ends up finding himself a counterpart in Molly. Molly is someone who has gone up against Eddie in many of his field work missions, and they have always been on opposite sides, so for the two of them to be linking up together is a very interesting dynamic. Molly is a very powerful witch, and I actually find her magic to be more impressive than being a Drood.Personally I have always found characters who have a huge amount of "super powers" to be boring, I have this issue with superman. I kind of come from the philosophy that if someone is going to have a power it should be limited to 1 or 2, 3 would be pushing it, anything more than that is just too much and becomes uninteresting. The Torc kind of walks that line. Everyone is invulnerable, and in action sequences when your being rammed with cars and shoot up with machine guns by tons of people, doesn't make the action sequence suspenseful. It almost comes off as boastful or bragging, not impressive or making me sit on the edge of my seat, or anything like that.Kind of on the same line of thinking there was a lot of the book that was just too overdone. The outlandishness of it all was kind of like the author was trying to hard, or was trying to be funny without actually being funny. In fact in some parts he ends up being cheesy instead of funny.With all that being said, the last third of the book is significantly better than the first two thirds. Green gives up on the unnecessary details and cheese factor and focused more on the plot. Once the focus is purely on the plot the characters become more real, more relate-able, and ultimately more enjoyable. The relationship between Eddie and his family are shown a real relationships, everyone can relate to having parts of their family they like and ones they don't, and the same is the case for Eddie; although with Eddie it comes with a major twist.Overall I would give this book an "okay" rating. It definitely has some room for improvement within the book, I think it lacked focus throughout a lot of it. However, the idea behind the story is solid and enjoyable, and the ending makes you really think and I am even looking forward to reading the follow up book.

[stewartry · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I wasn't sure I'd like this. I usually dig my heels in and resist "humorous" fantasy novels. They're not my cup of cocoa. Smart and funny is great; I have a weakness for really clever puns. But I'm not usually willing to offer the same suspension of disbelief to a book written with the primary intent of being comical as I am a more grounded book with a sense of humor. And I'd heard of Simon R. Green's books primarily as humor. Well, The Man with the Golden Torc was funny – from the title on through. The wonderful thing about it was that it never sacrificed storytelling to make a joke, never stretched for the humor, never beat me over the head with a pun. Puns did abound – Archie Leech? Ow, and I resent that on behalf of Archibald Alexander Leach – and so did jokes and running gags ("the infamous Molly Metcalf"), and I chuckled several times and smiled more. It was good, and it was funny, and the humor was integral – partly down to a narrator with an honestly witty voice, and partly to a feeling that the world was run by people who saw no reason not to be amusing in the setting up and naming of things, including super-villains. Well done. And, funnily enough (no pun intended), I learned a couple of things. Eddie Drood (whose name, along with Shaman Bond and Archie Leech, makes me wonder how many references I missed) mentions that the Drood home base boasts Rembrandts, Goyas, and Schalckens … I don't remember ever hearing of Schalcken before, which is surprising considering he seems fairly major and considering I thought I'd had a fairly decent art history education. I also picked up a few music recommendations (Hawkwind, Mary Hopkins, and Within Temptation), so this was a multi-media presentation. It also prompted me to look up Jaffa cakes. This wasn't perfect. There were a few instances of "But I thought you just said …?" In discussing the merits of the torc and the armour, Eddie explains several times in the first chapter that "no one sees me unless I want them to", which was (intentionally, I'm wondering belatedly?) funny because it seemed like every time he stated it was just before or after someone saw him who shouldn't have. The whole book was filled with instances of the much-vaunted perfect, impenetrable-in-all-ways protection of the torc being penetrated or overcome in one way or another. Another "huh?" moment for me followed Eddie and Molly's hike through the sewers of London. Although a visit to another … establishment … left its scent mark on him to the point that no one wanted to sit next to him on public transport, the schlep through what were described as overwhelmingly pungent tunnels seemed not to leave a trace of odor on them, given that there was no reaction from anyone they met before bathing and changing clothes. Small things, these, but they caught at my attention like slivers in a finger. So: not perfect, but: overall, I loved it. It was fast-paced and didn't let go, and I genuinely like Eddie Drood and the earnest goodness of (most of) his family. I loved the story, unique and well thought out as it was. The humor was not unleavened – there are a couple of very serious elements to the plot, and there are sacrifices along the way. But the protagonists are good people doing what they can and what they must, and, occasionally, having a lot of fun doing it. Highly recommended. My favorite line: "You know, sometimes I swear the whole universe runs on irony."

[dswaddell · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Shaman Bond is a member of the Drood family who are supposed to be the Guardians of humanity...but who watches the guardians? A very good book with an interesting twist in the end.

[wvlibrarydude · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book really started out great. The premise of a family using science and magic to defend the world from the horrors that lurk all around us, was a great beginning. The Bond theme was also quite engaging. The thing that really brought this book down in my eyes, was the length and number of side steps. It could have been made shorter, with less characters to introduce in the first book. Still, I'll probably pick up the second in the series to see if this is a series I should continue to follow.

[readermom_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was sort of a supernatural James Bond book. Very much like the old James Bond books, and the Sean Connery movies. It was fun and a good read. I've not been in the mood for much serious stuff lately. Summer has taken over my brain and I'm not up for much serious thinking.

[nextread · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

There’s no way getting around it. You’re going to see this as James Bond with Daemons, which is probably the point, especially if the cover and the pun-riddled title are anything to go by. That isn’t to say that is a pale pastiche. Green has created a hero and an adventure in its own right.Bond, Shaman Bond is in fact Eddie Drood a protector, along with the rest of the Drood family, of humanity from the forces of darkness and through him Green shows an alternative world where all the things that you thought were just myth and mystery are in fact real.Green does takes this idea slightly too far in places but overall he gets the tone and mix and reality about right. So that the creatures he introduces fit quite well. Ironically it was the aliens that didn’t quite fit in as they seemed, well alien, and out of place.What at first annoyed me about Eddie Drood turned out to be his greatest weakness - his golden armour. It makes him, super-strong, invincible and arrogant. That is until he’s shown that he isn’t as invincible as he’s always thought. It’s also a lesson he teaches a few others along the way.Green keeps the pressure on Eddie and the reader and doesn’t stop for breath as the action takes us from a Harvey Street Hospital, to a devastating chase along the M4 and the hidden areas of London amongst many other places. It isn’t just the solving of a mystery. It’s the journey of Eddie as he learns more about himself and gets closer to someone he’s tried to kill on more than one occasion.Green keeps up the laughs so it’s closer to Austin Powers than 007. The ideas flow from an imagination that seems far from running dry. I’m looking forward to where Green takes Eddie Drood after he’s built up and destroyed so much in The Man with the Golden Torc.

[hjjugovic · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Simon Green starts out what is sure to be another series with a bang. The world seems to be related to the Nightside (there's a hint that the main character, Eddie Drood, out-cheated John Taylor at poker, which is how he ended up living in his office) but takes place in the "real world". Eddie is part of an ancient family who, with the help of their golden armor, send agents into the world to save it. Or so they are told. Eddie has always been the black sheep of his family, but he never sees it coming when they declare him rogue. Eddie goes on the run, looking for answers and finds far more than he expects, as well as winning the heart of a wild witch. Once again, Green is the master of fantastic settings and bizarre characters. He manages a worthwhile tribute to James Bond and yet something that is quite original. SPOILERS in the end, Eddie brings down the corruption at the heart of his family and finds himself in charge of rebuilding, now with the help of silver armor and an alien creature. Because someone needs to keep saving the world.

[erasmusrob · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An outstanding contemporary fantasy thriller, complete with clever twists and literary in-jokes, from the protagonist's name onward. The jokes are not so common as to be annoying or jarring, but enjoyable when they show up. The title, of course, is a takeoff on the Bond novel, as is the title of the sequel due out in 2008.The protagonist is a member of a secret family who protect The Rest Of Us from all manner of unnamed and unknown horrors that would freeze our minds did we but see them. The family has mighty equipment, both magickal and technological, that they wield in pursuit of this noble aim. But is there something else going on? When our narrator is set up, in the fashion of countless contemporary heroes, he must find allies and information that will bring out the final, horrifying truth.

[robprosser · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Two parts James Bond and one part Harry Potter. Leave your brains at the door and let the sheet sense of fun carry you along. It's not exactly original but when a book is this enjoyable who cares? Highly recommended!!!