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Summary: Eco fantasy
Review: This is fantastic book full of interseting elements. Young Baudolino is a magic person. Time is magic too-middle age. I recommend it to everyone, especially for people who likes fantasy. It reminds me "Narrenturm" by polish fantasy master Sapkowski.
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Summary: Great medieval epic only Eco could pull off.
Review: Baudolino is a story of a habitual liar whose lies get him in and out of the most outlandish type of trouble imaginable.
Monsters, creatures, cities to conquer! Battles, crazy emperors, artifacts! These are just a very few parts of Bauodolino's adventures. In a way, this novel is even better than Eco's famous The Name of the Rose as it covers the medieval world and its myths in a broader and more lighthearted way, mostly amusing the writer while taking from the world of mythology, mysticism, history, and politics.
Eco is a great creator of powerful characters with whom we laugh and cry in the novels. Baudolino despite his habits is a thoroughly likeable characters and regardless of his lies, even he once in a while offers valuable advice.
I plan on re-reading this novel many times for I am sure that I have missed on many intricacies that Eco purposefully put in the novel. Also, I want to re-read it to once again enjoy the excitement of traveling to the end of the world, speculating how the world is shaped, and planning on visiting the earthly paradise.
Rating: 
Summary: A good tale by Umberto Eco
Review: This is an interesting read. Baudolino, by Umberto Eco, is a tale of grand adventure and intrigue: the setting is in Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire during the late 12th and early 13th centuries. The story is well written and interesting: it moves at a good pace and procedes to a definitive ending.(unlike "Foucault's Pendulum", which had so many blind alleys and dead ends, that I had trouble keeping interest) If you like Umberto Eco's style of writing then you will enjoy this book. Recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: a thick hearty stew with a few choice pieces
Review: I have to admit, this is one was a bit of disappointment. I also have to admit that the disappointment probably has more to do with me than the author. As is his wont, Eco projects a lot of the ideas he presented in his various non-fictional work onto a fictional setting. Having read a lot of those works, a good deal of the novel was just regurgitating.
The book is enjoyable, even if some reader might find it difficult to get into. It is humorous, erudite, and full of fun tidbits. Style-wise this is probalby most similar to Eco's "Name of the Rose" -- his best known novel. However, I would still recommend any of his other fictional books over this one.
[More detail below]
Abundant in rich historical detail, Eco returns to some of his favourite themes -- Babel, Historical Hoaxes, Heresies, as well as his native city. The translation was excellent, as usual by William Weaver, but the story itself is by necessity long. I could not really find too many faults with any particular periods of protagonist's life the book covers, but somehow the narration was listless and aimless. Indeed, that could adequately describe many a life, and may have been intended as such, but does not make for the most exciting reading. We start at the end, chronologically, jump to the beginning, and work our way forward to the sacking of Constantinople. Eco seems to enjoy the trappings of each mini-era, of each place and time too much to move along. The overarching theme of Pr. Johannan is presented early, but does not really get going until the 2nd half of the book. As a reader I just did not feel in a hurry either. For whatever reason I could not find myself believing in the relationship between Barbarossa and Baudolino, and so a lot of motivation Baudolino has did not really work for me. It might well go better for you.
Rating:
Summary: A Tangled Web
Review: Unlike other reviewers, I do not have a foundation of Eco, as this is my first attempt to read him. Some have said that this novel is far more accessible than his others. Having owned a copy of Island of the Day Before for 3 years now and never getting past page 4....I must confess that this novel pulled me in almost immediately; so much so that it took me only 5 days to finish it. Baudolino is a 'retelling' , of sorts, of the history of Constantinople; of myths and fables surrounding the former city; of Emporer Frederik Barbarossa; of the Holy Grail; of the extinction of the mythical Unicorn, and so much more. Packaging so many different tales of wonder into one novel, Eco succeeds as keeping a focused, discernible narrative throughout, the life of Baudolino as witness, interpreter, and chronicler of all these events. Adopted at an early age by the Emporer, Baudolino adapts easily to a more privileged life than that of a poor man's child. While not forgetting his heritage, Baudolino makes use of his new station and ventures to Paris to continue his studies. While there, he meets other youths who are to become life-long companions. The Poet, who apparently never writes a line of original verse, being on of the most prevalent and influential of his companions, and one of the most developed characters other than the narrator. Baudolino returns to the court of the Emporer, having learned to craft fanciful and believable tales to delight and enthrall others, and making use of this skill so far as to set off on a quest to find the fabled 'Prestor John' and bring the Holy Grail to him. Neither, of course, are factual to this tale, but Baudolino does not let that deter him, or his companions, from their quest. Following the death of the Emporer under questionable circumstances, Baudolino and company are flung into a further mission, to recover the 'Grail', which has disappeared, along with one of their traveling companions. Here the book delves into mythical territory, as Baudolino and company encounter beings and creatures that only fantasy can create and sustain. But as most of Baudolino's life is wrapped up in fantasy that he has created, none of it seems anything but commonplace to him and his fellow travelers. While I am not a fan of fantasy novels, this fits seamlessly into the story told, as in describing this type of journey into a 'fantasy' land, of course the details are made up and embellished to the best ability of the author of the story. Eco, through Baudolino's voice, creates a wonderous land of creatures, places, and events that let the imagination soar into lands that most leave behind with their childhoods. This story, while mostly invention, touches upon many factual themes, people, and events. It informs, enlightens, and best of all entertains with what could be a dry, turgid history lesson, no matter how colorful the history of Constantinople. The blending of actual history with myth, and the adept imagination of Eco, works on many levels. I highly recommend this book as a starting point for those interested in reading Umberto Eco. While purportedly not as well-crafted as Focault's Pendulum and The Name of the Rose (two more Eco novels that I will now have to investigate) it is a well-written and highly enjoyable foray into myth, fantasy, legend, and fact.
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Summary: Vintage Eco--To Be Reread and Treasured
Review: Umberto Eco's novels are so full of ideas that after finishing each of his three greatest ones--THE NAME OF THE ROSE, FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM, and now BAUDOLINO--I immediately read it again. THE NAME OF THE ROSE drew me because my own Medieval studies have focused on fourteenth century heresy and social justice movements, because I too love Sherlock Holmes and "got" the humorous references, and because Eco's heart and soul are so clearly liberal and humanist, my own chosen path through life. The dazzling FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM, which I consider his greatest novelistic achievement, is the most penetrating study in fictional form of our sad and comical human propensity of drawing conclusions out of nothing more than our imagination--a view of history as the product of multiple con-games. Eco's latest, BAUDOLINO, follows in the path of FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM and is the wittiest of the three, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. It has the ambience of a science fiction novel about "wonders to be visited out there." Even so, its historical setting is real enough, the time of the Fourth Crusade and the destruction of Christian Constantinople, but like FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM, its primary theme is not history but the enormous power of the imagination to make history. Although in third person, Baudolino, the greatest con-artist of all, is telling his story to another, much as Marco Polo did. That's where his picaresque imagination takes off, and ours with him. We travel from wartorn rural Italy to scholastic Paris, then on to Constantinople and a Central Asia of the imagination. We meet the Old Man of the Mountain and his hashish-eating Assassins, and nearly all the strange human-monsters of Pliny and Mandeville, who in this novel have personalities and motivations that are quite human--but never the sought-after Prester John. The conclusion is seamless with the story, and entirely satisfying. To present his hero's travels (and we are free to conclude that Baudolino never truly traveled anywhere beyond Constantinople except in his head), Eco weaves together the related Medieval accounts of Prester John, Sindbad the Sailor and Sir John de Mandeville, and to some extent stirs in Marco Polo. It's a wonderful conceit to make Baudolino and his friends the authors of Prester John's Letter--although in a fascinatingly roundabout way. The Prester John, Sindbad and Mandeville legends clearly owe their wonders to Pliny the Elder's gullible reports of the Mysterious East. Marco's travelogue is soberer, but many historians doubt that he ever went to China, and attribute the book to his father's and uncle's stories plus self-aggrandizing imagination. Yes, we always come back to imagination! BAUDOLINO is a troubling, joyous book, which is no contradiction. It discloses every human weakness, but also every kind of courage and persistence. It will cheer you and give you hope that dreams and imagination might just change history.
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Summary: Not as good as other Eco novels
Review: I have to admit that I'm a little disappointed by this novel and I say this after having read all of Eco's other novels over the years. The sub plot with the Hepatia kept me interested for awhile, but the central device of having Baudolino narrate his entire story while under siege in Istanbul didn't hold up. It's as if Eco needs lots of complicated narrative devices when sometimes they actually interfere with the telling of the story. Not that the novel isn't extremely clever, historically accurate (although I'm hardly a scholar of that period) and captivating in parts with its erudition, but sometimes it felt like knowledge more to show off than for its own sake. Parts of the middle of the novel are actually downright boring and with the whole murder plot, the novel turns into a bit of a shaggy dog story. Devout Eco fans should give it a try and will enjoy many parts, but as a whole, it's slow, a bit tedious in parts and overly pedantic. It's one of those novels you'll be glad you read, but it may not seem so until you've plowed through it.
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Summary: Candide Revisited
Review: In Voltaire's Candide a motley group of characters traipse around the world encountering one disaster after another. Candide, although structured as a comic adventure, had as its real purpose the ridicule and savaging of the Catholic church. Eco's Baudolino has a similar purpose: to ridicule and savage the Christian faith, especially its reliance on relics, and the brutality of the Christian knights toward their kinsman of the same faith. However, Baudolinos story has a special charm in that we participate in some actual history of the period (the Fourth Crusade). Unfortunately, I was put off by the many half-human creatures and monsters Eco creates for Baudolino to encounter. I kept trying to understand why the author felt compelled to create such characters when the historical narrative was interesting enough. For me the creatures were distracting or, in the case of the beautiful female satyr, whom Baudolino romances, disgusting. Although Baudolino's adventures have much more depth and interest than Candide's, the unreal creatures in Baudolino left me with an unsatisfactory feeling.
Rating:
Summary: Extremely enjoyable
Review: First, you have to enjoy medieval setting and mind-set to enjoy this book. It is a playful romp through the stories, legends, and mythos that formed the mindset of 1200. The sense of wonder and mystery expressed by the characters is joyous. (Imagine spending an entire evening debateing the dimensions of Solomen's castle!) Plus it examines the making of history. Sometimes, is history only a matter of who tells the better sotries and lies? All in all, great fun even if you have to work at bit.
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Summary: A fine story of change and discovery
Review: Set in 1204 in the kingdom of Byzantine, this tells of Baudolino, who saves several from death at the hands of crusading warriors through Constantinople, and whose gifts for learning languages and telling tall tales earns him a journey in search of a legendary priest-king in a mysterious land. A fine story of change and discovery set against a believable historical backdrop.
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