Rating: 
Summary: I can't believe he's back... I'm estatic!
Review: After years of combing the book stores to look for book number 6, I had all but given up. But not enough to keep looking from time to time. I had a shock when it appeared on the bookshelves. This book, although not quite as strong as the previous 1-4, put me right back into 13th century Poland. I enjoyed it immensely and look forward to the next book. Please keep it up Leo, we desperately want to continue with these marvelous adventures. Maybe a showdown with the Roman Empire?
Rating: 
Summary: Conrad goes to South America
Review: Another great book in the Adventures of Conrad Stargard. Don't miss the new prequel! Maybe when the last Star Wars comes out they'll make Conrad into a movie franchise? A must read for engineers and computer nerds while waiting for the next Harry Potter.
Rating: 
Summary: sad disappointment
Review: As a great fan of Conrad I was really looking forward to another book exploring his alternate time/dimension Poland. Unfortunately the first third of the book is a rehash of parts of the last two books and the last two thirds lack the logic and direction of the series. Conrad plays no great part in this book and the action and characters are less developed and of much less interest. I would buy another in the series and hope it was better but this one is not a winner
Rating:
Summary: A fasinating story! Welcome back, Leo!!! :o)
Review: Book 6 marks a change in story presentation. The main story is told through the diaries of Josep, the son of a baker who lives and works at Okoitz. This book gives us the perspective of the next generation. A story from a young peasant child growing into manhood during the arrival of our primary hero, Conrad Stargard. Here we see the divergence from 13th century life in medieval Poland through Conrad's sweeping "modernizations". The "exploration" of the rest of the world is a logical "next-step" for the Christian Army. I found Conrad's naming of various "newly discovered" land-masses and territories to be entertaining, and somehow right. Leo shows us a wonderful era in a time that wasn't but should have been! And if this story isn't enough for all of Leo's fans... Wait til you see what book 7 is like... BTW: If enough people were to contact the publisher, it's possible that Leo might finish Book zero, the prequel to the Adventure's of Conrad Stargard... And if enough people clamored at the publisher, perhaps Leo might be persuaded to take this story beyond book 7... There's a LOT of potential story material waiting!
Rating: 
Summary: The book that kills the series.
Review: Having read and enjoyed the first five books of the series, Lord Conrad's Quest for Rubber has killed my appetite for any more. The first 50 or so pages of the book are a complete rehash of the last book with some parts almost word for word. The title of the book might be Lord Conrad's Quest for Rubber, but the actual quest is dealt only for the last third of the book, if that. There are a couple of chapters written from Conrad's perspective and although these chapters mesh in well with the previous novels, they are few and far between and fail to prop up the failures of the rest of the book. The main character (it's not Conrad) has many hardships but when he's finished, Frankowski trivializes them in one sentence (you'll know it when you read it). The worst gripe I have about this book is it's "magical" ending. I can see why it had to be used, but in doing it, it makes the conflict of the book worthless, lessens the impact of the previous novels, and makes any future novel unappealing. If you plan on reading this book, wait until Frankowski comes out with another book before doing so. Otherwise, you'll spend months or maybe years on souring on the possibility of another book in the series.
Rating:
Summary: Really just terribly and unfortunately bad.
Review: How the mighty have fallen. With this book Frankowski's series has reached a new low. Lord Conrad's Lady was only average and should have been the end of this saga. This book really isn't worth bothering with. Much of the book is told from the point of view of another character as some of the other reviewers here have indicated. This in and of itself isn't a bad thing as the High-Tech Knight did much the same to great success. Unfortunately, the rehashing of the past novels from this new character's point of view doesn't work nearly as well. In the High-Tech Knight there was one book's events to rehash, in this one there are five! Frankowski has always displayed a bit of a libidinous side with Conrad having many different conquests in each of the books. I really didn't find that particularly wrong or out of hand. In this book though he goes totally overboard with genetically engineered beings from the future and a bunch of other wacky sexual situations that add nothing to the story. Whatever titilating aspects people derive from all this, are lost on me at this point. The story overall is something of a disappointment with an awful ending that amounts to pushing a reset button to take away all the nasty aspects of the past hundred pages. Some people may find this way of magically putting us into a happy ending satisfying, but I really felt like I had wasted my time as most of the events of the book ended up having no significance. The whole point of the series has been lost, that being Conrad's addition of new technology to history and his use of his knowledge of future history to make significant changes. This book just throws most of that out the window in favor of technological contrivances from the future that make everything else insignificant. Very disappointing overall.
Rating:
Summary: Not as good as the first 5, but still great
Review: I also was really shocked when I found book 6 on the shelf in the book store, and couldn't wait to start reading it. I'm usually the hard-core SF reader, who favors such authors as Arthur C. Clarke, Larry Niven, Steven Baxter, Ben Bova, etc, but I really really loved this series. The problems that I had with this book were that more than half of the book was spent on material that was already covered in the previous books. It was still entertaining hearing it from a different perspective, but I would have enjoyed it more if he kept that section, and increased the amount of new storyline. Also, unlike another reviewer mentioned, I would have enjoyed it a bit more if he did put in some more technical details. Also, I kind of missed those interlude sections that were interspersed throughout the previous books. All in all, I still love this series, and I hope they re-print books 1-4, as mine have been read so much that they are starting to fall apart.
Rating:
Summary: Where was I?
Review: I don't know where I was when this book came out but I jus found it and bought it immediately. I read the other reviews out of curiousity. Most of them point out several severe flaws that I acknowledge. In spite of this, I rate the book fairly highly for the simple reason that it was very enjoyable. It's stimulated my imagination almost as much as the first four. I could read flawed books like this one all the time!
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining, but flawed
Review: I enjoyed this most recent addition to the Conrad series, and hope there will be more coming. I see a fundamental problem for the author in continuing this series however. Life has become too easy for Conrad. By this point in the series he has done it all, he's way ahead of the competition, and it's hard for the author to come up with any more challenges for him. I believe that is why Conrad was relegated to the status of a minor character in this book, i.e. so that the story could focus on the challenges of a "mere mortal" character. Understanding this, didn't make it any more enjoyable though. Conrad is the character I came back to see more of. It was disappointing to only see him in passing. What was more disappointing though was that the author did create a challenge for Conrad, and he couldn't handle it. In the end he got outside help, which was almost like cheating. I want to see the protagonist rise to the occasion and overcome his own obstacles, not have them solved for him. I was not offended by the gratuitous sex throughout the book myself, but I can see how some of the other reviewers were. As sex goes, this was really very mild. It is only because this is supposed to be a science fiction/fantasy book and not an erotic novel that it is even noticable. That said, I would like to point out that it is rather repetitious that the girls are always 14 years old, even the ones who have been around for years now. I understand that life expectancy was shorter in the middle ages, and people were old in their 20's and dead in their 30's, but the author could mix it up a bit with some 15 or 16 year old girls, just for variety.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, but flawed
Review: I enjoyed this most recent addition to the Conrad series, and hope there will be more coming. I see a fundamental problem for the author in continuing this series however. Life has become too easy for Conrad. By this point in the series he has done it all, he's way ahead of the competition, and it's hard for the author to come up with any more challenges for him. I believe that is why Conrad was relegated to the status of a minor character in this book, i.e. so that the story could focus on the challenges of a "mere mortal" character. Understanding this, didn't make it any more enjoyable though. Conrad is the character I came back to see more of. It was disappointing to only see him in passing. What was more disappointing though was that the author did create a challenge for Conrad, and he couldn't handle it. In the end he got outside help, which was almost like cheating. I want to see the protagonist rise to the occasion and overcome his own obstacles, not have them solved for him. I was not offended by the gratuitous sex throughout the book myself, but I can see how some of the other reviewers were. As sex goes, this was really very mild. It is only because this is supposed to be a science fiction/fantasy book and not an erotic novel that it is even noticable. That said, I would like to point out that it is rather repetitious that the girls are always 14 years old, even the ones who have been around for years now. I understand that life expectancy was shorter in the middle ages, and people were old in their 20's and dead in their 30's, but the author could mix it up a bit with some 15 or 16 year old girls, just for variety.
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