Book Review: Victor Hugo - Ninty-Three

I've never read Les Miserables or The Hunchback of Notre Dame (all I've seen are the movies), so I have no idea how this one compares to the others in literary terms. However, this book was fantastic so I might seek out the others soon enough. It's set in the year 1793 (hence the title) during a counter-revolutionary revolt against the new French government, and it focuses on a British attempt to aid the supporters of the monarchy in a remote area of country against the revolutionary government's attempts to suppress the rebellion by whatever means necessary. One of the striking things about the writing is how even-handed Hugo is about presenting the different factions involved, which must have taken on added resonance given the book's publication shortly after France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. Everyone is portrayed in a bold, dramatic style that attracted none other than Ayn Rand, who wrote an introduction to my copy. Despite that dubious endorsement, rest assured that the dramatic action is backed by a series of truly thoughtful dialogues that place one of the most important events in the history of freedom in the context of the terrible warfare that went along with it.