The reviewer for the UK'sThe Independent described it as a "superb novel, filled with compassion, yet never sentimental."

A superb historical novel.

Fascinating characters in in impossible situations and a wonderful survey of human history as if the reader were present makes for a superb novel.

It is a superb novel of manners the code of which the reader never quite cracks, and that also would have appealed to Nabokov.

The author "has written a superb novel by reconsidering the events of 'Robinson Crusoe' and presenting them from a new point of view."

Peter Tinniswood in The Times wrote "This is a superb novel.

Amazon rated the book 5 out of 5, stating "This is an absolutely superb novel".

That the board declined to award the prize to any of these superb novels is inexplicable.

Children's verdict: "This truly superb novel will have your heart racing, your hands sweating and your brain whirring.

I wonder what Polish readers will make of this superb novel.