This is my second book by Cornwell and the second in the Saxon Stories series (aka The Last Kingdom) and it comfortably lives up to its predecessor. After his success at Cynuit at the end of the last book, Untred fails to capitalise on it and credit for that victory is taken by another but later, after a disastrous surprise attack by the Danes, he finds himself reluctantly press ganged into being Alfred’s saviour and protector and so becomes closely involved in Alfred’s fight back to regain Wessex.
If I have one complaint, and it’s possible that this is inevitable when writing in the first person, it is that the reader only really gets to know one character in any depth, that of the main character, Uhtred, from whose perspective the book is written. Most of the other characters are developed to some extent but not really with any depth. Though, as I say, this is possibly an inevitable consequence of the first person narration, especially in an era long before men were expected to get in touch with their softer sides and open up to their comrades with their inner feelings!
However the reader barely has time to notice that when the setting is so superbly painted, the story told so well and the battles described so vividly you almost have to check you still have all your limbs after reading them. And yet he achieves this without any real gratuitous goriness; in my opinion an extraordinary achievement especially when read in this modern world where an insatiable appetite for such goriness now seems to be the norm.
One other feature that endears these historical books to me is the historical notes that Cornwell appends to the end of the book, where he clearly and honestly tells the reader which aspects of the story are based on solid known history, which on more speculative history and where he has openly changed the known history for dramatic reasons. It is never going to be easy to have one character present at most of the major historical events without bending the chronology a little, but all credit to Cornwell for telling us exactly where he has done that.
An excellent book and I’m very much looking forward to the next in the series.
5/5 stars
If I have one complaint, and it’s possible that this is inevitable when writing in the first person, it is that the reader only really gets to know one character in any depth, that of the main character, Uhtred, from whose perspective the book is written. Most of the other characters are developed to some extent but not really with any depth. Though, as I say, this is possibly an inevitable consequence of the first person narration, especially in an era long before men were expected to get in touch with their softer sides and open up to their comrades with their inner feelings!
However the reader barely has time to notice that when the setting is so superbly painted, the story told so well and the battles described so vividly you almost have to check you still have all your limbs after reading them. And yet he achieves this without any real gratuitous goriness; in my opinion an extraordinary achievement especially when read in this modern world where an insatiable appetite for such goriness now seems to be the norm.
One other feature that endears these historical books to me is the historical notes that Cornwell appends to the end of the book, where he clearly and honestly tells the reader which aspects of the story are based on solid known history, which on more speculative history and where he has openly changed the known history for dramatic reasons. It is never going to be easy to have one character present at most of the major historical events without bending the chronology a little, but all credit to Cornwell for telling us exactly where he has done that.
An excellent book and I’m very much looking forward to the next in the series.
5/5 stars
