Circle of Days

 

Circle of Days – Ken Follett

As I stated in my last review of a Ken Follett book, I’m sadly done with him.  An author who I truly thought was wonderful early on has slipped down to mediocrity in my opinion.  I haven’t really enjoyed one of his books in a very long time.  In fact, the only reason I read this one is that was on sale via Kindle.  I’m pretty sure I would have skipped it had it not been.

I have many criticisms of this author.  After the magnificent “The Pillars of the Earth”, he wrote four follow-up books (3 sequels and a prequel) and all those books were basically the same.  His “stand alone” novels as of late (there were a few) weren’t any better. So at least I came to this one not really expecting much.  To be fair, it was a little better than when he has put out as of late.  A little.  At least the first part.

Sadly, the similarities between the basic plot here with “The Pillars of the Earth” are almost embarrassing.  In this one, we’re not in the 11^th century, but rather 2500 years BCE.  There are no “churches” during this time, so the objects of worship are strange circular configurations that are made out of wood or stone.  The one in this story is made of wood.  The characters, tired of the constant decaying and burning, decide to make their circular “worship” altar out of stone.  And this is the main part of the story.  You can already see the parallels between this and “pillars”.

Of course, there are people. We have 3 basic “types”.  There are the farmers, the hearders, and the wood-people (not their actual name, but I forget).   These people are all a mix.  Some good, some bad.  Some seem to be blessed, most seem to be cursed in some form of fashion.  They trade, they fight, there’s jealousy, there’s treachery, and on and on and on.

There are also the priestesses of the sacred shrine.  They have the gift of “counting” which, as simple as it sounds, isn’t a skill that most of these common folk can master.  So there are rituals, there are festivals, there are songs, there is poetry, and on and on and on.

The names of these people are very primitive and basic. So we read names like Seft, Anni, Troon, and Joia.  It’s somewhat interesting to read how these primitive individuals lived – especially during a prolonged drought where many starve to death, but overall, the story just seemed to much of a rehash of everything this author has written before.  He also seems a tad obsessed with explicit lesbian sex.  Nothing really new for this author.  It must be some sort of weird perverted fetish for Ken Follett or something.   These “scenes” in this book about one couple in particular really don’t serve any purpose, and if he absolutely has to include these events, one wishes he could do it in half the pages sparing us the explicit detail.

Overall the book was ok.  If I never read a Ken Follett before, I probably would have enjoyed this one more than I did.  Since I’ve read everything he’s written, however, I can’t really say that there’s much here that is memorable.