The Last Kingdom

 

The Last Kingdom – Bernard Cornwell

After quickly digesting and thoroughly enjoying Bernard Cornwell’s “King Arthur” trilogy, I decided that I simply couldn’t leave the remainder of this author’s work untouched.  The good news (maybe bad news) is that this guy has a LOT of other books out there. Where to start the remainder of my journey?  Well, this “Last Kingdom” series contains thirteen books. Wow.  OK. We’ll start there. The first volume (called “The Last Kingdom”) contains many of the same flavors as the King Arthur books. More importantly, these books (at least the first one) has the same level of high quality.  So far,  with one down and twelve to go, it’s money well-spent.

The main difference is that the King Arthur books are based on Legend whereas this series is based on actual History.  In many cases it might be hard to distinguish. The focus here is the 9^th and 10^th century Viking invasions of Denmark onto neighboring (what we now know as) England.  So the tales within this journey are very harsh and bloody. History isn’t always pretty.

Our story starts with one of those invasions from the north.  The tale is told through the eyes of an English noblemen Uhtred.  He is only nine when his homeland is invaded by the Danes.  Whereas the majority of the English are slaughtered, Uhtred is spared by the Danes. Why? Well, they admire the kid’s courage.  He has the nerve to attempt to fearlessly attack the Danish leader. Of course, there’s not much damage a nine-year-old can do, so the Danes essentially kidnap him thinking that if he could be turned, he might just be useful.

So Uhtred isn’t treated as a slave, and we watch his growth into a bold strong warrior and by the time he’s twenty, he is now, in his heart, a Dane. And a fine fighter.  His connections to his homeland of England weren’t necessary strong, so it really isn’t that this young man has any sort of yearning to go back to being on the side of his homeland.  The Danish made him a man, and that’s where his loyalty lies.

Well, let’s just say that things end up getting a lot more complicated.  When civil war happens among the Danes while they’re attempting to conquer Wessex (the ‘last kingdom’), Uhtred finds himself conflicted and things get mightily complex and interesting.

As with the ‘Arthur’ books, the Christian religion is treated rather harshly by author Bernard Cornwell.  We see the priests, friars, nuns, and the general Christian population as weak and humble.  The stronger pagan Danes simply can’t understand this way of thinking.  Their God is the mighty Odin and feel as though it’s much better to have such a deity on one’s side when the objective is conquering, raping, and pillaging.

Like many good books, this novel contains a lot of individual stories within the main story.  Everything here is told in a way that makes the reader not want to stop and continue to turn the pages.  Sometimes the 10^th-century names of people and places can get a bit overwhelming but this is really par for the course if the author seriously wants to maintain truth when telling stories of history.

Anxiously eager to start book 2.

Conclave

 

Conclave – Robert Harris

Not only was this a great book, but it was somewhat of a relief.  I’ve been a hardcore reader for a long time now. I’ve been blogging for almost 14 years.  When I started reviewing books on my blog I wasn’t really sure if I would keep up the momentum. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but like a lot of “good ideas”, many of us give up after a while. So I’m actually quite proud of my accomplishment of keeping my review site alive.  Well, for whatever reason, I haven’t been reading as much as I used to, and the really sad thing is that the ratio of “not so good” books to “good books” has seemed to rise as of late.  It’s made me wonder: is it the books that are really not that good? Or is it me? Maybe I’m changing. Maybe I don’t have the passion to read anymore.  It didn’t help when I had a rather negative view of two famous authors as of late – Rick Atkinson and Ken Follett.

So when I picked this book up and enjoyed it so much that I finished the whole thing in about 4 days, I breathed a very heavy sigh of relief.  Yes, I still love books. No, my passion has not waned.  Everything is ok.  This book was a much-needed pallet cleanser.

Robert Harris is one of those authors who hasn’t failed me yet. It’s rare to come across an author where you (me anyway) like everything they’ve ever written. Even some of the best authors manage to release a turkey from time to time. So far that hasn’t happened with Robert Harris.  This offering received a lot of publicity since it was made into a movie, and the movie was highly regarded as well. (I haven’t seen it yet)

I was tempted to immediately pick this book up when the rave reviews started appearing, but my OCD tendencies wouldn’t allow it. You see, I have to read everything in order by an author. I know, strange. Maybe it’s because I want to see the author evolve?  Anyway, Conclave was well worth the wait.

The ‘story’ here, for the most part, isn’t exactly a riveting tale. I think the appeal is that Robert Harris is allowing us front-row seats to a historical process where the doors (and even the windows) are literally locked so no one has ever been able to witness the goings on of a particular process.  The pope has died.  The cardinals meet in the Vatican to elect a new one.  We get to watch, feel, and absorb the process.  Unlike the election of a U.S. President, a pope is pope mostly for life.  So it’s possible in one’s lifetime to only be exposed to the process maybe 5-6 times as opposed to every four years.

The story is told through the eyes of the Dean of the Cardinals, Jacopo Lomeli.  It’s an awfully fun thing to watch.  Unlike most elections, a pope is supposed to “not want” to be pope in order to make a good pope.  You know, the whole humility thing.  Of course, we all know better than that.  You can’t help but wonder, throughout history, how many times a cardinal “almost made it” yet, had to act gracious and humble when the pontiff was awarded to someone else.

In all fairness, there are some interesting twists in this novel, so it’s not all “by the book” (pun not intended).  The big issue within the Catholic Church these days (like everywhere else in politics) is the friction between the liberals and the conservatives.  In the early 1960s, Pope John XXIII spearheaded the second Vatican council and the church became a lot more liberal, and the trend has continued to this day.  This hasn’t made the far-right in the church happy in the slightest, but nothing is ever perfect.

So we read a lot about the balloting, the campaigning, the pros and cons, the factions. And even though it is politics as usual, you never get the feeling that any of these cardinals are evil nor fakes.  No, they all truly want the church to prosper, they just don’t all agree as what outcome will best serve the purpose.

Without giving away any spoilers, the ending of the book was a letdown for some.  It wasn’t anticlimactic or anything, in fact, it was almost a tad too much of a stretch that many readers thought was a bit unnecessary.  The way I viewed it, the story was so good, it didn’t really need an “ah-ha” at the end.  But it certainly didn’t ruin the experience for the majority.

This is one of those books that when it’s time to actually select a new pope (assuming I’m alive), I’ll probably pay a lot more attention since I know have seen how the inner workings operate, and it was a fascinating view.   A great book for the religious and the secular.

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.