Book Review: The Pagan Lord by Bernard Cornwell

On a recent visit to hospital I was advised that as well as having cancer I have a heart condition, such is life, and then I settle down to read the latest Bernard Cornwell offering, 'The Pagan Lord' featuring Uhtred of Babbenburg and Cornwell nearly kills me off along with the hundreds of Danish horde that his creation Uhtred dispatches throughout this latest in 'The WARRIOR Chronicles' as my heart is pounding almost from the opening paragraph to the very end. Dear Lord Sir, but you can write!

Uhtred is in trouble from the beginning, again when he sets of with son number two and a small band of warriors to retrieve son number one who has become mixed up with the Christians, them Christians will be the death of poor Uhtred one of these days.... Only to find that son Uhtred has converted to the faith and has become a priest.   

In trying to retrieve his son from this folly Uhtred inadvertantly, for a change, kills of a Bishop and disowns his son renaming him Judas and promoting son No 2 up the ranks to be henceforth called Uhtred........

On returning to his hall he finds it burning and Sigunn his woman gone. Cnut Ranulfson has visited to exact his revenge, and while he and Uhtred are sworn enemies, on this occasion Uhtred has no idea what he has done, this time.....

Cornwell goes on to describe Uhtred's criss crossing the country and the seas to Frisia.  It starts off on horseback crossing these green, pleasant and wonderful lands, at a trot and then into a full canter before galloping across blood filled fields and streams and rivers with Uhtred and his small force of loyal men attempting to reclaim his home of Babbenburg.

Once again and to save the Christians he so loathes but time and again saves from destruction giving them England from the massed armies that Cnut Ranulfson has been building,  to finally take over Wessex and Mercia to once and for all create a Daneland and to consign the English to what they deserve, Slavery and Death.

No spoilers from me here suffice to say that Cornwell really is a master story teller spanning the 20th and 21st Centuries and his characters and stories pull you in from page one and get you turning page after page into the wee small hours gasping for air as another wave pounds over the longship as she fights the storms or gasping for breath through the blood and snot and sweat as you take up position in a shield wall with the blood lust screaming from every pore as you wait to kill or be killed ....   you become part of the story, you are involved and you have a vested interest in it's eventual outcome.  Cornwell has clearly mastered the art of making the reader feel all these things, making you cry out in despair when you get to the end and find that there is still more to come and you are left hungry waiting in anticipation for the next stanza in this epic tale of the birth of England and it's rescue from the Danish hordes.

Editing for Kindle: 5 out of 5
Reading Enjoyment: 5 out of 5
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5
Chapters: 13 (in 4 parts)
Page length: 321 but again not evident on Ipad or  Kindle devices, sort it out folks for goodness sake

Mr Fat: An Update

So, Sunday 1st September and I woke up feeling like a new man today... I have no idea why,still have cancer, still have a 30 odd centimetre tumour growing from my oesophagus downwards to gawd knows where, and I was taken off the chemo two weeks ago as it was making me terribly ill and giving me particularly dark thoughts.

I don't think I would ever have ended it but I do have to confess the footbridge across the M25 close to us was looking particularly inviting but then I would have had to call myself all kinds of names and used extreme profanity in a self loathing description for causing havoc to the road users who suffer every day on that parking lot approaching the Dartford crossing!

I thought that as soon as I came off the chemo that I would start to feel much better but alas not. And I seemed to just get worse as the last two weeks progressed. I felt not too bad yesterday morning, last day of summer, managing a trip to the supermarket with Ishbel but from the moment we got back home I really did feel like a luke warm cadaver ready to be picked over by a committee of vultures. I couldn't even manage to take Ishbel to work later who had been asked to do some overtime. In fact she says she said goodbye to me and that I was wide awake when she gave me a kiss and a cuddle but I couldn't even remember any of that either.....

Today, a complete volte face if you like I feel absolutely marvellous and it may well be just a short lived hiatus, the chemo may now be out of my system and I am patiently awaiting the next phase, having had a CAT scan during the week, hopefully ahead of surgery, which I am hoping will be in the next few weeks if not sooner and then no doubt back on the chemo. So, I am going to make the best of today with Ishbel's warnings ringing in my ears to not be a tit and not to start rushing about today doing all the jobs I have been ignoring, the garden, stripping the hall and stair paperwork that Steve my defacto son-in-law started a couple of weeks ago and generally tidying up although I have managed to keep on top of the ironing ......

What I haven't managed to do is any reading, although I have pre ordered the next Kydd novel CARIBEE from the wonderful Julian Stockwin and the next in the series from Bernard Cornwell in the Uhtred, The Pagan Lord, as he serves the Kings of Wessex and tries to retake Bebbanburg in the North, so looking forward to them. Nor have I managed to keep up with all my friends blogs and posts or to engage on Twitter so apologies to my friend for all that but if I 'go dark' again don't worry too much as I am and always will be, a Survivor......

And then, I started this, which I think may have been a bad idea but got to press on now ....

Keep smiling :-))))

Book Review: Death of Kings by Bernard Cornwell

Look inside Amazon UK here
Look inside Amazon US here

Bernard Cornwell must be known to many even if not from his books but from the book inspired TV show "Sharp" , I have read all of them too.

Death of Kings is the 6th novel in his 'The Making of England' series the previous books being:

The Last Kingdom
The Pale Horseman
The Lords of the North
Sword Song
The Burning Land

They tell the story of Alfred the Great the King with a vision to unite England into one country under the English. It doesn't matter today what your own provenance is, particularly at this time when some Scots are attempting to reclaim their nation for themselves away from the English; these are tales of a beginning, tales of honour and glory, tales of battle and honour and tales of men dying in bloody battlefields terrified of the oncoming shield walls but bravely standing, fighting and dying for the birth of their Country and their King.

'Go, go!' Broga had charged two men. One swung his sword at Broga's mouth, but he was trained well and reared up, hooves flailing, and the man ducked away. I clung to him, waited until he came down and brought Serpent-Breath hard down onto the second man's head, splitting helmet and skull. I heard a scream and saw that Broga had bitten of the first man's face. I spurred on. Dogs were howling, children screaming, and Serpent-Breath was feeding.'

These are the tales as told by Uhtred of Babbenburg a Pagan from Northumbria who is brought up to despise Wessex, Mercia, The Danes and anyone else not from Northumbria but who ends up becoming Alfred's Sword and Shield against the Danes.

The tale starts in the Last Kingdom when Uhtred is a boy in Babbenburg and we follow him through the years to this book and Alfred's death and his succession by Edward. The books are based on real events and so not only are we getting an exciting tale of our first Great King and the Birth of England but we are getting a master class in storytelling.

Uhtred, on the face of it, has a miserable life, constantly fighting for his life and so, has to be that much better at taking life than his contemporaries, and he should be and is, a foul tempered man at times. But he is not always like that and all of the books are sprinkled with his really funny humour.

Cornwell's writing through all his books improves and becomes better with each new book. The stories flow along; like soldiers marching along a Roman road without deviation, the prose is sharp and precise. You do tend to stumble a little at the pronunciations of the original place names he uses, but that is not a criticism as they give added authenticity to the story and the books do not suffer for that.

While this series of novels is telling us of the 'Making of England' they are stories of the birth of Uhtred, following his life's, his loves, his losses of the women he loved, and his ongoing fight to reconcile his Pagan beliefs with that of giving his oath to a Christian King and then to keeping that King and his successors on the throne while trying to find his way back to and reclaiming Babbenburg in the north.

These stories are truly engaging and exciting reads and I can't recommend them enough.

As I have all of the previous books in the series in hardback I continued in that theme with this one; and it was good to get back to holding a 'book' again (although I have to confess it did feel a bit unwieldy to begin with)

Editing for Kindle:
Reading Enjoyment: 5 out of 5
Plot: 5 out of 5
Overall Rating: 5 out of 5
Chapters: 13
Page length: 330 story, 5 Historical note