Bernard Cornwell’s epic story of the making of England continues in this eleventh installment in the bestselling Saxon Tales series—”like Game of Thrones, but real” (The Observer)—the basis of the hit Netflix television series The Last Kingdom.
His blood is Saxon
His heart is Viking
His battleground is England
“Perhaps the greatest writer of historical adventure novels today” (Washington Post), Bernard Cornwell has dazzled and entertained readers and critics with his page-turning bestsellers. Of all his protagonists, however, none is as beloved as Uhtred of Bebbanburg.
And while Uhtred might have regained his family’s fortress, it seems that a peaceful life is not to be – as he is under threat from both an old enemy and a new foe. The old enemy comes from Wessex where a dynastic struggle will determine who will be the next king. And the new foe is Sköll, a Norseman, whose ambition is to be King of Northumbria and who leads a frightening army of wolf-warriors, men who fight half-crazed in the belief that they are indeed wolves. Uhtred, believing he is cursed, must fend off one enemy while he tries to destroy the other. In this new chapter of the Saxon Tales series—a rousing adventure of courage, treachery, duty, devotion, majesty, love and battle, as seen through the eyes of a warrior straddling two worlds—Uhtred returns to fight once again for the destiny of England.
Nobody writes historical fiction as well as Bernard Cornwell. Within 2 paragraphs you are transported to the world about which he is writing. Intensely descriptive without an ounce of wordiness, you can hear the battles, the whinny of the horses, all the sights and sounds he brings to your mind’s eye. The most fascinating characters you are going to care about and root for their success or failure as the case may be. When I finish a book, (and I race forward to the denouement in spite of telling myself to slow down and savor the book), I am sad because I become so wrapped up in each character’s story, I want to continue to visit them and watch it all unfold. He is the best, especially, at historical fiction. I highly reccomend any book by Bernard Cornwell.
Another great addition to the Uhtred books by Bernard Cornwell. This one was hotly anticipated as I think the previous two entries – Warriors of the Storm and The Flame Bearer – have been right up there with the best that the series has to offer. While I don’t think WotW quite lived up to that standard, this remains a brilliant read and a cracking series. The development of the lead character is class as are the pantheon of secondary characters who we meet throughout the story. We lose one in this novel which was genuinely sad. Cannot wait for the next from the canon of Cornwell.
The Master scores again, classic Cornwell
The Wolf War is Bernard Cornwell’s latest contribution to his series The Saxon Chronicles. In this series, the author traces the growing emergence of a unified country with a common language and common laws and customs, as England grows out of the Saxon kingdoms which occupy the island of Great Britain around the time of King Alfred, the Great. As always, the story is related to the reader by Cornwell’s main character, Uhtred of Bebbanburgh, a Saxon warlord whose lands are in Norththumbria, the last of the Saxon kingdoms remaining to be amalgamated into the lands of the Angles and the Saxons,now ruled by King Alfred’s son, the West Saxon king, Edward. Uhtred finds himself torn between his loyalty to Alfred, oaths he has given to Alfred’s daughter, the queen of Mercia, who is now dead, and vows he made to protect Alfred’s bastard son, Osric, and Edward’s first-born, Aethelstan. Uhtred’s tasks are not made any easier by his knowledge that sooner or later, the king of Wessex, whomever it may be, will eventually have to march north to claim Northumbria and complete the consolidation of Saxon England. When that day comes, Uhtred knows that he will have to commit to the aid of the king of Northumbria, a Dane who was Uhtred’s son-in-law until his daughter is killed by a Norse raider, and who now finds himself married to Prince Aethelstan’s twin sister, a dynastic attempt by the dying King Edward to tie Northumbria to Wessex. All of that lies in the future as the present is occupied by Uhtred’s quest for revenge against the Norseman who killed his daughter. When the story turns to the battle scenes, Cornwell is in his true element. Nobody writes battle like the Master whether it is flintlocks and bayonets during the Peninsular Wars (the Sharpe series), percussion caps and repeaters in the American Civil War (Copperhead and Rebel series), or longbows versus mounted knights at Agincourt (The Archer series). The reader is inevitably caught up in the ebb and flow of combat where fear and bravery compete for the warrior’s attention. My only complaint which I can direct at Mr. Cornwell is that he produced the books in this series at the rate of one per year. Having read the latest installment of the Saxon Chronicles, I am now forced to wait another year for the next installment. I know that it will be worth it, however.
Another excellent story in the Saxon Tales