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Recommendation: Bernard Cornwell

DarrenGMiller

First Post
Has anyone else here read anything by him? I first read Stonehenge, then the Grail Quest (The Archer's Tale - British title: Harlequin; Vagabond and Heretic) series. I had to wait for them to be written, as I started when the first one was released here in the U.S. Now I am reading his latest series, which started with The Last Kingdom and will continue with The Pale Rider (IIRC). I have the first book of his Tales of Arthur, but have not read it yet (The Winter King).

DM
 

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I always found the Sharpe's books to be great fun, sorta like "Boy's Own Adventures" writ large or Horatio Hornblower on land. Still, they always felt just a bit lacking.

I didn't understand what I was missing until I read his Warlord/Arthur trilogy -- those books are simply fantastic! The characters feel deeper, there is a sense of where the whole series is going (rather than a single book/adventure), and somehow everything ties into something larger. On top of this, as someone who has read way too many books on King Arthur, I had to take my hat off to him for going to medieval versions of the tales and then twisting them back in on themselves -- essentially going "how would this scene have played out if it were real?" Simply loved it. :)

The Grail series also feels good that way. I have picked up the first book and will start reading it in a week or two, when my time finally permits. ;)
 

Cornwell is my favorite historical fiction author. Got into him initially after seeing the BBC "Sharpe" series and learning they were based on his novels. Sounds like you've already read a lot of his works (though you should check out the Sharpe series). My favorite novel of his, after the Grail trilogy, is "The Gallows Thief". Really excellent book, a standalone tale set in England post-Napoleon (c. 1820s).

Cornwell has mentioned that he has plans to possibly do more Thomas of Hookton stories (outside of the Grail Quest), and possibly use the characters in Gallows Thief again someday as well.

As an aside, another author whose work you might enjoy (in the vein of Cornwell) is Bernard Knight's "Crowner John" series. It deals with the King's Crowner (coroner) in late 12th century England. Good mysteries, and he has the sort of historical endnotes that Cornwell does in his novels.
 

I just got through with The Winter King and found it to be an exceptional book. I am jonsing for book 2 but couldn't find it on my recent vacation so instead I read Flew the Eagle....Interesting take on Boudicia (sp?) but comparitively it was poorly written. I have yet to read Sharpe but it looks like I may need to.
 

I'll second "Gallows Thief". I hope he does use those characters again. It' s a fun period to set a novel.

The thing about Cornwell is that his work tends to be pretty formulaic, but that's not a bad thing. If you pick up one of his books, you know what you're going to get, and you get it. :)
 

I don't know, I've read most of his books except for the Sharpe series and while I was initially impressed I've gotten over that and started feeling that he forces horrific acts when they don't make much sense or at least at not particularly favorable points in the story. In short they get to where it's all about slogging through the mud and having your female companions raped by bandits, and while that might be sort of refreshingly historically accurate I'm just not sure if it's good fiction over and over again.

I'd almost like to see him write a book on normal people, away from warfare in the near present day, just to see if he could perform it without falling into paragraphs-long descriptions of someone's disease-ridden body, a villain only marginally more personable than the hero of the story, a string of women enduring a string of rape and abuse, and someone retaliating to an injustice with an atrocious act of violence. Moral ambiguity might be his strong point, but after a while it's just not making as much of an impact because there's no strong comparison and the language is just repeating itself. I get the feeling that a lot of his characters simply age without developing much or at all.
 

James Heard said:
I'd almost like to see him write a book on normal people, away from warfare in the near present day
I know he wrote some novels a while back that were about sailing -- not military sailing but just modern folks with sailboats from what I understand. I've never read them though.

I remember reading an interview with him and he basically admitted to having a formula that he followed for each book so it probably isn't too surprising that they seem repetative.
 


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