The Last Kingdom

Rating:
Summary: Bernard Cornwell at His Brilliant Best
Review: Bernard Cornwell is back to his brilliant best after what I thought a slight stutter with Stonehenge. This book is excellent and it is difficult to give a brief synopsis of it without giving too much of the plot away, but here goes.

The book begins in the late 9th century AD. The Vikings are seen in the coastal water of Northumbria. The news comes through to the Ealdorman of the major stronghold in Northumbria that the Vikings have captured Eoferwic (York) and he marches with his army and his ten year old son to join forces with the other English forces to retake the city.

The battle is a resounding success for the Vikings and the young boy is captured and taken into the family of Ragnar one of the senior Vikings. Ragnar likes the boy Uhtred and treats him as his own son.

The struggle between the English and the Danes and how the boy grows up not knowing where is true loyalties lie is the background to the book. His eventual marriage moves him closer to the English cause, and when he is drawn into a battle against one of the greatest Viking chieftains he realises at last his true allegiance.

This really is a blood and guts novel and a really good read.

Rating:
Summary: Best Work Yet!
Review: Great depiction of Danish/Viking life and their invasion of England, juxtaposed against that of the English defenders fighting desperately to hold on. The hero has a foot in each fascinating, vividly drawn world. This book is very similar to but IMO surpasses his Arthur trilogy in terms of characterization and plotting. The climactic battle will blow you away. Impossible to stop reading.

Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: I very much enjoyed this book. It's a great story with intricate characters. Cornwell lets us get to know many different sides of one story. You get to know the Vikings or rather Danes and what kind of people they are and the people of England who are barely Christians and also the priests and pious kings. It's very interesting to read about a time in the English history that isn't written about much in historical fiction. I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: my favorite of all
Review: I've read almost all the Cornwell books: the Sharpe series, Civil War series, the archer, and King Arthur--only the 2 or 3 individual novels have been missed. This is my favorite so far. It is similar to the King Arthur books but with less of the mysticism and magic. The hero is a spunky boy who amuses a Viking chief during a battle and is adopted; the Norse life proves to be more suited to his taste and he grows up as a Dane. However, some old business brings him back to the English side. I won't tell more but any lover of historical fiction will find it hard to put this book down.

Rating:
Summary: THE LAST KINGDOM Delivers!
Review: It is Northumbria, England, in the year 866. Uhtred, the son of an Earl becomes an orphan at ten and is captured and adopted by Ragnar the Dane. He is taught the Viking ways and Ragnar becomes more a father to him than his own father ever was. He loves the unrestricted, impious ways of the Danes and learns to become a formidable warrior.

King Alfred, (later known as "The Great") is portrayed as an over pious but clever King of Essex. While Alfred is not a well-liked King, he is an intelligent one and soon comes to bind Uhtred to his cause against the Danes.

The brutally descriptive battle scenes are exciting and repellant at the same time. Battles and wars are not described here as glorious and heroic circumstances but as what they really were, brutal, bloody, and often times fatal.

This title was an excellent read and I just couldn't put it down many times at night. I've read it until the wee hours of the morning. I believe this is the best BC title I have ever read to date, even though I haven't read any of the Sharpe's novels (that era and place settings are not of interest to me). I highly recommend this novel to anyone interested in early English (Saxon) history and/or Alfred the Great (and in the upcoming series, his descendants).