The Nature of Things

Sword Song by Bernard Cornwell My rating: 4 of 5 stars It is 885 on the island that will one day be called England, and it is a time of relative peace. The northern part of the island is ruled by the Danes and in the south, Wessex, Alfred, who will later be known as "the Great" still is king. Uhtred, the Saxon raised as a Dane, still holds true to his oath to serve Alfred. His renown has grown throughout the island. He is Alfred's most formidable warrior. Uhtred, though, has settled down a bit. He is now 28 years old and has a wife whom he loves and two children with another on the way. He has land and position and, though he still exults in the joy of battle, he is no longer so eager to seek it out. He knows the costs of battle as well as its rewards. But the fragile peace is not to last. Vikings have invaded and now hold the ancient Roman city of Lundene on the Temes and they hope to dislodge Alfred from Wessex and take over all the South. Moreover, they have a plan fo...

Lords of the North by Bernard Cornwell My rating: 2 of 5 stars Historical fiction is among my favorite genres. One period that I'm particularly interested in is ninth and tenth century England when the country as we know it was in its birth pangs. It was a violent time when Danes and Norsemen made frequent raids on the land, pillaging, killing, raping, but some of them actually stayed and settled there and became a part of the formation of a new society. My interest in this period explains how I came to be reading Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Stories. His are action adventures, full of blood and guts. Not exactly the reading fare that I normally turn to, but good, well-researched historical fiction can often give us insight into the real history of a period and place. I can't really fault Cornwell's research. The stories are based on real events and people. But the unrelenting violence and the lack of any significant character development leave me unsatisfied. I need to ta...

The Pale Horseman by Bernard Cornwell My rating: 4 of 5 stars Uhtred Ragnarson is a divided man. He was a Saxon, born in 9th century Northumbria, at a time when England was regularly being raided by the viking Danes. He grew up in a time of warfare and learned to fight at his father's side, which is where he was when his father was killed by Danes in battle. Uhtred was still a child but he fought so savagely against his father's killers that he impressed Ragnar, their leader. Instead of killing him, Ragnar captured and eventually adopted him, and so the Saxon boy grew up as a Dane. Uhtred was fully Dane in his culture. He admired the Danes and loved his adoptive family. He received his post-graduate course in fighting from them and so he learned both the Saxon way and the Danes' way of battle. It was to serve him well in later years. We meet Uhtred here as a brash and arrogant twenty-year-old, cocksure of his own strength and his power to overcome all enemies. Not a pleasa...

In the middle of the ninth century, the prayers of the English routinely contained the line, "From the fury of the Northmen, good Lord, deliver us." It was a time when the fierce Danes came down on British soil like the wolf on the fold. They were hungry for spoils and conquest. They raped and killed and took everything that wasn't nailed down and some things that were, leaving a wasteland and a destitute people in their path. It's a period of history that seems made for the story-telling talents of Bernard Cornwell and he doesn't disappoint. He has created a rousing epic adventure, as told by a young warrior who had intimate familiarity with both sides in the struggle. As a young lad in 866, our narrator was the second son of a lord of Northumbria named Uhtred. When the older son of the lord, who was also named Uhtred, was killed, beheaded by the Danes, the family name was passed on to the second son. He became Uhtred son of Uhtred. Still a child, he went with hi...