A fine escape for lovers of blood and gore from days of yore.
The fifth book in The Outlaw Chronicles (Warlord, 2013, etc.) concludes Robin Hood’s quest for the Holy Grail with an unholy trail of blood and a damn good story.
Narrator Sir Alan Dale is a devout Christian (in his own mind) who will follow the heathen Robin Hood anywhere. With a small band of friends, they leave England in hopes of finding the sacred bowl Christ once drank from 1,200 years earlier. Mere droplets of water that have touched the grail will cure any sickness, they believe. Sir Alan’s beloved wife, Godifa, or Goody, has fallen terribly ill, so his aim is to cure her, but Robin just wants the grail as loot. Alan’s and Robin’s personalities have already been well fleshed out in earlier novels, but the best character here is Nur, Alan’s disfigured and crazed former lover. Fans of the series already know her, but finally she is at her howling best. All the books drip with gore and with cleavage of the worst kind (alas, no sex), so squeamish readers ought to avoid the whole series. Heroes and foes fight battles both countless and often pointless because it’s what they do—slaughter each other in the name of the Prince of Peace. That said, Donald writes great battle scenes. Although “the ice snake of fear slithered in [Alan's] stomach” before an early encounter, he later “took a firm double grip on the handle of Fidelity and waded into the battle like a man charging into the sea.” Later, one slice from his sword Fidelity “rent [the cowardly killer’s] body from shoulder to waist, his torso flipping open obscenely like a sliced plum.” And against desperate odds, he and his band “poured pots of boiling water on the men below and jeered at their scalded screams.” Then, when everything has long since cooled down, Alan realizes the great power of faith and belief.
A fine escape for lovers of blood and gore from days of yore.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-250-05670-2
Page Count: 432
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
At the outset, this might seem like minor Morrison (A Mercy, 2008, etc.), not only because its length is borderline novella,...
A deceptively rich and cumulatively powerful novel.
At the outset, this might seem like minor Morrison (A Mercy, 2008, etc.), not only because its length is borderline novella, but because the setup seems generic. A black soldier returns from the Korean War, where he faces a rocky re-entry, succumbing to alcoholism and suffering from what would subsequently be termed PTSD. Yet perhaps, as someone tells him, his major problem is the culture to which he returns: “An integrated army is integrated misery. You all go fight, come back, they treat you like dogs. Change that. They treat dogs better.” Ultimately, the latest from the Nobel Prize–winning novelist has something more subtle and shattering to offer than such social polemics. As the novel progresses, it becomes less specifically about the troubled soldier and as much about the sister he left behind in Georgia, who was married and deserted young, and who has fallen into the employ of a doctor whose mysterious experiments threaten her life. And, even more crucially, it’s about the relationship between the brother and his younger sister, which changes significantly after his return home, as both of them undergo significant transformations. “She was a shadow for most of my life, a presence marking its own absence, or maybe mine,” thinks the soldier. He discovers that “while his devotion shielded her, it did not strengthen her.” As his sister is becoming a woman who can stand on her own, her brother ultimately comes to terms with dark truths and deep pain that he had attempted to numb with alcohol. Before they achieve an epiphany that is mutually redemptive, even the earlier reference to “dogs” reveals itself as more than gratuitous.Pub Date: May 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-307-59416-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
This is historical adventure on a grand scale, right up there with the works of Conn Iggulden and Minette Walters.
Plenty of gore from days of yore fills the 12th entry in Cornwell’s The Last Kingdom series (War of the Wolf, 2018, etc.).
The pagan warlord Uhtred of Bebbanburg narrates his 10th-century adventures, during which he hacks people apart so that kingdoms might be stitched together. He is known to some as the Godless or the Wicked, a reputation he enjoys. Edward, King of Wessex, Mercia, and East Anglia is gravely ill, and Uhtred pledges an oath to likely heir Æthelstan to kill two rivals, Æthelhelm and “his rotten nephew,” Ælfweard, when the king dies. Uhtred’s wife, Eadith, wants him to break that oath, but he cannot live with the dishonor of being an oathbreaker. The tale seems to begin in the middle, as though the reader had just turned the last page in the 11th book—and yet it stands alone quite well. Uhtred travels the coast and the river Temes in the good ship Spearhafoc, powered by 40 rowers struggling against tides and currents. He and his men fight furious battles, and he lustily impales foes with his favorite sword, Serpent-Breath. “I don’t kill the helpless,” though, which is one of his few limits. So, early in the story, when a man calling himself “God’s chosen one” declares “We were sent to kill you,” readers may chuckle and say yeah, right. But Uhtred faces true challenges such as Waormund, “lord Æthelhelm’s beast.” Immense bloodletting aside, Cornwell paints vivid images of the filth in the Temes and in cities like Lundene. This is mainly manly fare, of course. Few women are active characters. The queen needs rescuing, and “when queens call for help, warriors go to war.” The action is believable if often gruesome and loathsome, and it never lets up for long.
This is historical adventure on a grand scale, right up there with the works of Conn Iggulden and Minette Walters.Pub Date: Nov. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-256321-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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