A grand, if sometimes grandiose, portrayal of a szabla-wielding hero.
Tomaszek (Dance the Golden Calf, 2016, etc.) offers a sweeping novel of historical military fiction set in 17th-century Poland.
Young Boles?aw Radok, known to most as “Bolek,” lives in the southern part of the country on his family’s farm. Although the land around him is one of beautiful mountains and lakes, it’s also full of danger. It’s the late 1600s, during the reign of King Jan III Sobieski, and threats of Ottoman invasion and harassment from bandits are very real. Bolek hopes to one day wield a curved sword, known as a szabla, and spill the blood of enemies with tremendous strikes. All his dreams seem lost, however, when his family farm is attacked by brigands. When help arrives in the form of four knights, Bolek’s life is forever changed. They’re part of a cavalry group known as the pancerni and annihilating aggressors is no more difficult to them than drinking vodka. Led by the religious yet deadly Priest, the men eventually agree to take Bolek under their wing. Should he survive his training, he will be a great hero like them—but doing so will be no easy task. Tomaszek makes Bolek’s journey an epic one, full of high-minded sentiments (“Each man is from God’s image, has dignity and, therefore, must be protected by a virtuous constitution,” says one of the pancerni) and discussions about honor (“All can be taken from you, save honor,” Bolek’s grandfather informs him). Action scenes are always around the corner, with plenty of flying arrows and galloping horses to carry the adventure along. A few coincidences drain some of the excitement, as does the fantastical nature of the ending, and some characters are so unrealistic that they seem almost otherworldly; Priest, for instance, is a defrocked clergyman who’s not only well versed in Latin, politics, warfare, horsemanship, and Catholicism, but he also reads Shakespeare before a battle. Nevertheless, the story travels well from farm to countryside to the famous Battle of Vienna in 1683—a conflict whose depiction shows deserved reverence for the bravery of King Sobieski and his men.
A grand, if sometimes grandiose, portrayal of a szabla-wielding hero.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-78099-522-9
Page Count: 385
Publisher: Roundfire Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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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