My journey with Uhtred of Bebbanburg has finally reached its end with War Lord, the thirteenth and final book in one of the greatest historical fiction series of all time. I began my foray into Cornwell’s The Saxon Tales back in 2005. Thirteen books later, I’ve followed the life of Uhtred of Bebbanburg, one of…
Twelve books into his Saxon Tales series, Bernard Cornwall has delivered one of his best Uhtred tales yet in Sword of Kings. The novel combines the Game of Thrones-style politics of The Empty Throne with the desperate circumstances of The Pale Horseman. It’s a page-turner too, and I ripped through this book in a few…
It’s been more than a year since I finished reading War of the Wolf, the 11th book in Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Tales series. For some reason, I never got around to writing a review. Perhaps it was the pandemic, which broke out right about the time I finished this book. But as they say, better…
Many believe the old Celtic festival of Samhain became the inspiration for Halloween. With that in mind, you have to love this quote about Samhain from the opening of Bernard Cornwell’s Enemy of God … Today I have been thinking about the dead. This is the last day of the old year. The bracken on the hill…
It look longer than I had hoped, but I finished reading The Flame Bearer, the latest installment in Bernard Conwell’s excellent Saxon Tales series about the founding of the kingdom of England in the early tenth century. Here’s my review. For ten novels – that’s right, ten – we’ve been waiting for Uhtred to reclaim…
Many believe the old Celtic festival of Samhain became the inspiration for Halloween. With that in mind, you have to love this quote about Samhain from the opening of Bernard Cornwell’s Enemy of God … “Today I have been thinking about the dead. “This is the last day of the old year. The bracken on the hill…
Every once in a while I’ll reread one of my favorite novels for inspiration, and this summer that read was The Archer’s Tale by Bernard Cornwell. It reminded me how much I loved his Grail Quest series, and how pieces of it helped inspire my first novel, Enoch’s Device. I consider The Archer’s Tale to be a…
On the heels of my review of The Empty Throne, I’m offering my review of the next novel in Bernard Cornwell’s Last Kingdom series, Warriors of the Storm. The novel is another excellent installment in Cornwell’s ongoing saga about the Saxons and the Vikings in early ninth-century England. Reading Warriors of the Storm, I could…
Earlier this year, I finished The Empty Throne by Bernard Cornwell, the eighth installment in his newly renamed Last Kingdom series about England’s struggles against the Vikings in the late eighth and early ninth centuries. Here’s my review after this image of the book’s cover. When I saw the book’s title, I had assumed the…
This one snuck up on me, but thanks to friend of the blog Bill Brockman I’ve learned that the television adaptation of Bernard Cornwell’s The Last Kingdom will premier this Saturday on BBC America! Young Uhtred For those that follow this blog, you know that Bernard Cornwell is my all time favorite author of medieval…
With no time to blog this week, I’m digging into the archives. This one’s from January 2012.In one of my earliest blog posts, I talked about the fine line between the genres of historical fiction and historical fantasy. Earlier this month, two of my favorite authors, George R.R. Martin and Bernard Cornwell, touched on this issue in a joint…