Reviews

Excellent book. Just what you would expect from Follett. He brings real historically correct events surrounding fictional people. You feel exactly what it must have been like to live in that period in time.

lilylilie's review

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3.0

3.5 Stars
"The Pillars of the Earth" is my favourite book so of course I had to read this one as well. Just like with "A World Without End" i felt like the characters were really similar to TPOTE but in my personal opinion downgraded versions. But I would not be fair if I didn't say that I enjoyed this one a lot more than part 2 of the kingsbridge saga! I also feel like that if I had read it without having read the other two before this book probably would have gotten a higher rating.

mrbear's review

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4.0

This took me a fairly long time time to listen to, not just because it was an audiobook, but because it was less fundamentally compelling than the previous books. I found the characters less relatable across the board than both the previous books, with the “main character” Ned falling relatively far behind the variety or main characters in the other books both in terms of relatability and personality.

That said, if you’ve read the last 2, of course I still recommend this book. It did an excellent job of teaching me about a variety of historical events that I knew about separately, but not together or in order, and about the combative rise of Protestantism and the subsequent religious wars in northern Europe. Specifically, the book ties together the Spanish colonization of the islands in the Americas, the rise of protestantism in England, the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre, the edict of Nantes, the life and death of Mary, Queen of Scots, the Anglo-Spanish war, including the British attack on Cadiz and the defeat of the Spanish army in the English channel, the gunpowder plot, and the way in which all of these events culminated in the rise of Puritanism and the search for religious freedom in the new world. Quite frankly, its hard to imagine another novel contextualizing so much history without being a textbook.

My favorite aspects, however, were the clever, more nuanced points. Ned’s relatives leaving Spain for the Netherlands in search of a land more open to innovation, the life of a sailor as an escape from the various conflicts of European powers (and yet still closely related to it, through the wars), the slow transition of old priory grounds into modern marketplaces. These details provided incredible historical context and perspective, and made me fervently wish that historians regularly worked to write novels of this form to more easily pass on what we know about the past to the average person (with footnotes about what we know for sure and what we dont, to make it academic!).

Overall, a great series for closet historians like myself, and I can only hope Follett’s other series on the 20th century is as informative.

beatrice_apetrei's review

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3.0

A Column of Fire is so very different from its prequels.
I must confess that I enjoyed it less, than [b:The Pillars of the Earth|5043|The Pillars of the Earth (Kingsbridge, #1)|Ken Follett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388193707l/5043._SY75_.jpg|3359698] and [b:World Without End|5064|World Without End (Kingsbridge, #2)|Ken Follett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1509545511l/5064._SY75_.jpg|2845518]. The truth is that I don't find [a:Ken Follett|3447|Ken Follett|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1480592356p2/3447.jpg]'s writing any bit different, from before, which was, from the start, not the best descriptive narration - there are a lot of descriptive paragraphs throughout the novel and thus, it becomes hard to ignore the fact.

Spoiler

An example of that is the presence of intimate scenes - what one would call the adult content. I would totally remove it from the story. If Ken Follet is bad at something, those are scenes of intimacy.

The Plot
Ken Follet's novels - for me - are focused on two aspects: plot and character development. His Kingsbridge series centered around the lives of a children generation and followed them to their deaths, telling us how they grew up to be, how they lost things important to them, how they suffered, etc. This is accurate here as well.
The story takes place around the second half of the 16th century and follows Queen Elizabeth's ascension to power, and Queen Mary's demise. The political and religious conflicts take their hold on our characters and harden their way through life.
I think, A Column of Fire is barely about Kingsbridge and more about these conflicts. Compared to our beloved Jack, or Merthin, there is no builder here and we don't follow his work. The village of Kingsbridge is a starting - and somewhat ending - point for the characters. That is all. Nothing more. But, we travel around Spain, the New World, The Netherlands, England, Scotland and France as our characters find their ways there.

Characters
I love Follet's characters, always have, always will.
Compared to the two previous novels, A Column of Fire had - from what I think - original characters. Yes, it is a strange thing to say. But going back to the prequels, we had the talented red-haired Jack and Merthin, then we had the ambitious and self-confident Aliena and Caris, etc. To me, reading them felt more as a re-read, as if they were the same characters, set in another period of time, with another name, and different aspirations.
Whilst - mayhaps due to the age difference and screwed up memory -, Ned was something else now, Margaery, Pierre, etc. They are fantastic characters, with a lot of depth and trying their best to survive and live the best lives they could.
My favorite character, from all of these, must be Pierre, all the way.

Spoiler

For me, even though he was a villain, he had this package of flaws that got in his way many times. I liked how he strove to success and the way his wins turned him into a vile creature. Good job, [a:Ken Follett|3447|Ken Follett|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1480592356p2/3447.jpg]. Amazing!

Romance
This wouldn't be a Kingsbridge novel without a bit of "soulmates" romance that wins the passing of time and hardships of life. To be completely honest, this is part of what got A Column of Fire only 3 stars. Contrary to the first books, there isn't any chemistry at all between the protagonists, we don't really see much of Margaery anyway.
It is very pushed and overly exaggerated for my liking. They start off as childhood friends, and then become teenage sweethearts. Nothing wrong here. They talk on and on about how much they love each other and how important the other is, but we don't really see any justified interaction between the two, something that would keep their love alive for such a long time.

Spoiler

Their monologues are mainly focused on the others appearance, rather than anything else. They keep saying how beautiful, handsome, pretty the other is, even after decades of not seeing each other. To me that is pretty shallow and unrealistic.

Aliena and Jack's relationship had a lot of ups and downs, a lot of chemistry and depth. You will definitely not see that here.

Conclusion
I do recommend this book, but I don't think it's necessary. You might as well believe that World Without End is the last novel, you will not lose much.

suvata's review against another edition

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5.0

Ken Follett has a way of making history fascinating. I learned more European history from this trilogy than I ever did in school. All three books are 5-star reads. Make sure you set aside time to read them though as they about 1,000 pages each.

joeymcshea's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

rayarriz's review

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2.0

Far fall from the first two books. I was expecting a story full of life and intrigue and as colorful and as engrossing as the first two books, which are some of my favorites here. In this book the characters were not as interesting and I felt the story kept getting bogged down with pure history...which I love, don't get me wrong, but it was just too much. Also it wasn't as engaging and I found myself constantly skipping large portions. The writing seemed so basic compared to the first books. Not sure what happened.

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