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3.52 AVERAGE
3.52 AVERAGE
This book and Agincourt really shows how versatile of an author Cornwell is. Stonehenge is actually a pretty good book. It reads like a Ken Follett novel (which is a compliment, to them both!). I love the historical and research part, I love the characters and the setting.
Spoilers ahead:
The reason this only gets 3 stars is that the plot is boring. There is too much detail. We don't really need to know the whole process of building it. To try and fit the whole thing into the story is too much. The book would have been better off if Cornwell just wrote a snippet of the story and maybe described the rest of it as oral history or something.
At some point I just didn't care anymore about the building of the temple because there was too much of it. I was going to dnf the book, then just decided to finish it just to finish it. Apart from that, a great look into neolithic Britain.
Spoilers ahead:
The reason this only gets 3 stars is that the plot is boring. There is too much detail. We don't really need to know the whole process of building it. To try and fit the whole thing into the story is too much. The book would have been better off if Cornwell just wrote a snippet of the story and maybe described the rest of it as oral history or something.
At some point I just didn't care anymore about the building of the temple because there was too much of it. I was going to dnf the book, then just decided to finish it just to finish it. Apart from that, a great look into neolithic Britain.
Review - A bit of a disappointment to be honest. I haven't read any of Bernard Cornwell's other novels, but several people I know praise him highly. I can't understand it if this is the general standard of his books, but then, maybe this is a blip. It isn't encouraging me to read more of his novels. I felt that the characters were quite two-dimensional in a lot of places, and at times the description was lacking, though at other points it was very good. I couldn't engage with it, and so didn't finish it.
Genre? - Historical / Drama
Characters? - Lengar
Setting? - Stonehenge (England)
Series? - N/A
Recommend? – No
Rating - 9/20
Genre? - Historical / Drama
Characters? - Lengar
Setting? - Stonehenge (England)
Series? - N/A
Recommend? – No
Rating - 9/20
A stirring epic of Bronze Age England!
Dr Phil would have loved to get his teeth into these boys - the perfect dysfunctional Bronze Age tribal family!
Three brothers - Camaban, the all but insane sorcerer born a cripple who dreams of re-uniting the sun god and the moon goddess in his perfect temple; Lengar, the brutally sadistic, power hungry warrior who kills his own father to take over the position of chief of the tribe; and Saban, the quiet cerebral type who achieves the impossible by staying alive despite his brothers' efforts and completing the near impossible engineering feat of erecting Stonehenge, a never before dreamed of monolithic temple on the Salisbury Plains.
Stonehenge is a magnificent hypothetical tale set in the second millennium BC, Bronze Age England. As enormous in conception and as dramatic in the writing as Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth, Cornwell has treated his readers to a magnificent epic rich with sorcery, pagan ritual, ambition, tribal warfare, family rivalries, mythology and bronze age culture that hypothesizes a possible backdrop to the completion of that enigmatic monolithic structure, Stonehenge.
But he also did much more than merely tell a story that all readers of historical fiction will thoroughly enjoy. He also provided some absolutely fascinating sidebars and essays on the probable state of Bronze Age science - medicine, astronomy, weaponry, warfare, engineering - and indulged himself in some musings on what might have been tribal mythology, philosophy and theology.
A thoroughly engrossing read from first page to last. Highly recommended.
Paul Weiss
Dr Phil would have loved to get his teeth into these boys - the perfect dysfunctional Bronze Age tribal family!
Three brothers - Camaban, the all but insane sorcerer born a cripple who dreams of re-uniting the sun god and the moon goddess in his perfect temple; Lengar, the brutally sadistic, power hungry warrior who kills his own father to take over the position of chief of the tribe; and Saban, the quiet cerebral type who achieves the impossible by staying alive despite his brothers' efforts and completing the near impossible engineering feat of erecting Stonehenge, a never before dreamed of monolithic temple on the Salisbury Plains.
Stonehenge is a magnificent hypothetical tale set in the second millennium BC, Bronze Age England. As enormous in conception and as dramatic in the writing as Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth, Cornwell has treated his readers to a magnificent epic rich with sorcery, pagan ritual, ambition, tribal warfare, family rivalries, mythology and bronze age culture that hypothesizes a possible backdrop to the completion of that enigmatic monolithic structure, Stonehenge.
But he also did much more than merely tell a story that all readers of historical fiction will thoroughly enjoy. He also provided some absolutely fascinating sidebars and essays on the probable state of Bronze Age science - medicine, astronomy, weaponry, warfare, engineering - and indulged himself in some musings on what might have been tribal mythology, philosophy and theology.
A thoroughly engrossing read from first page to last. Highly recommended.
Paul Weiss
Very much enjoyed the first half of the book, even while not liking all the main characters. After about the middle of the book it started to drag for me (pardon the pun) as they moved stone after stone, using slaves and oxen, describing in detail the methods utilized. Interesting to a certain point, possibly the high light for some readers but became boring to me. This was my first Cornwell book and I would probably read another.
I was quite excited to read this because I do love a bit of historic fiction (it's quite interesting reading an authors take on what could be behind a historic event). But when I began, I quickly became worried as I was having trouble connecting with the narrative. It just wasn't capturing my interest. For the most part I found it a hard slog getting through this book, I found it boring, mundane, repetitive and uninspired. There were a few glimmers of interest, but over all, not enough for me to justify reading it (event though I did finish it). Disappointed.
A long book, never boring, but there were some moments where I thought "come on, build that effing temple already"
Ran out of time, will try to borrow it and read it later.
I found this really hard to get into which is unusual for Bernard Cornwell books, I usually devour them quickly. This certainly got better as it went along. I think it was just too long and the chapters too long but some parts were wonderful. I enjoy the authors voice at the end in his historical note.
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No