Scan barcode
A review by thisotherbookaccount
The Archer's Tale by Bernard Cornwell
3.0
I used to love Bernard Cornwell, but I'm afraid that I'd have to downgrade that to "I like Bernard Cornwell — but in moderation". Cornwall is like cheese. You sometimes crave for it, but too much and it spoils the food a little.
The thing about Cornwell is that he writes the same books with the same characters. Your enjoyment of his books, then, will largely depend on how much you like the repeated elements. His protagonist is almost always a young man who is good at warfare, is driven by revenge and has an on-again-off-again relationship with God. He is also halfway good with the women that he meets — never rape-y, though not quite a gentleman. Also, as gritty and realistic as his battles are, after you've read the ones in his Warlord Chronicles, every subsequent battle will read more or less the same. Even the more modern battles in the Sharpe stories read the same, even though those battles involve cannons and rifles.
I was hoping for The Archer's Tale — or Harlequin, as they call it in the UK — to depart from this formula. Since the trilogy is called The Grail Quest, I was hoping for it to be, well, a quest for the Holy Grail. Maybe books two and three will touch on that but, for now, book one is mostly another run-of-the-mill Cornwell book. The titular Grail isn't even in this book, which is odd, replaced instead by a mythical lance.
I also want to add that women are there to clean wounds, be raped or be fallen in love with — which is odd, because Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles feature a handful of great female characters. A pity.
Will the next two books involve Thomas and a hodgepodge group of men travelling to the Middle-east? Will they see Jerusalem? Will they be hunting for the Holy Grail? These are speculations before reading the synopses for the next two books. I am just putting them here, in hopes that the next two books will fulfil my wishes. Otherwise, this will certainly end up as yet another disappointment.
The thing about Cornwell is that he writes the same books with the same characters. Your enjoyment of his books, then, will largely depend on how much you like the repeated elements. His protagonist is almost always a young man who is good at warfare, is driven by revenge and has an on-again-off-again relationship with God. He is also halfway good with the women that he meets — never rape-y, though not quite a gentleman. Also, as gritty and realistic as his battles are, after you've read the ones in his Warlord Chronicles, every subsequent battle will read more or less the same. Even the more modern battles in the Sharpe stories read the same, even though those battles involve cannons and rifles.
I was hoping for The Archer's Tale — or Harlequin, as they call it in the UK — to depart from this formula. Since the trilogy is called The Grail Quest, I was hoping for it to be, well, a quest for the Holy Grail. Maybe books two and three will touch on that but, for now, book one is mostly another run-of-the-mill Cornwell book. The titular Grail isn't even in this book, which is odd, replaced instead by a mythical lance.
I also want to add that women are there to clean wounds, be raped or be fallen in love with — which is odd, because Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles feature a handful of great female characters. A pity.
Will the next two books involve Thomas and a hodgepodge group of men travelling to the Middle-east? Will they see Jerusalem? Will they be hunting for the Holy Grail? These are speculations before reading the synopses for the next two books. I am just putting them here, in hopes that the next two books will fulfil my wishes. Otherwise, this will certainly end up as yet another disappointment.