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A review by tricksyliesmith
The Pagan Lord by Bernard Cornwell
3.0
I haven't read any of Bernard Cornwell's books before. To be honest haven't picked up much historical fiction lately either - but I couldn't resist when reading the premise of this Viking-Saxon battle epic.
'The Pagan Lord' is set at a particularly fragile point in time for a divided Britain, what with Saxons fighting Danish Vikings, and Wales and Scotland fighting them both, the country is continuously on the precipice of war, and everyone is fighting to be the next King, or Lord, or for another inch of land.
Uhtred is of Saxon heritage, but spiritually believes in the 'Old Gods' - the Norse Gods, Odin, Thor etc. But although he spends some time fighting the Vikings and some fighting the Saxons, what he really wants is to fight his way back into his ancestral home, and be Lord of his own land, the only part of England under neither Saxon nor Viking rule.
It made for a much more interesting historical tale than a simple black and white 'Clan A is fighting Clan B' type plot. Although I did spend a lot of time wondering whose side Uhtred would be fighting on next, and each battle they fought seemed to get them nothing and nowhere.
Unfortunately, after getting through about 200 pages I found out that 'The Pagan Lord' is acutally book 7 of series - a massive fail on my part. However, I didn't work this out from simply reading the book - I only spotted my error via Goodreads - and whilst the book did allude to past events here and there, they are never things that make a new reader such as myself feel alienated towards the overall plot, and I suppose it takes a well honed skill to enable the reader to pick up the story with ease this far into the series.
I found the ending a little ambiguous regarding Uhtred, but thankfully the historical afterword cleared that up for me.
A few here on Goodreads seem to believe it's not quite up to the standard of the others, but as I can't compare I'm quite happy to hear it; now I can track them down and read them all!
'The Pagan Lord' is set at a particularly fragile point in time for a divided Britain, what with Saxons fighting Danish Vikings, and Wales and Scotland fighting them both, the country is continuously on the precipice of war, and everyone is fighting to be the next King, or Lord, or for another inch of land.
Uhtred is of Saxon heritage, but spiritually believes in the 'Old Gods' - the Norse Gods, Odin, Thor etc. But although he spends some time fighting the Vikings and some fighting the Saxons, what he really wants is to fight his way back into his ancestral home, and be Lord of his own land, the only part of England under neither Saxon nor Viking rule.
It made for a much more interesting historical tale than a simple black and white 'Clan A is fighting Clan B' type plot. Although I did spend a lot of time wondering whose side Uhtred would be fighting on next, and each battle they fought seemed to get them nothing and nowhere.
Unfortunately, after getting through about 200 pages I found out that 'The Pagan Lord' is acutally book 7 of series - a massive fail on my part. However, I didn't work this out from simply reading the book - I only spotted my error via Goodreads - and whilst the book did allude to past events here and there, they are never things that make a new reader such as myself feel alienated towards the overall plot, and I suppose it takes a well honed skill to enable the reader to pick up the story with ease this far into the series.
I found the ending a little ambiguous regarding Uhtred, but thankfully the historical afterword cleared that up for me.
A few here on Goodreads seem to believe it's not quite up to the standard of the others, but as I can't compare I'm quite happy to hear it; now I can track them down and read them all!