Author: August

Cornwell was already a veteran when he wrote The Last Kingdom, so there was no real danger of The Pale Horseman displaying any trace of a freshman slump. I’m pleased to say that he did not disappoint. Uhtred is again the narrator, but instead of focusing on his life with the Danes, The Pale Horseman shifts back to England and introduces Alfred and his political maneuverings in a more serious way. (Also his stomach problems, most likely colitis, a condition that I’m well aware is difficult to cope with nowadays, never mind in the ninth century.) It’s often easy to fall into the trap of thinking that people in the distant past, due to their lack of technological advancement or their ideas about the natural and social orders, were somehow less intelligent, less sophisticated than we are today. This idea is sadly reinforced by a lot of popular media, particularly… Continue Reading →

No doubt we’ve all had moments in our lives when we think “wow, I really should have listened to my father on that one.” As far as books are concerned, my biggest such moment was when I finally sat down to read Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series. I had been putting them off for years despite my father pushing them at me, and as a result I spent a long time in the dark when I could have been reading perhaps the best historical fiction ever written. My father didn’t raise any fools, though, so having learned my lesson about Patrick O’Brian, when he (my father) sent me a box full of Bernard Cornwell’s novels a while back, I put them in my stack, in the special spot I reserve for books that will allow me to blow off a little steam and have some fun. My father’s taste in historical… Continue Reading →

I must say, Not Quite Dead was absolutely the weakest of John MacLachlan Gray’s three historical novels. There’s two major flaws with the book. Well, okay, before I get started on the two major flaws, I should point out there are lots of things I liked about the book, and I’d be interested in seeing more books featuring some of these characters (Inspector Shadduck in particular), but these are not the things that stuck with me about this book. So the two big things: first, the plot was complicated and slow. Complicated and slow, while fine in any number of other books, is not a quality that I look for when selecting a mystery/thriller. The complexity of the plot (or perhaps, seeming complexity) is mostly the result of having too many characters and differing points of view for a book this short to assimilate. It jumps all over the place,… Continue Reading →