The Pale Horseman | The Pale Horseman (The Saxon Chronicles Series #2)

Well written historical page-turner | The Pale Horseman (The Saxon Chronicles Series #2) | Bernard Cornwell

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	• The Pale Horseman (The Saxon Chronicles Series #2) Bernard Cornwell HarperCollins, 2007 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 57 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Go Pagans!

An excellent historical adventure and I enjoyed this much more than the first in the series. Eagerly looking forward to more in this series.

The Pale Horseman

Cornwell grabs the readers interest from the very beginning and doesn't let go until the last page! His books are so well written that the reader feels a pang of regret as he nears the end of each of his books.

Well written historical page-turner

I highly recommend this book to anyone that enjoys historical fiction with an emphasis on militaria. The author paints a vivid picture of life in a war-ravaged Essex during the Danish invasions. The book is a fast read with action on most every page. The heros are flawed and life-like. The final battle scene is one of the best I have read. If I could write this well, I'd quit my job.

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Good Story,But...

I have been a fan of Bernard Cornwell for years, and have always enjoyed the Sharpe novels. This new series set in Saxon England is interesting historically, and the story moves rapidly. I did have a couple of quibbles, and if Mr. Cornwell or his editor is checking his sales rank at Amazon and happens to read this,
know it is from a frequent reader. Please retire the words "sour" and "snarl". It must be tough with a couple of new books every year to keep the vocabulary fresh, but these words appear too frequently(sometimes more than once on the same page!). Also, although our protagonist is an unlettered pagan, he tosses off words like "inexorable". Perhaps that was a common word back in the ninth century.

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A Lusty Adventure Tale

This is the second in Cornwell's Saxon series but you didn't have to read The Last Kingdom (the first in the series) to enjoy this one.

Personally, I find it difficult not to enjoy a Cornwell novel. He has a gift of providing just enough history to satisfy the discerning while continuing the narrative at a nail-biting pace.

The Pale Horseman continues King Alfred's struggle to preserve Wessex from invading Viking hordes. The story is told from the viewpoint of the fictional Uhtred of Bebbanburg, a dispossessed young nobleman who has lived among the Danes and is contemptuous of Alfred's piety and caution. His actions at the critical battle of Cynuit in the previous novel should have made him a hero. Instead his thunder has been stolen by Odda the Younger who claims the honor for himself.

Bitter, Uhtred is tempted to join the Danes and he vaccilates between loyalty and defection throughout the novel. But blood ties prove stronger than disappointments and he overcomes them to stand beside Alfred in the fight to save the kingdom. Cornwell can't be equaled when it comes to depicting the horror of the battlefield and there's plenty of blood and guts as well as bawdy humor and romance as well.

The saga continues in Lords of the North, the next in the series.

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The last unvanquished piece of England, Wessex is eyed hungrily by the fearsome Viking conquerors. A dispossessed young nobleman, Uhtred is tied to the imperiled land by birth and marriage but was raised by the Danish invaders?and he questions where his allegiance must lie. But blood is his destiny, and when the overwhelming Viking horde attacks out of a wintry darkness, Uhtred must put aside all hatred and distrust and stand beside his embattled country's staunch defender?the fugitive King Alfred.

The Pale Horseman is a gripping, monumental adventure that gives breathtaking life to one of the most important epochs in English history?yet another masterwork from New York Times bestselling author Bernard Cornwell.

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