Rating: 
Summary: Medevil Mastry
Review: This is the first book in a three book series - Archer's Tale, Vagabond, and Heretic. As I am an audiobook junky sorry to say I have only found them in abridged versions in audio (Bummer - if there is anyone out there who knows were unabridged audios of these books are please let me know). These are masterfully told and kept my attention throughout. These are my first Bernard Cornwell books but definitely won't be my last. If these are any indication of his story telling prowess then I'm definitely a new fan.
Thomas of Hookton is raised from childhood to be an English longbowman. Raised by his eccentric and mad relative (a priest) and orphaned young in his life the story of Thomas's search for the secrets of his family's past which hold within the secrets of the Holy Grail is fascinatingly told. Rich vivid characters and a rivoting storyline along with masterful storytelling. Well worth the time to read and one I will listen to again and again.
Rating: 
Summary: Going Medieval
Review: This violent, action-packed adventure is the first installment in what looks to be Bernard Cornwell's new Richard Sharpe-type series. Though the Sharpe series is fairly well known and very easy to find, I cannot claim to have read any of those books, and so cannot make any comparisons. This is, in fact, the first Cornwell book I've ever read. I had hoped to be introduced to this author through his novel, STONEHENGE, as it had me somewhat intrigued, but alas that was not to be my fate. I'd already had THE ARCHER'S TALE in my possession, and so I went to reading it. Now, more than a few months since having finished it, I very well suspect it was a poor choice to begin on. This story is set in England and France during the 14th century, the early beginnings of the Hundred Years War. The hero is Thomas of Hookton, bastard son of an expatriate French nobleman living in a small village along the southern coast of England. After that village is brutally attacked by French invaders and all its inhabitants, save Thomas, are killed, Thomas enlists himself as an archer in the English army of Edward III. In his quest to recover the lance of St. George, a sacred relic stolen from Hookton's church during the attack, Thomas refines his skills in archery and battle strategy. Throughout the story, it is in fact he who conceives key attack maneuvers that gain the English under the Earl of Northampton their victories, culminating finally with the famous battle at Crecy. Along the way, he rescues a widowed French countess from wolfish English soldiers sacking her village. He nurses her through trauma and, for a while, she becomes his cohort. Though Thomas fights in France and Brittany for the sole purpose of avenging himself on the mysterious "Black Knight" who had led the attack on Hookton and then stolen the lance, it's essentially the vicious Sir Simon Jekyll, a young English knight also fighting in the Earl's army, who is Thomas's main adversary throughout the course of this novel. While our hero gets himself into and out of one fine pickle after another, he bemoans the fact that he must ultimately fulfill the promise he made to his father to retrieve the sacred lance. Indeed, he has trouble keeping himself focused on that goal, and without the constant prodding by a priest accompanying the army, Father Hobbe, he likely would have lost his way. Cornwell's battle scenes are, as a whole, quite riveting, finely detailed and, far as I can tell, historically accurate. They are also gruesome and bloody - with men and horses hacked up mercilessly. I know I cannot fault the book on this point - War, after all, is war. It is upon other failings that I take censure: this is neither an in depth story filled with endearing, highly evolved characters as in Follett's PILLARS OF THE EARTH, nor is it an epic tale of honor and chivalry as in Sir Walter Scott's IVANHOE - neither a meaningfully worded, rousing heroic, nor epically enchanting saga is this. It is simply an historical adventure, and a graphically violent one at that. THE ARCHER'S TALE concluded on a rather scintillating note - very well set up for a sequel. That sequel is now out, and it's called VAGABOND. For those who enjoy fast-paced adventures, this series may certainly make for some good reading. I shall likely eventually give in and read VAGABOND sometime in the not so far distant future - as that mysterious Black Knight, Count Vexille "the Harlequin" is one of the more interesting villains I've come across in literature. I'll just have to grit my teeth and swallow my aversion to all this widespread medieval carnage.
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