System 13

Title: The Last Kingdom [amazon]
Author: Bernard Cornwell
Publisher: HarperCollins; Repack edition (January 3, 2006)
Pages: 368
Book Number: 20

This is the second book of Cornwell’s I read, the first being Sharpe’s Tiger. I enjoyed Sharpe’s Tiger, but I absolutely loved this book.

The book is the tale of Uhtred, a Northumbrian who finds himself in the midst of the Danish invasion of England in the late 9th century. After Danes kill his older brother, they capture Uhtred, who ends up being taken under the wing of one Dane in particular, Ragnar. He is raised as a Dane, helping them conquer his own country. As he grows older, the tension between being a Dane and being an Englishman grows, and he flips back and forth between the sides. Throughout the book, Uhtred’s relationship with the king of Wessex, Alfred, grows.

I enjoyed this book on a couple of different levels. First – it’s just a good story. The characters are believable and likeable (or unlikeable!), which made me give a damn as to what was going on. I found Uhtred’s troubles in choosing sides to be fascinating – should he fight with those he “likes”, the Danes, who raised him, or should he fight for his own land?

The other level that I enjoyed the book on was the historical level. It’s clear that Cornwell has done his homework. The Danes didn’t have horns on their helmets; furthermore, they were called Danes or Northmen, rather than Vikings. He actually remarked on this in the back of the book. Why are they referred to as Danes or Northmen? Because that’s what the people of England thought of them as (or pagans); they didn’t think of them as Vikings.

I learned a bit about warfare in that area during the 9th century, namely that often, armies would fight in shield walls. For whatever reason (perhaps my old memories of Braveheart), I thought that battles during that time period were just a bunch of fellows running at each other, hacking away, with little to no organization at all. Granted, battles are inherently chaotic, but still, I didn’t know that the Anglo-Saxons / Danes fought in shield wall formation.

I’m looking forward to the next one in the series, The Pale Horseman, which I checked out from the library earlier today. I’ll be starting it as soon as I finish up Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone.