Sword Song (The Saxon Chronicles, Book 4) | Bernard Cornwell

Sword Song (The Saxon Chronicles, Book 4) | Bernard Cornwell | Sword Song

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Sword Song (The Sa...

	Sword Song (The Saxon Chronicles, Book 4) Bernard Cornwell Harper, 2008 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 44 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Cornwell is still the master

If you have read Cornwell, this is what you're used to. He brings history to life in a way that we can appreciate--soldiers making jokes before going into a battle where some of them are sure to die, etc. The only problem is that the book is too short. Read it in one day and have to wait another year or so for Cornwell to write his next book.

Sword Song

Another Super Saxon Tale. I can't wait for the next one... HURRY UP! :-)
The Saxon tales are vividly writen with a warriors point of view. I will not be happy to finish this series.

A historical action movie in print

Bernard does a great spin on this, and finally, like the Last Kingdom, he seems to have created more of an action movie script than just a historical fiction. Someone could actually shorten this thing and turn it into a movie Braveheart style.

It starts out when a bloodthirsty attack of the Viking camp by Uhtred and shows that the Saxons have finally gotten their act together, going on an offensive rather than defensive. The kidnap of Princess Aenlaed and rather strange and ironic love affair between Aenflaed and the Viking lord (who apparently is a better dude than her own husband) is a twist in the tale I've never expected.

Cornwell does an excellent job mixing actions such as a kidnap conspiracy with its strategic importance of how the Vikings could have won with ransom. Also, great to see Uhtred getting some of his dues and almost becoming king of Mercia. This is one heck of a book to read.

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Just as Uhtred's place is in the shield wall of battle, Cornwell's place is in his description of armed conflict

I spent most of yesterday driving around central New Jersey, running a number of miscellaneous errands, and I was thinking that there isn't much place for a Viking in this modern world. None of the characters who populate Bernard Cornwell's Saxon tales --- the tireless men of the shield wall, the doughty warrior-priests, the crafty boatmasters --- would be able to do what I did that day, which was walk into Lowe's to get a new mailbox and pay for it with a Visa card. Vikings are all very well off in the pages of historical fiction, but the world of today requires a different skill set.

Or so I thought. When I got home I did another un-Viking-like thing. I fired up the DVR and played the first episode of the new Ken Burns film on World War II. There was a mild-mannered gray-haired retiree explaining how he hunted Japanese soldiers on Bataan and didn't consider the day a success unless he had killed at least one. That's the appropriate Viking attitude for you, preserved down to this very day.

SWORD SONG, the fourth installment in The Saxon Chronicles, finds our hero Uhtred faced with the very modern problem of a deadline. The half-ruined Roman town of Lundene has been occupied by a new wave of Danish invaders, seeking to capitalize on the divisions in the Saxon kingdoms of Britain. From Lundene, the Vikings can control trade on the Temes River and raid deep into the kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia. Uhtred is --- however begrudgingly --- sworn to the service of Alfred, King of Wessex, and Alfred has decreed that his new son-in-law is to be the new ruler of Mercia. The Vikings must leave by the start of spring, or else.

Although Uhtred is an utterly reliable and deadly warrior, he is ill-suited for the task at hand. For one thing, his sympathies lie toward the Danes, with whom he shares a religion and a fierce fighting spirit. The Danes have promised him the kingdom of Mercia if he will join them in overthrowing Alfred in Wessex, and they've put together a ruse to convince him that the Fates themselves are on their side. Not to mention that if Uhtred is victorious against the Danes, he is assured to get none of the credit or the spoils of battle.

It would be wrong to say that SWORD SONG is a psychological novel, but it is one in which Uhtred spends a lot of time fretting --- specifically about the conflict between his oaths to Alfred and the fatalism of his philosophy. "Fate is inexorable," Uhtred reminds us --- maybe one too many times --- so how can a man bind his future conduct with an oath if fate decrees otherwise, especially if his oath binds him to a near-suicidal river-borne assault against a Viking shield wall?

And, of course, there's no way that Uhtred would back down from a challenge like that, just like there's no way that Cornwell would cheat his readers out of such a battle scene. Uhtred does take his raiders pell-mell down the Thames to capture a gate from inside, and a glorious, messy, bloody battle occurs. Just as Uhtred's place is in the shield wall of battle, Cornwell's place is in his description of armed conflict, making the chaos clear, bringing all the little details to life and helping to ensure that the Viking spirit gets carried down to the next generation.

--- Reviewed by Curtis Edmonds, who writes the "Northbound" blog at [...].

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Uthred, go your own way

I've read - of course - all previous parts of the Saxon Chronicles. And hardly I've ever read a more exciting story. The history of Uthred goes up and down like no one can imagine. And so this brave and smart warrior, which has sworn an oath to King Alfred, is getting behind his expectations - and is frustrated by Alfreds decisions again and again. Although the book is written in the same exciting way like the other three, it is hard to believe why Uthred just not runs away from Alfred and does his business at Bebbanburg, with Ragnars help. Maybe in Book 4 (but please, then!!)
Result: still a good book, but the weakiest of the 4.

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