The Last Kingdom

It was a slow start for me, but by the time I got to the last battle, I was engrossed in the characters and story. It has an authentic vibe, as if you're reading history, but is presented in a far more interesting way. The characters were well done, and the descriptions of the locations were gritty and real, giving me the sense that I was back in that terrible time. Worth the read.

I really enjoyed this story of Uhtred of Bebbanburg. It starts with him as a young boy whose home is attacked by the Danes. They capture him and then raise him when he attacks Ragnar with a small knife. Uhtred grows up, learning to be a Dane, and then is "rescued" by the English and King Alfred. After learning how valuable Uhtred's experiences are, King Alfred says Uhtred needs to marry an English woman. However, the bargain is weighed in King Alfred's favor. Uhtred proves himself with a hard-fought battle for the English.With a dozen books in the series, it will be an exciting journey to see if Uhtred reclaims his home of Bebbanburg. I wish Bernard had put the maps and pronunciation guides on his website so that they could be printed for easy reference. Going back to the map and then finding exactly where you stopped reading on a Kindle is a bit difficult.

So I got the hardcover copy so I’m happy I have it to read but for the price I paid and how it was advertised as brand new I do feel cheated. The cover is all wrinkled up. I will say the actual hardcover book itself is fine and overall still happy I bought it.

I’m terrible at reviews so forgive me if this one isn’t properly written. My husband loves the show and I had already watched Vikings so I kind of thought they were the same. They’re not at all the same in any way shape or form. I decided to read the book 1st and now I will probably get through the rest of the books in the next week or two I think it took me about 2 1/2 days to read this one.It was excellent. There were some words I did not understand and with the Kindle look up function I was able to do that without interrupting the story too much.I felt like I was in the shield wall at the end and I am very impressed by these books or at least the first one so far. Takes a special book written by a special author to do that. I tend to read more thrillers and horror than historical fiction but this may have changed my mind a little bit.I will go back to the TV show once I finish the books. Well done Mr Cornell

I’m always fascinated when an author I like switches point of view. And Bernard Cornwell does it admirably in The Last Kingdom, the first book in his Saxon Stories series.Most of Cornwell’s novels (or at least, all the ones I’ve read) are written in third person. But he tells the Last Kingdom from the first-person perspective of Uhtred, a ninth-century English boy who’s kidnapped and raised by invading Danish Vikings. Uhtred narrates his tale in hindsight, reflecting on his youth from a distance of many years. This kind of switch might have tripped up a lesser author, but Cornwell aces the transition.One of the problems I have with first person is that it often feels less believable than third, even though they’re just different vehicles for storytelling. But when a first-person narrator recounts long-ago dialogue, I’m quicker to think, Is that really what they said, or are you just making it up because you don’t remember? (My other quibbles with first-person: it’s harder to worry about a character’s chance of survival when you know—barring some literary sleight of hand—that they’ll live to record their tale; and if the narrator is using present tense to relay events as they happen, how are their words getting to me? Telepathy?)Cornwell gets around the issue of authenticity by making Uhtred’s unreliability explicit: “I think,” Uhtred says at one point, “looking back so far into my past, I have probably changed that night’s events.” Fair enough. Uhtred also has a distinct voice. “The story hurries now,” he says later, in another aside. “It quickens like a stream coming to a fall in the hills and, like a cascade foaming down jumbled rocks, it gets angry and violent, confused even.”These interjections help drive the story, serving the dual purposes of fleshing out Uhtred’s character and foreshadowing historical events to come. Both elements were critical for keeping my interest, because there’s no central goal in The Last Kingdom. Uhtred isn’t, for example, consumed by evicting the Vikings from England; his loyalties are divided—he grew to love the Danes while he lived with them. But his spoilers about the importance of certain people and battles give the book a sense of larger purpose. (As I learned from reading The Last Kingdom, there actually wasn’t a single country called “England” at this point, but rather four separate kingdoms, all under threat from Vikings. Alfred the Great, a central figure in the book, eventually fought off the invaders and united the kingdoms. Cornwell notes in his historical note that he intends “Uhtred to be involved in the whole story.”)The only bit of authenticity that gave me pause was a throwaway comment about post-battle rape. While describing the aftermath of a Danish victory, Uhtred-the-narrator notes that Uhtred-the-boy “listened to the drunken shouts and the songs and the shrieks of the girls who had been captured in our camp and who now provided the warriors with the reward for their victory, and watching their antics took my mind off the sorrow because, in truth, I had never seen such things before, though, God be thanked, I took plenty of such rewards myself in times to come.” Uhtred doesn’t actually assault any women in The Last Kingdom, but his admission that he will at some point colored how I saw him, even though many medieval warriors were guilty of the same. Cornwell could have omitted this detail without losing anything. In fiction, there’s such a thing as being too historically accurate.This aside, Cornwell was right to tell The Last Kingdom from Uhtred’s perspective—it makes for an immersive look at a period I knew little about. I’ll be back for more of the Saxon Stories, and soon.

Okay, I'll admit it, I only started reading this after seeing Series 1 of the TV series recently. I haven't read any Bernard Cornwell before, just watched the Sharpe series because it starred Sean Bean... and what a treat I have in store! The joy of discovering a new writer :)If you're as unfamiliar with the author's work as I am, you'll want to know if it's as good as the TV, right? YES, yes, it is, it's even better. I love the way Cornwell writes, so simply that it just flows along. I adore Uhtred already, and reading this made me long to live in the Dark Ages even more than I always have done. Most of all, of course, it made me want to be a fearsome warrior. Not a warring West Saxon (although I did like Leofric), but a brave man of the shield wall, of Ragnar's tribe!The Last Kingdom is educational about the times, with some processes described in intricate detail. If the book was written by an unknown author and the 'rules of writing' crew got their hands on it, they'd say these were 'information dumps', or something, or that the writer was being self-indulgent and eager to stick all his research into the book rather than weaving it into the story unobtrusively, but who cares; it was fascinating, because if you're a truly talented writer you can pull anything off, and anyone who wants to know more about life in these times could learn as much from this as any history book about the people of the Dark Ages. If you've seen the TV series recently you'll remember the bit near the end when the Danish ships are burnt; in the book it's riveting, I read it about three times. I've just downloaded the second book and think I may just have to have a little look now...

I came to read this after watching the series on Netflix and realised how different they are, namely the deeper dove into Uhtred's childhood and time with the Danes in the book. This took over half of the book, and I enjoyed every moment of it.This book follows Uhtred, son of Uhtred, of bebbanburg from his second baptism up to the end of his first real battle against the Danes, giving a deeper look into the beginnings of how he became the protagonist of many a poet, while the shows very little of this start.As a result of watching the series, the actor who plays Uhtred was the voice my mind gave to the narrator as I read through, which I believe allowed me to immerse myself more in this story, and I am sure this narration shall continue when I read book 2.

When young Uhtred's father is killed during a battle with the invading Danes, Uhtred is taken captive by the Viking Ragnar, who is amused and impressed by the courage the boy had shown in the fight. Ragnar treats him more as a son than a captive, though, and Uhtred, whose relationship with his own father was somewhat cold and distant, comes to love Ragnar, and quickly takes to the freedom of the Viking life, far from the tedious lessons in reading and Latin forced on him at home. But Uhtred knows that one day, when he is a man, he wants to regain the castle and land of his forefathers, which is currently being held by his uncle who in his absence has usurped him as Ealdorman of Bebbanburg.The story takes place in the late 9th century, when the Danes were in the process of amassing territory and control throughout what would later become England. By the time Uhtred is old enough to become a full-fledged warrior, the Danes have control of three of the four old Kingdoms and only Wessex is still fully independent. But in Wessex, a young leader is set to become King – Alfred, a man very different from Ragnar and the Vikings, but with perhaps just as much steely determination under his pious exterior. Odin and Thor may be helping the Danes, but Alfred has a newer God on his side, one he believes in fervently. This will be a battle over competing religions as much as disputed territory. There's quite a lot of humour around early religious practices, especially on the Christian side – at this point in his life, Uhtred finds the warrior-like Norse Gods much more appealing than the moralistic Christian one as presented by the ubiquitous priests, and loses no opportunity to shock and provoke them.Eventually Uhtred will find himself torn between loyalty to Ragnar's house or to his native countrymen, serving both in turn, and always with one eye on which side is most likely to help him regain Bebbanburg.I don't read a lot of this type of sword and sandal epic so am no expert on the genre. But this one seems particularly well written to me and feels grounded pretty accurately in the history and attitudes of the time. There is a great deal of extreme violence, including a lot of rape and pillage and some pretty gory battle scenes, but Cornwell manages to achieve a sense of the true brutality of the time without lingering gratuitously on the details. The book is excellent on the depiction of Viking life – brutal and bloody – but they are not shown as the berserker savages they are sometimes portrayed as. These invading Danes are more than raiders – they want to settle the territory they have won, often maintaining control by allowing existing local lords to continue to rule as their clients.In fact, Uhtred himself is the only one who comes across as any kind of berserker. He is no reluctant warrior – he revels and glories in the killing, and doesn't much care which side he's on. But he's telling the tale in retrospect from when he is older and there is the occasional tiny hint that he may also have become wiser. Perhaps. In truth, I enjoyed Uhtred's character but didn't like him much. His lack of full commitment to either side makes him more credible, I think, than some of the single-minded heroes of fiction, but it doesn't make him very admirable. And (this may be a girl thing) his crazed love of slicing bits off people at every opportunity didn't endear him to me over much, fun though it was to read.As he grows into manhood, Uhtred discovers women or, to be more accurate, the joys of sex. Again, happily, the details are largely left to the reader's imagination. Cornwell doesn't make a big feature of the lowly and subordinated place of women in this early society, but nor does he whitewash Uhtred into some kind of anachronistic 21st century “new man”. He makes it clear that rape was a commonplace of life, and that the Danes were not the only perpetrators. Women are objects, possessions, used either for sexual pleasure or as breeding machines, and often raped as a kind of declaration of victory in war. However, Cornwell manages to sneak a strong female character in, again not making her feel anachronistic, and there are hints that Uhtred may replace lust with love at some point as the series progresses.This was my first introduction to this hugely prolific author and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Along with all the action, there's lots of excellent descriptive writing – I especially enjoyed the sections relating to long-boats and sea battles, where Cornwell makes full use of the power and fury of sea and storms. I'm looking forward to reading more of Uhtred's adventures in the future.

If you have seen the TV series, it is still very much worth reading the books, since the plots vary significantly and the novels have far more detail. In some ways, the TV series is more polished and sophisticated, as Book 1 has a fair amount of repetition ('Destiny is everything') and more space is devoted to crude attacks on Christianity and its adherents, notably the piety of King Alfred. However, there is more historical background and the pace is more sinuous: in the novel we are not rushing pell mell from one battle to the next.There is slightly more interiority to our hero Uhtred in the book. We read of the youthful warrior's uncertainties, not least about his English-Danish identity, his delight in committed battle, and his overriding concern with his reputation. However, his relationship with women comes across as fairly basic, more so than in the TV series. Doubtless, it is difficult now to portray any hero on screen as simply in it for the bonking. We are told that Uhtred’s relationship with his wife is tender, but the novel does not show this (in contrast to the TV portrayal, which manages to convey some complexity).Above all, Book 1 is great fun, a light and compelling read, which does tell one something about the origins of the English state, forged (and nearly killed) by the hammer of the Danes and the anvil of the 'last kingdom.' The fight scenes are particularly well done, very practical when it comes to describing cuts and thrusts and how (physically) difficult it is actually to kill an adversary.Cornwell writes very well, direct and clear, albeit with little subtlety and a deliberate abandonment of any sense of beauty. The reader is convincingly transported into the mind of a forceful ninth century warrior, who (without psychological currency) avoids becoming brutalised by the bloody mayhem in which he lives.Civilians are treated, by and large, with contempt, but without hostility, as long as they are not true Christians, in which case there is a rancorous edge of righteous hate - which seems credible to me, if ultimately shallow and lacking compassion. But then, these novels are not the place for humane attitudes or a profound appreciation of how Christian values immensely improved life for the majority.

Read this book in 2005, and its the 1st instalment of the tremendous "Last kingdom" series, featuring Uhtred of Bebbanburg, from the amazing author, Bernard Cornwell.The historical details concerning this period of his tory has been very well researched and interpreted with this astounding tale.The book is about Uhtred of Bebbanburg, who as a boy of ten is orphaned and raised by Danes in York.After leaving the Danes when grown up he will enter the court of King Alfred of Wessex, who dreams of a united Englaland, and as a pagan will be thrown into a world of Christianity.King Alfred is the only surviving King of the Danish Viking assaults, and Uhtred has made a pledge to him to defend him and his Kingdom, a pledge also made because he has been married to a Wessex woman.But when his child and wife go missing during a Danish invasion and raid he has to choose a side to fight for, and that choice will be made in the shield-wall at the battle near the seaside against the greatest chieftains of the Danish Vikings.What is to come is an action-packed adventure in which Uhtred will be defending King Alfred of Wessex against his former allies the Danish Vikings, and that choice will be decisive for his future, for in his mind this decision must finally lead him back towards Bebbanburg and to become its rightful Lord in the end.Highly recommended, for this is a terrific 1st episode of a fantastic series, and that's why I like to call this adventure: "A Magnificent Uhtred of Bebbanburg Opener"!