Bernard Cornwell
There is an author by the name of Bernard Cornwell who writes stories of historical fiction. A short time ago he wrote three books in an arc about Arthur of Britain. To know the legends of Arthur is to eventually be saddened at their exploitation. As a child you enjoy them for the mystery and the imagination only to be saddened by their superficiality as an adult. Cornwell has taken stories that I had long abandoned and breathed a humorous and yet grim life into them.
Told from the point of view of a fictional spearman turned Lord, the stories rise and fall into a very human yet legendary series of events. Climax and anti-climax. A grisly but never preposterous set of stories. Building on a humble and reflecting character in the last of his years who is build from a child to a supreme warrior who never quite gets his own abilities. At first you approve of him because he is sympathetic and you want to see him suceed. Then Cornwell builds and builds on the level of incredible bad-ass-i-tude unleashed by the character each time surpising the reader even though it shouldn't.
I had been so lulled into passivity by the last few chapters that when the damn broke it was the literary version of a cold shower in the middle of December. DAMN!
Told from the point of view of a fictional spearman turned Lord, the stories rise and fall into a very human yet legendary series of events. Climax and anti-climax. A grisly but never preposterous set of stories. Building on a humble and reflecting character in the last of his years who is build from a child to a supreme warrior who never quite gets his own abilities. At first you approve of him because he is sympathetic and you want to see him suceed. Then Cornwell builds and builds on the level of incredible bad-ass-i-tude unleashed by the character each time surpising the reader even though it shouldn't.
I had been so lulled into passivity by the last few chapters that when the damn broke it was the literary version of a cold shower in the middle of December. DAMN!