The Pale Horseman is the second book in Bernard Cornwell's Grail Quest sequence, and this highly experienced author will be well aware of the pitfalls awaiting the creator of any second book in a series -- particularly when its predecessor, The Last Kingdom, was so enthusiastically received. The fact that Cornwell's Sharpe books are so beloved (for their immense colour and vivid recreation of a very lively period of history) was not a guarantee that this latest venture for the author would succeed. But succeed it did, and The Last Kingdom conjured an era of Vikings and massacres, with a brilliantly drawn (and complex) King Alfred at the centre of the narrative. So -- does Cornwell bring off this second book with equal panache?

No need for suspense -- The Pale Horseman is just as exhilarating a recreation of an age of heroes as its predecessor, delivered with the brio that is the author's trademark. Uhtred was born in Northumbria but rais! ed as a Viking. Married to a Saxon, he has achieved fame as a doughty warrior. But the more reflective Alfred has problems with the aggressive, self-serving manner of his young friend. An alliance, though, is necessary: these two are the sole remnants of those who commanded Wessex, after ill-judged bargains have destroyed the union. The Vikings now reign over most of England, and Alfred and his company are obliged to hide in the swampy netherland of Athelney, trying to regain the support they once enjoyed. Uhtred cannot shake off his Viking training, but finds himself acquiring an admiration for Alfred, who he comes to sense is a great man. As the narrative progresses, the conflict between the two men must be resolved before bloody battles will change the fate of England.

One expects the heroic endeavours of Bernard Cornwell's novels to be dispatched with panache, but there is another element which his admirers rely on: the conflict between his strongly drawn characters,! exemplified here by the two proud leaders. It'll take a while! before this new sequence achieves the immense popularity of the Sharpe novels, but the auguries are good. --Barry Forshaw

Cornwell once again takes us by the hand and leads us through times when our nation was forged on the anvil of battle, and our people were willing to pay with their lives in defence of their chosen homeland.

His vivid portrayal of 'heroes' leads the reader to imagine that he/she could easily be the maverick warrior, wielding weapons as if born to the task of slaughter.

The weaving of a thread around and among a solid historical foundation teaches the uninitiated a valuable and factual history lesson, one that those who suffered the stale and tawdry efforts of a '70s comprehensive school education will find totally strange, alien, stimulating and invigorating.

To find Cornwell's writing style or subject matter 'boring' is to totally miss the point of what such authors are about, and those seeking a change of tack would perhaps be better suited to switching on their goggle box and immersing themselves in the fineries of the many soap operas that I'm sure will more than cater for their special needs.

If you know nothing else about Cornwell, know that having read one of his historical novels you can speak confidently and with a good degree of knowledge about the history of England, such is the quality of the research and the historical accuracy that Cornwell has made a cornerstone of his writing.

"The Pale Horseman" is the second volume in Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Stories series. Picking up directly from where "The Last Kingdom" left off in the spring of 877, it charts the experiences of the warrior Uhtred Uhtredsson. Born in Northumbria and raised by the Danes, he is a man of mixed loyalties who through circumstance has found himself siding with the weak-willed Alfred, king of Wessex, the only English kingdom left at that time unconquered by the invaders. Uhtred cares little for the conflict, seeking only wealth and a reputation for himself, and so it is not long before he commandeers one of his king's ships to go raiding. But the tide soon turns as Wessex itself falls prey to the Danes, and Uhtred must fight for Alfred if he wishes to avoid losing everything he has gained thus far.

As a historical adventure tale the book works very well. The battle scenes are as usual infused with pace, drama and realism - without ever becoming gratuitous. The lead-up to the climax of the novel, the battle at Ethandun, is particularly well-handled. The author has always been very good at establishing a setting and his descriptions of the landscape are always convincing, from the wild and storm-battered coast of Cornwall to the marshes surrounding ??theling??g (modern Athelney) during winter and the uplands of Wiltshire in the spring. Enough historical detail is present, too, that it is easy to feel drawn into both the place and the era in which the novel is set, without unnecessarily burdening the narrative.

However, whereas "The Last Kingdom" had a strong narrative through-line, following Uhtred's development from childhood through adolescence into the adult world of the ninth century, "The Pale Horseman" is rather more fragmented. We follow Uhtred on various adventures throughout the south-west of England, but until the final third of the book it is difficult to feel a sense of direction or impending danger. The dialogue has a tendency to slip into modern idiom and the language and tone of the prose lacks some of the poetic quality which characterised the first book in the series.

Nevertheless, "The Pale Horseman" is an easy, compelling and enjoyable read. While it is not as strong as the first volume, it remains a good continuation of the series.

The second book of the series continuing the story of Uhtred and like the 1st book it is an exellent read. Now Wessex is safe Uhtred gets bored and after killing a fellow Saxon he gathers a bunch of Saxons and steals Alfreds ship and turns it into a viking ship and goes raiding in Wales. Here he meets lots of new charcters both new friends and new enemies and he gets himself into a lot of trouble with Alfred. But then fate happens and Wessex is slaughtered by the Danes leaving Alfred living in a swamp desperatley trying to build an army to face the Vikings and save England, and remember this book is based on what really happened. As always Bernard has given us an exellent book with a great story that will keep you coming back for more.

I couldn't stop reading it! I won't give away any of the story to people reading the review because that would spoil it but Cornwell again makes you feel you know the people he is writing about and, damn it, you begin to care about them. Uhtred is, without a doubt, a bit of a rogue but he insistently worms his way into your affections.

The atmosphere was superb - there is a thick mist hanging around saxon times but Mr. Cornwell seems to offer us a set of foglights. Yes, some bits are not strictly bound to the historical record but it is downright believeable. His chracters are not bound to some higher cause, they are just normal people who make normal mistakes and have normal emotions.

This book feels like a time machine for your imagination, taking you back onto the bloody battlefields of the time - buy it and enjoy the experience! Also, if you missed reading Tino Georgiou's masterpiece--The Fates, go and read it.

For those with a liking for adventure, freebooting and viking raids, The Pale Horseman, Cornwell's second installment in his tale of the formation of England under King Alfred (known to posterity as "the Great") has it all. It's an energetic and fast paced narrative of the Saxon nobleman, Uhtred Uhtredsson, out of the old Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, who, after losing his freedom to Danish vikings and his ancestral holdings to a perfidious uncle, re-establishes himself, albeit with no little resentment, in the camp of King Alfred of Wessex, the last Saxon king still fighting the Danish invaders. England's history is rich with invasion and war, particularly at this early time, and Cornwell successfully mines it for good material.

Uhtred is not a highly sympathetic character, having been raised a viking by his Danish captors and being more interested in getting his own back than in the well being of those around him. Still, he is convincingly realistic and we have little reason to think he would have been any less self-interested or brutal than the people and culture around him warranted. This tale, of course, is set in the early part of the viking age, at its height in fact, when Danish and Norse freebooters were swarming across the British Isles, grabbing what they could and killing whatever they couldn't take away with them. For those familiar with the later Icelandic saga literature which actually reflects a very different era, the level of violence and cruelty may come as a bit of a shock. But there's little reason to doubt that that's how it was and Cornwell presents it with panache. One may not like seeing Uhtred turn on his "allies" in a pinch but its believable and, as a character, he does maintain a kind of internal consistency and a certain sense of personal honor.

Essentially the hero of the tale is at odds with everyone at the outset though he will eventually find himself thrown into uncomfortable alliance with, and allegiance to, the dyspeptic Saxon king who is intent not only on hanging onto his own kingdom (for which he must defeat the predatory Danes) but in expanding his rule to unify the shattered remnants of the other broken Saxon kingdoms. This is as much a book about English history as about vikings and if you like fast paced adventure with well-drawn characters, Cornwell has provided it. It's a little weak in the seriousness department, being mostly a tale of action and scheming and fighting, but it is as tightly woven a narrative as one is likely to see, with nary a moment to take a breath. I liked this one better than its predecessor, The Last Kingdom, and, based on this alone, I'll probably read the third installment when I get the chance. On the other hand, I didn't much care for Uhtred because of his brutality and bloodlust, but he sort of grows on you -- and he is, after all, a creature of his times. More, it pays to remember that the Angles, Saxons and Jutes in their day weren't much better to the native Britons than the Danes were in this era to them. So, as they say, what goes around comes around.

Anyway, I'm not always a fan of Cornwell (I didn't like Winter King, the first installment in his three part Warlord Chronicles, based on the Arthurian era) but this time he's sold me and I'll be the one doing the buying after this, at least as far as the sequel to this one is concerned.

(If you've an interest, at all, in the saga-as-novel, here are a few quite good ones -- Saga: A Novel Of Medieval Iceland by Jeff Janoda; The Greenlanders by Jane Smiley; Two Ravens by Cecelia Holland; Eric Brighteyes by H. Rider Haggard; Styrbiorn the Strong by E. R. Eddison; Gunnar's Daughter by Sigrid Undset; and, probably the all-time best, The Golden Warrior by Hope Muntz. And one more, if you still want more, this one by me, The King of Vinland's Saga which, I like to hope, is not too much worse than these others.)

SWM