Bernard Cornwell: The Burning Land (EBook, 2009, HarperCollins)
eBook
English language
Published Nov. 5, 2009 by HarperCollins.
The latest in the bestselling Alfred series from number one historical novelist, Bernard Cornwell.In the last years of the ninth century, King Alfred of Wessex is in failing health, and his heir is an untested youth. The Danes, who have failed so many times to conquer Wessex, smell opportunity...First comes Harald Bloodhair, a savage warrior leading a Viking horde, who is encouraged to cruelty by his woman, Skade. But Alfred still has the services of Uhtred, his unwilling warlord, who leads Harald into a trap and, at Farnham in Surrey, inflicts one of the greatest defeats the Vikings were ever to suffer.This novel, the fifth in the magnificent series of England's history tells of the final assaults on Alfred's Wessex, that Wessex survived to become England is because men like Uhtred defeated an enemy feared throughout Christendom.
Some bits of the plotting are creaking a little as this epic continues. He certainly gets through his female co-'stars'
Excellent historical fiction.
Five books into this series, and you start to notice that the plot of every book is more or less the same. Uhtred's fighting for the Vikings. Now the English. And now the Vikings again. And look, he has another new wife because they keep dying on him about once per book.
But it's hard not to like the grumpy jerk. The books are fairly short and fun to read.
