Stonehenge: A Novel (1999)

This was my first Cornwell, and I look forward to reading more by him. I quite enjoyed the story. Sure, all of the stone moving stuff got kind of tedious by the end... But what do you expect, it's about Stonehenge, a certain amount of stone moving is to be expected. People say it's not Cornwell's best work (I wouldn't know, I haven't read anything else by him), so considering that I liked it enough to give it 4 stars I'm definitely excited to see what else he has to offer. ( )

I have to admit, I didn't finish this — I read the first twenty and the last ten pages, and then I returned it to the library. I think Cornwell was going for "brutal realism" as an antidote to the sentimental fripperies of various neo-pagan/mystical authors, but bleeeeeeeeeh. ( )

Stonehenge is a pretty interesting book, in terms of surmises about how the henge was built and the reasons for various things being there and so on. Unfortunately, as a novel it didn't work for me. The writing style, for a start, is very simplistic. I've read and enjoyed Bernard Cornwell's writing before -- namely the Warlord Chronicles -- which unfortunately made me notice that characters are very much recycled. It's easy to see some of Ceinwyn in Aurenna, and a bit of Nimue in both Aurenna and Derrewyn. Saban isn't quite Derfel, but it's close, and I can see a bit of Arthur in him too. Camaban is Merlin, and Camaban's goals are just about the same as Merlin. Aurenna's betrayal is the same as Guinevere's, and not even as interesting and heart-wrenching.

Easy to read, reasonable to curl up with and just relax, but it doesn't have the same life in my head as the Warlord Chronicles, and I'm not keeping it. ( )

Wow, what a SAGA, loved it ( )

I found this to be a fascinating story about the building of Stonehenge. The story takes place in 2000BC when men believed that gods and goddesses ruled over everything in the world and that the two most powerful were the Sun and the Moon. Three brothers lives were wrapped up in the building of this great temple. The oldest was the fierce warrior who left the village only to come back and kill his own father and took over the leadership of the his people. The middle son was born with a twisted leg and was going to be sacrificed to the gods. His own intellect saved him from being sacrificed when he presented himself as a great preist and told everyone he was favored by the gods. Stonehenge was his life's passion - he thought it would change the world. The youngest son, the most diplomatic and kind, was first sold into slavery by his oldest brother then saved by his middle brother in order to build the temple. The story ranges the lifetime of these three men and describes the culture of the time in great detail. It was a most interesting read. ( )