The Last Kingdom (The Saxon Chronicles Series #1) (original 2004; edition 2006)

The Last Kingdom is the story of Uhtred Uhtredson, the 10-year-old son of an English earl who is kidnapped in a battle against the Danish invaders of England. He becomes more and more Danish, but he always knows deep in his heart that he is truly an Englishman. As Uhtred gets older, he comes to the attention of King Alfred the Great. He becomes something of a pawn in the war between the Danes and the last free kingdom of England.

To be fair, I wasn't really in the mood for this when I read it, but it was due back to the library soon so I went ahead and tackled it. That probably has something to do with the 2 stars.

Mostly I give this only 2 stars because I didn't care about the characters at all. I was pretty indifferent to Uhtred himself; I really liked his kidnapper, Ragnar; and I liked Britta, another kidnapped English child, even though she wasn't a huge character. Everybody else? I didn't care. I've noticed as I write these reviews that I always touch on the characters, so this is kind of a big deal for me in a book. I don't care about your characters? I don't really care about your book.

It was really clear that the author had thoroughly researched his subject matter. Apparently he's very popular for that reason. But I'm almost strictly a fiction girl. I'll trade in historical accuracy for a page-turning plot any day. This just wasn't a page-turner for me. I felt like I was just slogging through it. Battle, Danish culture, Uhtred's torn loyalties, Uhtred's desire to get his land back, another battle. That was sort of the plot. Over and over again. And the story continues. This was just the story of Uhtred's coming-of-age. There are more books (I don't know how many). Honestly, I won't be reading them. I have way too many books on my to-read list to continue on with what was only a mediocre story for me.

I would recommend this to fans of Viking stories, die-hard historical fiction fans, and probably even people who like war stories. It's a good book for any of you guys. But I don't exactly fit into any of those groups and this just wasn't really for me. ( )

This was a good book, but unfortunately it didn't grab me quite as much as I had hoped it would. I thought that the first half was a bit draggy in places, with lots of description and really long paragraphs. I don't have anything against long paragraphs, but for some reason these ones just seemed... looooong.

I liked how Uhtred made the best out of a hard situation, and learned to be both who he was and who he had to be to survive. But, I felt that the story suffered a bit from the narrative. Because this is told in 1st person memoir style (which I'm beginning to believe I just don't like), there was so much telling that I just really couldn't be in the moment with the book. I found that frustrating, because I wanted to be sucked in and really feel like I was living alongside these Danes... even though I'd likely have been stuck spinning yarn 24/7. Damn those women had it rough!

But then, every once in a while, there was a little bit of humor that would break it up a bit, like this passage:
"I saw King Edmund once," Brida put in.
"Where was that, child?" Ravn asked.
"He came to the monastery to pray," she said, "and he farted when he knelt down."
"No doubt their god appreciated the tribute," Ravn said loftily, frowning because the twins were now making farting noises.
I really liked Ragnar, and in fact he was my favorite character. I found him interesting, and I admit that I would probably have stayed with someone like him, too. He's the type of badass, fair, and compelling man people want to follow, and I liked him for that. Plus he had a sense of humor, and that makes me like him even more.

Overall, it was good, but I had really wanted to love this one. I'll probably read another Cornwell at some point though. Maybe this one just wasn't it for me. ;) ( )

3.25 stars.

A very good introduction to the Saxon series, and I do hope to continue and enjoy that series. It could be that Cornwell hurts his own rating here, as I've recently read the Warlord Series and this book just wasn't in the same league. Not quite. It has potential to grow to an equal level with more books in the series, so we'll just have to see if it meets that standard.

( )

I'm becoming a fan of historical fiction but have not read enough to offer comparisons or to have developed a distinguishing palate. Nonetheless, I found The Last Kingdom interesting. There was gore galore, and very little romanticism of the age. One gold nugget I'll take away from this story is its insight into the psyche of a warrior--the drive, the blood lust of battle, the song of the sword -- I can't say I've understood as well as after having read this novel.

The central theme of The Saxon Stories revolves here, around King Alfred. This was a fascinating period of history--the invasion of England by the Danes. The brutality of the age has sharpened my appreciation of the difficulty with civilizing our species. Every gain in an evolved and peaceful consciousness has been hard fought. This fictional walk through history has whetted my appetite for more. ( )

This book was great fun to read and I am definately going to read the other parts in the Saxon Chronicles.
The final battle was very exciting to read, but I did feel that some parts of the book lacked a bit of feeling. Like the hall burning. The main character seems very distant from everything even though it is his family being burnt. ( )