There are also plenty of battle scenes in this book that will leave you with a good understanding of why the French hated to face English archers, and of just how much skill and training it took to be an archer ( although a true understanding only comes the first time you try and draw back a longbow! ). Much in the way the story unfolded at the time, you are slowly drawn into the lives of the disparate characters at the heart of the book, and given reasons to care what happens to them, with some beautifully drawn depictions of the turbulence of the time, and a real sense of what the events would mean to those caught up in them, as well as being shown how the characters were shaped and moulded by their participation. Rather than telling the story from the viewpoint of either Henry VI or Richard, Duke of York, as most historical fiction seems to do, Iggulden focuses on the minor characters, showing their feelings and their struggles as they are caught up in the unfolding drama, and how their lives are drastically changed by their masters actions and inactions. Conn Iggulden sheds light on a turbulent period of English history with a very readable work on the origins of one of the biggest power struggles in the history of the crown by focusing on the lesser characters and using their stories to illuminate the growing struggle between the descendents of Edward III.
0 kommentar(er)
