Tuesday...

I meant to put the book review I did for Sharon Penman's new book Lionheart up on the blog, though I did link to it on LibraryThing. Anyway, as the book release date is coming up soon (4 October according to Amazon), I thought I'd post it here as well. So here goes...
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Lionheart by Sharon Kay Penman.

Covering the period July 1189 through September 1192, this is very much Part I of a two volume book. To say that it traces Richard Lionheart's involvement in the Third Crusade and his marriage to Berengaria of Navarre is too simple a description of a narrative which starts with a three page list of principal characters and stretches in its field of action from northern England to the Holy Land; to say that it includes a cast of thousands is no exaggeration. Penman paints a vast and minutely detailed picture; indeed the depth of detail (and the extensive and impressive research behind it) is both a strength and a weakness of this book.

The first eighty pages sometimes seem to drag as Penman jumps from location to location, viewpoint to viewpoint, in the process of introducing all her principals and providing the necessary thumbnail sketches of their backgrounds. At last, however, the various parties (fated to converge in Sicily) get on the road, and the pace picks up slightly. By the time we reach Cyprus the action is fairly brisk. The rest of the book, located in the Holy Land, mostly holds this pace, although there are some slow sections now and again which deal mainly with the labyrinthine politics of the Crusade, often seeming to take the principals in slow ponderous circles at an enormous cost in blood, treasure, and general suffering.

The conclusion of the book sees Richard's departure from the Holy Land, sailing back to Western Europe to try and salvage his battered empire. History (and Penman's afterword) tells us the fate of most of the principals, but it's partly the future of two minor but appealing invented characters which will lure me back to read the next volume. Overall, an impressive achievement, highly recommended for Penman's fans and those interested in the Angevins and the Third Crusade. Four stars out of five.

This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

-G R Grove
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And that's it for today.

Thursday...

Oops, running late again. Here's the book review for Lionheart I mentioned in my last post, and the story I've been preparing to tell. Also, on my LibraryThing discussion thread, a list of the stories I've told or could tell. Being busy with the latter was why I forgot to post here yesterday.

One more garden picture:



And that's it for today...

-GRG

Monday...

Oops, forgot Friday again... I was preoccupied with canning tomatoes, among other things. At this point almost all our vegetables come from my garden, and I have excess to can or give away. Won't last much longer, though - first frost here is usually mid-September.

The beans have recovered from last week's mishap. The only question is whether the post extension at the west end of the fence will survive for another month:



The story I was working on last week is more or less set, and I've been practicing telling it. Getting close...

I spent a good bit of the weekend reading Sharon Penman's newest book, Lionheart. Since I was lucky enough to win an advanced review copy (it comes out in October) from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program (at 50:1 odds!) I thought the least I could do was read and review it asap. I've finished the reading (which took a while - 594 pages and not a quick read), so should be reviewing it soon; I'll post it here when I do. Normally I don't read new historical fiction (new to me, that is) while working on one of my own books, but both her style and period are so different from mine that I'm not worried about cross-contamination.

That's it for today.

-GRG

New review

New review of Flight of the Hawk on LibaryThing.com.

Not much progress...

Not much progress on The Druid's Son, and there won't be for the next two months while I turn my attention to things Welsh. In the meantime, however, I've had some new reviews of the first three books on LibraryThing, here, here, and here.

And another review...

Another review of The Ash Spear here.

New Review

A great discussion of all three Storyteller books here.

-GRG

Progress

The Ash Spear is on Amazon.com now. It's not available for purchase there yet, but soon, soon... It also has one review already, from someone who reviewed an advance PDF copy on LibraryThing (thanks again, Andrew!).

-GRG

One more milestone...

I got my first review for the Ash Spear on LibraryThing. (I sent the reviewer a pdf copy.) He also reviewed Storyteller and Flight of the Hawk recently.

-GRG

web reviews and other book news

Googling this morning on my books as I do from time to time, I came across a new review of Storyteller. Take a look!

Leo Stableford also has some kind words about Flight of the Hawk here (about half way down the post).

Finally, looking ahead, I will be doing an on-line author chat on LibraryThing between January 26 and February 9. You have to have a LibraryThing account to post to the chat, but this is quick, easy and free, and I think you can read posts without one. I'll put up more information when it gets closer. (Warning: spending time on this site can lead to serious book-buying!)

-GRG

A new review for "Flight of the Hawk"

This evening I wandered by Odyssey Reviews and was delighted to find a new review for Flight of the Hawk. Take a look, and also see what she had to say about Storyteller last year.

-GRG

Adolygiad newydd / a new review

Mi gafodd Storyteller newydd ei adolygu ar y gwefa Powell’s ddoe. Roedd o’n adolygiad arddercog, yn dda ei ysgrifennu ac yn mewnweledol. Mae yr adolygwr, Carrie Uffindell, yn codi y pwynt bod y taith Gwernin yn yr hanner cyntaf Storyteller yn debeg â’r taith Gerallt Gymro yn yr ddeuddefed ganrif. Dyma’n wir, ond dweud y gwir, roeddwn i wedi angofio am Gerallt: mae y taith Gwernin tebeg â’r taith bues i newydd gwneud cyn i fi ysgryfennu i’r cwedlau cyntaf Gwernin. Efallai mae yn glocwell y ffordd arferol mynd o gympas Gymru!

Y wythnos diwedda dw i wedi bod yn darllen am Gymro arall enwog – Dafydd ap Gwilym. Roedd Dafydd yn fardd Cymreig enwogaf y bedwaredd ganrif ar ddeg – wedi Taliesin ac Aneirin, y bardd enwogaf yr hanes Gymru. Roedd o’n meistr dros ben o’r ffurf barddonol sy’n gael ei alw e’r cywydd. Nid fyddai e’n amhosibl ei gyfiathu, byddai e efaillai mor enwog â Chaucer, pwy buodd yn byw yn yr un canrif. Dw i wedi bod yn darllen am Dafydd oherwydd bydda i'n rhoi darleth amdano fo penwythnos nesaf – ond mae hon yn chwedl am ddiwrnod arall.
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Storyteller got a new review on Powell’s website yesterday. It was an excellent review, well written and insightful. The reviewer, Carrie Uffindell, raises the point that Gwernin’s journey in the first half of Storyteller is similar to that of Gerald of Wales in the 12th century. This is true, but to tell the truth I had forgotten about Gerald: Gwernin’s journey is like the journey I had just made before writing the first of the Gwernin stories. Maybe clockwise is the normal way to go around Wales!

For the last week I have been reading about another famous Welshman – Dafydd ap Gwilym. Dafydd was the most famous Welsh poet of the 14th century – after Taliesin and Aneirin, the most famous poet in Welsh history. He was the greatest master of the form of poetry called the cywydd. If it weren’t impossible to translate him, he would possibly be as famous as Chaucer, who lived in the same century. I have been reading about Dafydd because I will be giving a talk about him next weekend – but that is a story for another day.

-GRG

Book Reviews

Yes, I'm still here; no, writing is not going well at the moment. I'm stuck in chapter 14, and keep finding other things to do. Such as writing book reviews... so here are two short ones. I'm linking to LibraryThing now instead of direct to Amazon - check it out!
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Early Irish Farming (Early Irish law series)by Fergus Kelly, 1997, 770 pages.

An outstanding source of information on early Ireland, this book (based on the irish laws) covers far more than farming. Chapter headings include: Livestock; offenses by/against domestic animals; accidents, diseases, etc; crops; hunting and gathering; diet and cooking; farm layout; land-tenure; farm labour; tools and technology; and a number of appendices and indexes. Highly recommended to anyone interested in early Ireland.
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From Medieval to Modern Wales by R. R. Davies, 2004, University of Wales Press, 256 pages.

Medieval chapters include: the medieval Welsh world-view; the identity of 'Wales' in the 13th century; mobility and marriage in a border society; the interpretation of late medieval houses in Wales (=all post-1400). Also includes chapters on renaissance/modern topics. I got this book through interlibrary loan and found it interesting. I'm not sure I'm going to buy it, though, since a lot of it concerns post-medieval things and it's not cheap ($49.95 on amazon). The chapter on houses is pretty good, with some nice diagrams. What I found most interesting, however, is that although they have now found several hundred houses in Wales that are at least partially medieval, none of the wooden ones dated by tree rings are earlier than 1420 - all post Glyndwr's Rebellion!
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As to what the problem is with chapter 14 ... that's another post.

-GRG

still here...

Too much going on last weekend to get a blog post up, and next weekend will be no better. I've done another half chapter on The Ash Spear, which is hanging fire while I do a little research, but I've been too busy to do the reading... The second half of July will be quieter, and then I hope to get more writing (and blogging) done. I also want to start doing random book reviews again... check here or on my amazon profile for ones I've done in the past.

-GRG

A New Review

Yesterday brought a new review of Storyteller, by an on-line reviewer -- Odyssey Reviews -- who will also be reviewing Flight of the Hawk soon. Unlike some other bloggers who have reviewed the book, she also posted her review to Storyteller's Amazon page -- a nice extra!

What I'm reading now...

Hadrian's Wall and its People, by Geraint Osborn. Published 2006 by Bristol Phoenix Press; 132 pages. $24.95 (paperback), $75.00 (hardback).

Chapter headings: Introduction, Why Build a Wall?, Military Life, Civilian Life, Hadrian's Wall and the End of Roman Britain, Conclusion: Hadrian's Wall and the English Sense of History.

Small, specialized, philosophical, uneasily poised between history and archeology, this book was an interesting read but ultimately disappointing. Considering its relatively modest size, too much space is spent on the archaeological history of Hadrian's wall and its defects, and on the effect of the idea of Roman Britain in 19th and 20th century British history. The maps provided are sketchy and look as if the author ran them up himself over a weekend; three line drawings illustrating Roman and British costume have the same amateur quality. The author's practice of referring to most of the Wall forts only by their modern British names is unhelpful to a non-British audience (a problem which could have been easily corrected by including the Roman names in parentheses, or at least putting them on a map key!). There is some good detail about staffing and conditions on the Wall, and about its relation to the rest of Roman Britain, and also lists of sites to visit and suggested further reading. The one thing that would have improved this book the most for me would have been better maps, in particular site maps. In addition, more detailed information on museums and interpretive sites on the Wall (including opening hours and location maps, or at least National Grid references) could have made this book a good companion to a tour of the Wall.

I bought my copy from David Brown, where it was half off at the time: reasonable value for money at that price, although the shipping puts it up a bit. If you think this one might be useful to you, I suggest you try interlibrary loan first.

-GRG

Reference Book of the Week

This week's pick: Life of St Columba by Adomnan of Iona, translated by Richard Sharpe. Retail price $16.00, currently $12.00 on Amazon. Running to 432 pages, including 10 pages of maps and geneologcial tables, an introduction (100 pages), the translated Life (134 pages), scholarly footnotes (144 pages), bibliography and index, this is almost two books in one, and good value for the modest price.

I began reading this book reluctantly as part of the research for my Storyteller series, because Columba's life (521?-597) spans the period of my stories. I expected a dry, boring read: I was wrong. The introduction is interesting and well-written, with a large amount of helpful historical detail about the people and customs of this period, and the Life itself is lively and entertaining. Columba and his monastic family were important figures in 6th-8th century Scotland and Ireland, and anyone interested in this period should know their acts and history. If you fall in this category, buy this book now and read it: at only $12, you have no excuse. Highly recommended.

-GRG

Reference Book of the Week

I haven't been as regular as I'd have liked with the review feature, partly due to a lot of travel in August and partly due to the amount of work involved in readying Flight of the Hawk for publication. In an effort to get back on schedule, here is another recent acquisition from my bookshelf.

This week's choice: The Roman Cavalry by Karen R. Dixon. 272 pages. At $39.01 on amazon.com ($40.05 retail) the book is reasonable value for money. The author is a professional archaeological illustrator.

Contents: Sources; Origins, unit strength, organization and titulature; Equipment and unit armament styles; Recruitment; Conditions of service; Training; The hippika gymnasia; The employment of cavalry in peacetime and wartime; Military records and the supply of horses; Roman cavalry mounts; Stables and grooming; Water and food supply; Welfare; Baggage animals. Well illustrated with line drawings and black and white photographs.

The author uses information from classical sources combined with archaeological findings and data from 19th and early 20th century European records to give a fairly detailed picture of the Roman cavalry over a period of several centuries. We learn about the recruitment, training, and equipment of both men and horses and their shared life together. Although I would have liked to see a little more detail in certain sections, this is a good overview. I notice that Dixon has also co-authored a study of Roman cavalry equipment, which may have the color plates this volume lacks.

The Roman Cavalry by Karen R. Dixon: recommended.

Another new review for Storyteller...

Totally unsolicited, from someone who bought the e-book version on Lulu: take a look!

Reference Book of the Week

Today's pick: Warlords and Holy Men: Scotland AD 80-1000, by Alfred P Smyth. First published in 1984; most recently reprinted by Edinburgh University Press in 2003. The author is a reader in Medieval History at the University of Kent.

This book won the 1985 Spring Book Award for Literature from the Scottish Arts Council, and one can see why. A wide-ranging, enthusiastic and scholarly work, it covers a great deal of ground with a surprising amount of detail for its size. Although some of the archaeological conclusions have changed in the intervening thirty years, this is still a good introduction to the period and good value for money at $24.00. Topics include: Roman Britain, the Picts, St. Columba, Adomnan, Vikings, the orgins of medieval Scotland, and the conquest of the southern uplands.

The author shows an impressive ability to look at the larger picture while not losing sight of details, an ability which allows him to combine seeming isolated facts into interesting combinations. Whether or not you agree with all of his conclusions, you will find many that are thought-provoking. An example is his dating of the final collapse of the British kingdom of Rheged by the series of entries in the Irish Annals of Ulster regarding the presence of roving bands of British warriors in Ireland between 682 and 709. Highly recommended.