From Publishers Weekly
Bestseller Cornwell leaps back a millennium from his Richard Sharpe series to tell of the consolidation of England in the late ninth century and the role played by a young (fictional) warrior-in-training who's at the center of the war between Christian Englishmen and the pagan Danes. (Most of the other principal characters—Ubba, Guthrum, Ivar the Boneless and the like—are real historical figures.) Young Uhtred, who's English, falls under the control of Viking über-warrior Ragnar the Fearless when the Dane wipes out Uhtred's Northumberland family. Cornwell liberally feeds readers history and nuggets of battle data and customs, with Uhtred's first-person wonderment spinning all into a colorful journey of (self-)discovery. In a series of episodes, Ragnar conquers three of England's four kingdoms. The juiciest segment has King Edmund of East Anglia rebuking the Viking pagans and demanding that they convert to Christianity if they intend to remain in England. After Edmund cites the example of St. Sebastian, the Danes oblige him by turning him into a latter-day Sebastian and sending him off to heaven. Uhtred's affection for Ragnar as a surrogate father grows, and he surpasses the conqueror's blood sons in valor. When father and adopted son arrive at the fourth and last kingdom, however, the Danes meet unexpected resistance and Uhtred faces personal and familial challenges, as well as a crisis of national allegiance. This is a solid adventure by a crackling good storyteller.
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In Northumbria in the ninth century, 10-year-old Uhtred is adopted by the victorious Danes after they kill his father. He is trained to be a warrior by King Alfred. Uhtred fights first on the side of the Danes, but eventually he must choose where his loyalties lie as he grows to adulthood. Tom Sellwood is outstanding in this performance, not only in his rendering of the myriad character voices, but also in his ability to re-create the atmosphere of the time period. The battle scenes are so realistic that listeners will feel themselves part of the "shield wall," the preferred military formation of that period. With lots of blood and guts, raping and pillaging, the authenticity is hard to deny. Fortunately, this is the start of a series by Cornwell, and if we're lucky, Sellwood will narrate them all. S.S.R. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine--
Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
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