Robert Low's Oathsworn Series

annis · Post by **annis** » Sat April 16th, 2011, 6:50 pm

Posted by EC

it was like being in a room with a lot of people all bellowing at once and you didn't know who to turn to for proper conversation

I had a similar experience with Stewart Binn's Conquest, a novel about Hereward the Wake, which drove me to distraction. The author does so much "telling" that it felt as if I had someone constantly yapping in my ear while I was trying to read it. It's one of those books you clearly either love or hate and unfortunately it's on my list of books which have seriously irritated me this year. Apart from the turgid prose I just felt there was no real period sensibility. I see Hereward as much more in line with Bernard Cornwell's Uhtred

Binn's Hereward has more in common with Charles Kingsley's romanticised Victorian vision of medieval England.

Low doesn't take any prisoners with Lion Wakes- he dives straight into the story and you do feel a bit "whoa, where am I?" to start with. The dialect I actually enjoyed- I thought it added greatly to the atmosphere and LW has atmosphere in spades, mostly of the ominously brooding sort. I also enjoyed the use of dialect in Candlemass Road, one of my favourite George MacDonald Fraser stories, but I know it won't appeal to everyone and wonder how American readers will cope with it. (Just had the thought that Robert Low and GMF could perhaps be described as curmudgeons of a feather

)

EC2 · Post by **EC2** » Sat April 16th, 2011, 10:23 pm

[quote=""annis""]Posted by EC

Low doesn't take any prisoners with Lion Wakes- he dives straight into the story and you do feel a bit "whoa, where am I?" to start with. The dialect I actually enjoyed- I thought it added greatly to the atmosphere and LW has atmosphere in spades, mostly of the ominously brooding sort. I also enjoyed the use of dialect in Candlemass Road, one of my favourite George MacDonald Fraser stories, but I know it won't appeal to everyone and wonder how American readers will cope with it. (Just had the thought that Robert Low and GMF could perhaps be described as curmudgeons of a feather

)[/quote]

Yes, I wonder that. At times I thought it was like Rab C. Nesbitt in the the 13thC! I might try one of the Viking ones and see how I get on with that.
Mind you, I don't like George Macdonald Fraser (DH loves his work) except for Mr American, so it could be I'm not a good target reader. I can recognse GMF is a fine writer, it's just like bananas. You either like or you don't!

I haven't tried the others you mention, although the Binns has an aqquaintance of mine, Nigel Amos, posing on horseback on the cover!

annis · Post by **annis** » Sat April 16th, 2011, 11:37 pm

Margaret has just posted my review of The Lion Wakes on her Historical Novels Info website, so thought i'd add it to the RL thread here:
http://www.HistoricalNovels.info/Lion-Wakes.html

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Mon April 18th, 2011, 11:22 am

'Carmudgeons of a feather', eh - well, I have been called worse and compared to lesser than GMF, so I take it as a compliment. I think a lot of the problems for readers stemmed, in part, from the advance copies they got to review. No glossary, no map, no cast of characters all makes it harder. The finished ones are out and I hope for better comments. The rest of it is down to the Marmite of my style!

Robert Low