Game Of Thrones, But Real

I've been talking about books that I own a lot on here, but I thought it might be cool to talk about the books that I'm reading as well. And when I say reading, I mean listening to. I almost never actually read a book with my eyes. It's mostly ears these days.

Sometime last year, my friend suggested that I should check out a book series by Bernard Cornwell called the Saxon Stories. He'd been watching the BBC/Netflix show The Last Kingdom, and knew that it was based on these books, and he thought I might like them. Kind of funny, if you ask me, to recommend books to someone based on the TV show they're made from, but there you go.

The first book was called The Last Kingdom, as was the TV show, and I found it on Audible and gave it a shot. My nephew was loaning me the use of his Audible account at the time, and he had a ton of unused credits, so he said to go ahead and get it.

It was an interesting book. It's a historical fiction novel set in 9th century England, but it could just as easily have been a fantasy epic set in Middle Earth or on Pern or Westeros. It feels very much like that kind of a story. There is even enough mysticism involved with the ancient pagan religions and the early Christianity that you could be convinced that there was magic involved too.

It was a brutal and graphic as any Song of Ice and Fire book as well. I listened, and thanked my lucky stars that I was born in the 20th century and not the 9th. People say these books are like Game of Thrones but real...or realish, anyway. There's a great deal of liberties taken to make a story out of the history.

I enjoyed the book, but then my nephew decided he wanted to use his remaining credits to buy the Expanse series, so there were suddenly none left, and I couldn't continue it that way. So, I didn't listen to any more for a while.

However, while I was on my cruise a few months ago, I wanted something to occupy my time as I lounged around on the pol deck, and my wife told me I should get on Libby again. I had done that library app in the past, but I'd stopped using it for some reason, and hadn't gone back. I was already on the ship, and we were about to sail away to where there was no internet, though, so I hurried and downloaded it and looked for a book to listen to. I settled on the next Bernard Cornwell book in what is now known as the Last Kingdom series instead of the Saxon Stories in the same way that The Game of Thrones TV series kind of renamed the Song of Ice and Fire.

This one was very much in the same vein as the last. Brutal and graphic, but interesting and entertaining. I listened my way through half of the book on the cruise, then finished it up a week or so after getting home. I'd recommend this one as well.

From there, I was off an running. I was on Libby, so I could get any audiobook that they had as long as I was willing to wait my turn. I put holds on what felt like dozens of books, but had to wait a long time for almost all of them. Surprisingly, the Saxon Stories were all available without even a wait. I could just grab the third book, because no one was waiting in line for it. So, I did.

The third book was probably my least favorite so far. It was still very good, but felt more fake and contrived than the others did. I think it was based less on historical fact and more on the author's imagination. From what I understand, there was only the loosest mention of the story of this book in historical annals. I still enjoyed it, but the one that I really liked was the fourth book.

Sword Song felt like the pinnacle of the series so far. It kept me interested and turning pages...and by turning pages, I mean continuing to listen in every spare minute I had...until I reached the end. I think I consumed it in about three or four days. I loved everything about the book.

So, that's where I'm at so far. I just checked out the fifth book, and I'm about an hour or so in. I'm listening to these books in between the other holds that I've made on Libby. It's hard to work out the holds. I asked for a bunch of books, and they claimed it would take a long time for each to come in, but instead, they all came in at the same time, and I had to delay my hold on most of them. That's one of the main reasons I love this series, because the later volumes don't require holds right now, so they're always available if I want them. That makes me happy.

I also started listening to Bernard Cornwell's King Arthur series called the Warlord Chronicles (though I suspect it will be renamed the Winter King series, because it was made into a TV show by that name as well). I'm two books into that one, and I guess I'll talk about those on here too when I get the third and final book.