The one where Sharpe sticks rigidly to a winning formula. And, you know, wins. Again.

Sharpe is clearly a Jaggaroth. Or similar. Finally, I've worked out what's going on. But let's hope the centuries that divide him aren't undone for a while yet. It's all being too much fun to come to an end.



According to the coming soon (but not yet!) board in my local Waterstones on Saturday, Bernard Cornwell's The Burning Land was expected to be available for sale on 1 October. Luckily for me, nobody told Amazon so I had already received my copy by then.

Yippee! As I've mentioned in previous blog posts- I'm a bit of a fan of Bernard Cornwell's books (even before I made my Jagaroth recognition breakthrough). Primarily because he sticks to a formula, and it's a formula that, with one caveat, I like. And I love Sharpe. Which is lucky, because he's always there, starring in every book, whatever name he's going under this time. If in fact he's not a jagaroth then there's something very odd going on.

This latest episode in the Alfred The Great themed saga (The Lords of the North series) presses all the right buttons. Two big battles - one at the start, one at the end. A new Big Bad - this time a Danish woman, Skald. A very very bad baddy. We know this because the first time we meet her she has just had someone skinned. Ouch. The Obadiah character, Father Asser, (strangely in the background in this series) does his usual bit of baddy manipulating. Sharpe (Uhtred of Bebbanburg) continues to nurse his feelings of righteous injustice while being a military marvel. Oh if only he had a rifle. But the shield wall will do. And at least swords have names. Rifles don't. Sharpe/Uhtred loses yet another wife. This is sad. To lose one wife/lover is unfortunate. To lose one almost every book.........careless. Or heartless on the part of Cornwell. The thing is - those deaths don't bother me any more. The tactic has been way, way overused. I invest precisely nothing in Sharpe/Uhtred's latest shag since I know she will be around for one book at most. That's the bit of the formula that I think has stopped working.

Other than that though - this latest book is, like all the others before it, what book reviewers call a rattling good read. Fast paced, engrossing, lots of highpoints and punch the air moments, a very good baddy, excellent supporting cast (the version of the chosen men we have in these books is very good - there's even a Harper analogue). My favouite supporting character, Ragnar, seems marked for death in the next book though. Which will be very sad, if my suspicions ate correct.

At the end of the book we have the familiar and reassuring Uhtred will campaign again. A nod to the notes at the end of the real Sharpe books. Or a clue to the true nature of our spaghetti headed hero?

The thing is - if this isn't all a convoluted romp through time and space.........much as I love the Alfred books, I want Sharpe. Proper Sharpe. With, you know, rifles. And green jackets. And Harper. And it very much looks as though that's what Cornwell really wants to be writing. I just wish he would, again.

-- Posted from my iPhone