Thursday, November 15, 2007

Pillars

I am happy to see that the latest Oprah pick is Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth. The story spans the decades it takes to build a cathedral in a 12th century English town. It will be too long for some, but it is in some ways like Lonesome Dove. That book is probably the only Western that many people read, and Pillars is probably the only medieval tale for many people. In both cases, the authors tell a complex story with compelling stories in a well described setting.

For those looking to get a little more medieval, Sharon Kay Penman's Here Be Dragons is an excellent choice. She uses historical personages for her main characters and I haven't the slightest idea if it is accurate or not. I can say that it feels real and it is an excellent story.

And if your interests lean to the game side, then why not pick up the game version of Pillars of the Earth? I haven't played it yet, but I think I might tonight with my game group. So I'm in a game group and a large portion of my reading is given to science fiction, fantasy, graphic novels and military history. I may as well start LARPing.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I flat-out loved Pillars. There were very few things in college that I would allow to cut into my Greenleafe time. POTE was one of them.

That's a bit of a late arrival, no? I understand that a "sort-of-sequel" is coming out; could this be some pre-marketing?

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I always wonder why the History Channel and A&E ran weeks full of features on Troy, Alexander the Great, et al right before the movie came out.

Tripp said...

You are correct HLK, there is a sequel called World Without End.

http://www.amazon.com/World-Without-End-Ken-Follett/dp/0525950079/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195232954&sr=8-1

You may well be right about the conspiracy angle, although Oprah strikes me as pretty independent.