Pride and Honour - Nathaniel Burns

   2013; 362 pages.  Full Title : Pride and Honour – The Battle for Saxony.  New Author? : Yes.  Genre : Historical Fiction; Dark Ages; Middle Ages, Sneaky Proselytizing.  Overall Rating : 5½*/10.

    Hey, tell me everything you remember from History class about The Dark Ages.

    Let’s see now.  They started upon the collapse of the Roman Empire in 476 AD.  They went on for a long time.  They were …um… pretty dark.  And they lasted until the Renaissance began.

    So they were around for a thousand years or so.  Do you remember studying about any specific events that happened in Western Europe during that time period?

    Well, I remember William the Conqueror going over to England and kicking butt at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.  And some time afterward, King John signed the Magna Carta at Runnymede.  That’s about it.

    How about a guy named Charlemagne?

    Oh yeah!  The Pope crowned him king on Christmas Day, but don’t ask me the year.  He founded the Holy Roman Empire.

    Well done.  And where was this kingdom?

    Well, duh!  It’s called the Holy Roman Empire.  So of course it was in Italy.

What’s To Like...

    Pride And Honour chronicles the 13-year-long struggle (772-785 AD) by King Charles of the Franks (aka “Charlemagne”) to subdue the Saxon tribes in what is present-day Germany.  There are three protagonists: King Charles, leader of the Frankish armies; Sturmius, an abbot who reprsents the Papal interests; and Widukind, who emerges as the sole lord in all of Saxony who can unite the squabbling tribes against the Frankish invaders.  Sturmius and Charles, although allies, have a complex relationship.  They seek the same end – the subjugation of the Saxons – but for different reasons, and each “uses” the other to serve his purposes.

    There are a slew of characters – Saxons, Franks, Danes, Swedes, Papal legates, and even an Anglo-Saxon from across the channel.  A “Cast of Characters” at the beginning would’ve been helpful, but I kept track of them via a long list of notes.  There is a map at the beginning, which helps the reader get oriented; but many of the cities, forts, and scattered kingdoms aren’t on it.

    I liked the fact that almost all of the main characters are “gray”, neither pure good nor pure evil.  The exception may be Widukind, but he has to contend with the fact that the Saxons are doomed to lose the war.  Sturmius reminded me of Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael, and that’s a plus.

    The genre is first-and-foremost Historical Fiction, and I was surprised by how many of the characters and events were drawn from history.  Charlemagne really lived, of course; but so did Sturmius and Widukind, as well as many of the lesser nobles cited in the book, and the desecration of Irminsul really occurred.  You can read all about them in Wikipedia.  I was mildly bummed that there was no “real versus fictional” Afterword section.

    The setting had a nice “Dark Ages” feel to it, and it's always fun to read a story based in the time-&-place that I know very little about.  I liked the attention given to how the clergy influenced political matters.  Such was the case way back then, and trying to convert pagans was more a matter of who held the sword, than who had the most persuasive spiritual argument.  More on this in a bit.

    I found the ending to be so-so.  The aim is noble: the author seeks to demonstrate that the bonds forged between the Franks and Saxons proved to be of critical importance to the existence of the newly-expanded kingdom.  But our three protagonists are all gone by the time this "proof" takes place, and for me, this whole justification was too drawn-out to keep my interest.   I think it would’ve been better to limit it to being an Epilogue a couple pages in length. 

    The book is written in English, which I always like, so you get words like Honour, manoeuver, lacklustre, amock, and ageing.  Pride And Honour is a standalone novel, and not part of any series that I can tell.

Kewlest New Word ...

Baldric (n.) : a belt for a sword, worn over one shoulder and reaching down to the opposite hip.  (Google-Image it).

Others : Gode (n. ) : By context, a Saxon priest, although that definition doesn’t show up in a Google search.  And BTW, you are hereby warned not to Google-Image this one.

Excerpts...

    “Charles will do as those before him have done.  He’ll come and defeat a levy or two.  Then he’ll go home, and we will do as our fathers did, and invade the Frankish kingdom.  Another peace treaty will be drawn and the peasants between Eder and Diemel be made to pay.  And we will again be at peace.”  (loc. 494)

    The heat in the eyes wooing her burned into her body, and her heart like hot coals. But she did not give ground.

    “I need you, Fastrada,” his words emerged almost in a groan.

    Her answer was calm and clear, “If the Lord King needs a woman, there are enough noble ones here who would willingly help him make it through the night.”

    Charles abruptly swept a cup from the table with his right hand as if pushing someone away.

    “I need you, Fastrada,” he said in a determined tone.

    The woman glowed.  (loc. 3834)

Kindle Details...

    Pride and Honour sells for $3.99 at Amazon.  I don’t think there’s a sequel, nor any other books in this setting by Nathaniel Burns.  He has a couple other standalone novels, but his magnum opus is a 10-book series titled The Mummifier’s Daughter,  with each book in the series selling for $2.99.

“When you come with your knights and your swords, you come to conquer, not convert.”  (loc. 763 )

    Alas, Pride And Honour comes with some serious issues.

    First of all, commas and semicolons keep popping up all over the place.  This was a formatting glitch, not any grammatical shortcoming on the author’s part, but it was distracting as all get-out.

    Added to this were spelling changes to a number of names.  Gottrick became Gottrik, and then became Gotrick.  Egbert morphed into Egberth.  The Oborites changed first to the Obodrites, then to the Odorites.  And Throsuk went to Thoruk.  Since the reader is usually unfamiliar with all the names, these switches are positively confusing.

    More serious, as several other reviewers have noted, is the preachiness that pops up in Chapters 35-36.  It's ill-fitting, self-serving, and boring.  Listen, if you’re going to write a religious fiction book, fine.  But at least have the integrity to then list that as the book's genre.   You’re not doing God’s will by sneaking a couple chapters of evangelism into your Historical Fiction book.  The truth is, She isn't keeping score.

    5½ Stars.  At its heart, Pride And Honour is a wonderful tale, fleshing out a piece of history that most of us know little about.  But an editor needs to be brought in to address the weaknesses cited above.  The result can be a remarkably interesting book.