2010; 266 pages. Book 1 (out of 6) in the “Ambrose Sagas” series. New Author? : Yes. Genres : Norse Historical Fiction; Vikings; Medieval
History. Overall Rating: 6/10.
It’s 859 CE, and Ambrose has been having a
tough time lately.
His village in Wessex has just
been raided by Vikings. In addition to
the usual looting and pillaging, they’ve taken a number of hostages. Ambrose is one of those. Now the Vikings are headed back to their
homeland to sell off their prisoners as slaves.
Well, Ambrose has one thing
going for him—he’s a prince! And princes
can be ransomed back to their homelands.
Alas, Ambrose is a bastard prince. There goes any chance of him being valuable
enough to be bought back.
So if you don’t want to be
worked to death in the fields, Ambrose, you better start using your wits and
wisdom. Which, come to think of it,
happen to be your biggest assets right now.
What’s To Like...
Ambrose, Prince of
Wessex; Trader of Kiev is the opening book in Bruce Corbett’s 6-volume
historical fiction series that's set in the 9th century CE and features the trader Ambrose adventuring across Europe, Asia, and even Africa. In this story we learn how Ambrose became a
European emissary and deal-broker.
The action starts right away, with the abovementioned Viking raid on Wessex. There’s also a sufficient amount of fighting for those who prefer a bit of blood in their historical fiction, and even a bit of romance that I suspect will develop further in subsequent books of the series.
There are a bunch of interesting characters to meet and greet, the main two being Phillip, a weapons-master and Ambrose’s bodyguard, and Polonius, a Byzantine scholar who can come up with some amazing tweaks of military strategy and technology.
The author clearly did a bunch of research before writing this, which delighted me to no end. 859 CE is the middle of the Dark Ages for Western civilization, and there are very few books, fiction and non-fiction, devoted to providing details of that time.
I was surprised by the number and variety of peoples whose path Ambrose crosses in his travels: Saxons, Pechenegs, Khazars, Ghuz, Vikings, Frisians, Rus, Magyars, and Varangians. Four appendices are included in the back of the book, a Glossary (so you can look up words like atheling and jarl), a Cast of Characters (so you can tell who’s fictional and who really existed), a Timeline (so you can tell who was doing what and when), and a Map (so you can tell where the heck Ambrose is). The links to these helpful resources work incredibly smoothly.
Everything builds to a
suitably exciting, albeit not particularly twisty, climax. Not all the storylines are tied up, but hey,
that’s what Books 2-6 are for. The final
chapter serves as an Epilogue and a teaser for the next book in this series, Ambrose, Prince of Wessex; Emissary to Byzantium.
Ratings…
Amazon: 3.8*/5, based on 89 ratings
and 29 reviews.
Goodreads: 3.18*/5,
based on 50
ratings and 6 reviews.
Kindle Details…
Ambrose, Prince of Wessex; Trader of Kiev presently
sells for just $0.99 at Amazon. The
rest of the books in the series go for $3.99 apiece. Bruce Corbett has several other series for
your Kindle, those books also cost $3.99 each.
Excerpts...
“The life of most of the Byzantine
citizens, or at least those of the capital of Constantinople, is tied up with
affairs of commerce and culture. The
risk of one’s life, at least to a Byzantine, is a foolish thing. One only fights a savage and implacable enemy
host if one is unable to hire others, more brave or foolish, to do the job for
you. Although there is a very
well-trained and strong Byzantine army, it is composed of professional
soldiers. Some of the soldiers have even
come from as far away as Northern Viking lands in order to enlist.” (loc. 824)
“The Varangians have a strong sense of
honour, but it is not as you and I know it.
They would rather die than break their word to a valued companion.”
“Then, Polonius, the town elders should be
at their ease. You have just said that
the Varangians can be trusted to keep their word at all costs.”
“Aye . . . To a valued companion.”
“What are you saying, Polonius?” (loc. 3837)
“Our Greek scholar
may be a brilliant theoretical strategist, but he hasn’t got the common sense
God gave a toad.” (loc.
4283)
There’s not much profanity in Ambrose, Prince of Wessex; Trader of Kiev, just
five instances in the first 50% of the book.
Later on, the god Odin has his name referenced for mild curses, such as “by Odin’s left eye”, and other parts of his
body, which amused and pleased me.
Less amusing are several
R-rated situations, including a discussion of rape, a rape itself, a castration,
and a sexual assault. One of these acts
is carried out by our hero; none of them are particularly important to the main storyline. It makes me wonder who the
target audience is.
But by far the biggest issue
with this book is the atrocious amount of typos, misspellings, and grammar faux
pas. Things like lightening/lightning, loped/lopped and what seemed to be the author’s own system for handling multi-paragraph speaking. It was incredibly distracting, and mars what
is otherwise a worthy effort to pen a novel set in a time and place that almost
nobody writes about.
If you can ignore the dozens
upon dozens of grammatical miscues, and don’t mind the occasional inclusion of
unnecessary sexual abuse, you will probably find Ambrose. Prince of Wessex;
Trader of Kiev an entertaining and enlightening read. Sadly, I couldn’t.
6 Stars. The treatment of slaves in Viking villages was an interesting study here. Although some captives of the Vikings were subjected to back-breaking labor, others were given a relatively humane way of life. This is the second book I’ve read recently that has presented slavery thusly, albeit under vastly different historical and geographical circumstances. That other book is reviewed here.
No comments:
Post a Comment