- Hardcover: 344 pages
- Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd; 1st Edition edition (4 Jun 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0340696680
- ISBN-13: 978-0340696682
- Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 14.6 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 499,489 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
High Kings And Vikings
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Product Description
Product Description
It is the tenth century and conflict, war and internal feuding are rife. Kenneth the Second brings disaster to his kingdom, all because of a woman. Young Cormac mac Farquhar, Thane of Glamis, is to find himself caught in the ensuing chaos, but his involvement brings him unexpected happiness.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is one of the best Nigel Tranter Novels I have read. The cental character,Cormac is very human and sympathetically drawn so that you are keen to find out how he deals with the many problems with which he is faced. I found the setting in the viking era a major plus as this period was one that he had explored little in his many other books and I felt that this gave the novel a fresher feel.It was well paced with elements of romance, intrigue and lots of action.One not to be missed by his many fans and a good starting point for a new reader as it is more self contained than many of his other novels.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
HIGH KINGS AND VIKINGS Nigel Tranter 1998
The late and greatly missed Nigel Tranter (b.1909-d.2000) was not only one of Scotland's leading historians, but was also the premier writer of Scottish historical biographical fiction. If you were to organise his books chronologically they would form an almost complete biographic history of Scotland from the earliest times to the Highland Clearances. I started to collect his books as they were published in early 1970s and acquired each new title until the last in 2007.
This novel takes place in Scotland's 10th century during and shortly after, the reign of Kenneth II, King of Alba, a turbulent period of intense Viking forays along the Scottish coast each raiding season. The central character of the story is Cormac Mac Farquhar, Thane of Glamis who is constantly called upon to face the raiders and is credited with being the first Scot to capture a clutch of Viking longships, train his men in their use and turn them back against the previous owners.
Mr Tranter has woven a rich tapestry using the scant historical research available for this period and himself admits to a higher than normal concentration of fictional linking story in this particular tale. Never the less, the story brings to life a little known period of history, with plenty of action and the author's usual fine descriptions of the locales in which the actions are placed.
Not my personal favourite of Tranter's novels but still a great read and well worth owning.
Thank you Mr.Tranter, for your contribution to literature, your prolific output which would keep any reader content for years, and your determination to bring readable Scottish history to the people.
You are sorely missed.
The late and greatly missed Nigel Tranter (b.1909-d.2000) was not only one of Scotland's leading historians, but was also the premier writer of Scottish historical biographical fiction. If you were to organise his books chronologically they would form an almost complete biographic history of Scotland from the earliest times to the Highland Clearances. I started to collect his books as they were published in early 1970s and acquired each new title until the last in 2007.
This novel takes place in Scotland's 10th century during and shortly after, the reign of Kenneth II, King of Alba, a turbulent period of intense Viking forays along the Scottish coast each raiding season. The central character of the story is Cormac Mac Farquhar, Thane of Glamis who is constantly called upon to face the raiders and is credited with being the first Scot to capture a clutch of Viking longships, train his men in their use and turn them back against the previous owners.
Mr Tranter has woven a rich tapestry using the scant historical research available for this period and himself admits to a higher than normal concentration of fictional linking story in this particular tale. Never the less, the story brings to life a little known period of history, with plenty of action and the author's usual fine descriptions of the locales in which the actions are placed.
Not my personal favourite of Tranter's novels but still a great read and well worth owning.
Thank you Mr.Tranter, for your contribution to literature, your prolific output which would keep any reader content for years, and your determination to bring readable Scottish history to the people.
You are sorely missed.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
6 reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Another Good Historical Novel by Tranter
4 Mar 2001
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
After reading Tranter's Kenneth (an excellent book about Kenneth Mac Alpin, uniter of Scotland and Pictland, in the 9th century), I wanted to have the story continued. This is Nigel Tranter's next book, chronologically. It begins about 150 years later, with Scotland challenged internally (with mormaors vying to be High King, assassinations, and battles with Viking marauders). Tranter (who was about 90 when he wrote this historical novel) tells the story in a compelling way. It is hard to put the book down, with warfare (both on land and at sea), romance, and intrigue present on almost every page.
Cormac (Thane of Glamis) and his love, Fenella (niece of the Mormaor of Angus) are the central characters, but famous present and future Scottish kings play a large role in the book as well: There is MacBeth (meaning Son of Life), who is the Mormaor of Moray and Ross at this point; Constantine (the noble High King, who is killed by a mormaor); and the memorable Malcolm the Destroyer (yet another High King of Scotland). There also is the half-Scottish, half-Norse Thorfinn Raven-Feeder, who is another fascinating character. Their battles and negotiations with each other, and with the norsemen and the Angles are interesting indeed.
I liked Tranter's accounts of the Viking raids, and the horrible consequences for the common people along the coasts of Scotland, as well as the capturing of their longships by Cormac and his men, and their use by the Scots against their various enemies. Some minor criticisms: I wished that Tranter had devised at least one storm for the Scots to go through in their new vessels, but there was nothing worse than some rain; there also was no mention of what happened to the longship that Ian the Wright of Usan, Scotland built; there was no mention of what happened to the Mormaor of Mar, after he supported the vanquished High King, Kenneth III, immediately after Kenneth's defeat (he apparently emerged later as a great supporter of the new High King, Malcolm).
All in all, however, I enjoyed this book very much, and look forward to reading more of Nigel Tranter's works.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
An excellent read
1 May 2000
Format:Paperback
Nigel Tranter does an excellent job in bringing Scotland circa 1000 A.D. to life. Seen from the viewpoint of Cormac, Thane of Glamis, Tranter writes an enjoyable story of a young man coming into his own, both as a politician and as a fighter of vikings. I didn't give it five stars for the sole reason that the main character was too "modern" in his outlook, but not irritatingly so. I highly recommend it.
11 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Low kings and pokings
4 Mar 2002
Format:Paperback
"O'er the wires the electric message came: he is no better, he is much the same."
It would be unkind to lump Tranter with his fellow Scot, the poetaster McGonagall; although an author who, straight-faced, can come up with a title such as the one that graces this novel has only himself to blame. It's true that some of Tranter's vast output can be mildly diverting, if you don't mind historical and literary tone-deafness. His characters, whatever their names and titles, are unfortunately always the same: a small cast of modern people with modern attitudes, transported back five or ten centuries and endowed with an irritating repertoire of cod Olde English. (What of this of Master Tranter? Gey gordon it is, and, and, not so ill, just, all agreeing ...) I recall in one of his books an embassy to the court of Henry VII taking offence at being called Scotch instead of Scots. This would have been meaningless much before the twentieth century. It's a kind of unhistorical political correctness. Scott and Burns both called themselves Scotch; and Scotsmen unaffected by genteel Edinburgh preciosity still do. Other times he makes a big thing about how the Scots were more salt-of-the-earth than the English because they didn't call their kings 'Majesty'. Neither did the English, until Henry VIII picked it up from the French.
I like historical novels. There are some good ones among the dross, and a few very good ones. The best you can say for this book is that it isn't one of the worst. If you really like it - if you think it's something more than a written-by-numbers Cook's tour of the Scottish Dark Ages - there's no more to be said. Actually, Tranter wrote only one historical novel: "Balefire", set in the sixteenth-century Borders. I remember liking that when I read it aged thirteen. All the rest is repetition. Meanwhile, novelists with real historical feeling and originality, like Robert Neill or Henry Treece (you might like them if you could read them), are long out of print.
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