Warlord (Outlaw Chronicles) [Hardcover]

Review

When i first started this series it was with a touch of eagerness, and a fair bit of trepidation. Robin Hood has always been a personal favourite of mine (i do share the name after all). I have read quite a few failed attempts at writing this great character, and seen some blooming awful films.

By the end of that 1st book i was amazed by the astounding piece of work that Angus had produced, so new and so fresh and so real.

The wait for books 2 (Holy Warrior) and 3 Kings Man was eternal for some one who loves Historical fiction, and I'm sure he didn't mind the hundreds of reminders to get the heck on with it.

So how did book 4 Warlord match up to its predecessors?

Its better, every book has got better than the last, yet this one takes a large leap froward in excellence. The writing and the plot as ever is realistic, dark, violent, dirty, visceral so many words. Its like opening a portal on the past and a more realistic past that the fanciful and simple rob the rich to feed the poor. As usual Sir Alan Dale is the true star of the show, for any book you need to be able to relate to some degree with a character and Robin is just too much of a git to truly do that. A charismatic git a dramatic git a medieval Don Corleone of a loveable git. But Alan is the true multi-dimensional character the one you can see yourself in.

Earlier this year i said Christian Cameron's God of War would be my book of the year for 2012. This book damn near proved me wrong. I do now have 2 books of the year, because i really cannot separate them. The Outlaw Chronicles is fast becoming one of my all time favourite series.

VERY Highly recommended.

(Parm)

Book Description

May 1194. Finally released from captivity, Richard the Lionheart is in Normandy engaged in a bloody war to drive the French out of his continental patrimony. Using the brutal tactics of medieval warfare - siege, savagery and scorched earth - the Lionheart is gradually pushing back the forces of King Philip of France. By his side in this epic struggle are Robert, Earl of Locksley, better known as the erstwhile outlaw Robin Hood, and Sir Alan Dale, his loyal friend, and a musician and warrior of great skill and renown.

But while the battles rage and the bodies pile up, Robin seems only to be interested in making a profit from the devastation of war, while Alan is preoccupied with discovering the identity the man who ordered his father's death ten years earlier - and the mystery is leading him towards to Paris, deep in the heart of the enemy's territory ...

I found that Warlord followed the trend in Angus' series in that THERE IS NO TREND. Honestly, one thing you can really count on with the Outlaw books is that any new title will have a new story, a fresh angle and a different feel and theme to it. There is nothing formulaic or repetitive about the series in any way.

Outlaw was a tale of survival and redemption with Alan Dale and the infamous Robert Odo of Locksley, better known as Robin Hood. The story took us in a new and interesting way around familiar old legends, with a fresh and brutal interpretation of Robin that is nothing like the man in green of classic TV.

The second book, Holy Warrior, took us to Outremer and the world of the crusaders, with a now-legitimate Robin. The mood was darker and more soul-searching and, to be quite honest, left me feeling angry at Robin and, to a lesser extent, Alan. This was, for me, the `Empire Strikes Back' of the Outlaw series.

Thirdly, King's Man was the tale of King Richard's imprisonment in Germany and Alan and Robin's part in his return to power. It was also the tale of Prince John's rise and then fall. It was a story of intrigue and espionage and to that point the best in the series, I would say.

And so, to Warlord. Once again, Angus has taken us in a new direction. Alan and Robin move with the action to Normandy, this time, to Richard's brutal and protracted war with Phillip of France. There are three very distinct threads of action in this tale, though not consecutive or in order, but the tale is an amalgam of the three, bound together like a celtic knot.

Firstly, Alan Dale is beginning to delve into the secrets that surrounded his father's expulsion from Notre Dame in Paris and his subsequent death upon the order of a mysterious and powerful figure. This story involves murder, conspiracy, penetration deep into the heart of the enemy in Paris, and the investigation of some of the most powerful men in the world. This is as good a mystery tale in itself that it could fill a novel on its own and stand up to the best histfic murder mysteries out there

Secondly, there is the war itself, which is told in vivid description, with all the heroic scenes expected of Coeur de Lion's somewhat rash valour and excitable nature. But it is also brutal and unpleasant, giving us details about the world of medieval warfare that goes beyond the simply `what happened and who won?' style of history and explores the effects on the ordinary soldiers and the people caught in the middle of a war between their masters.

Thirdly, there is the tale of Alan's growth and love and his manor at Westbury, the depredations of his land under the vicious Hag of Hallamshire, the growing relationships with Goody and his men, including young Thomas, the squire, who is now almost the Alan we remember from the first book.

So that's a rundown of what Warlord is about, missing out too many spoilers. "But", I hear you say, "what's it like?"

Warlord is simply excellent. It brought to mind elements of a number of my favourite things, including some of the feel of the Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars video game (that may sound a strange comparison, but it remains one of the best-written and most evocative plots I have ever found and if you haven't played that game, buy it straight after Warlord), the siege scenes in medieval movies like Jeanne d'Arc (an average film to my mind, but an excellent siege scene), visits I have made to some of the book's locations in my youth (the Chateau Gaillard I found particularly breath-taking), the great tales I read as a boy of Richard the Lion Heart and his wars, and even a touch of the Arthurian legends, mixed with Christian myth and more. See how much the book makes me think of other very cool things?

Old villains that survived the previous books are just as vile and loathsome as ever, but are somewhat cast into the shadows by the arrival of new and all-the-more twisted and maniacal antagonists. Old friends are back in their full glory, and with them others who were previously minor and now begin to come to the fore. The last fight in the book is some of Donald's best work and had me almost twitching and leaning left and right with the swings as I read (like when you watch a rollercoaster on TV). It was, for me, on a par with the most excellent duel scene in King's Man, about which I have previously raved.

As with the previous books, and increasing with each new release, one of my fave characters is King Richard himself. I suspect that the amount of research Angus has done on this famous king is deeper and more involved than anything else he has undertaken in his work, and it shows. Angus' portrayal of Coeur de Lion is magnificent, and easily the best I've come across either on paper or screen. That alone makes Warlord an outstanding book.

So the upshot is that Warlord is another winner from the author of Outlaw. If you like his books, you'll buy this one, I'm sure, and if you've not read any, then you need to buy them all and start from the beginning.

Oh... and Warlord throws us some tremendous teasers for what to expect in book 5. It makes me hunger for the next release

As always, Mister Donald.... Bravo!

This is volume 4 of the Outlaw series (after Outlaw, Holly Warrior and King's Man). It is focused on the five last years of the reign of Richard Lion Heart (from 1194 to 1199), after his release from captivity, and his constant struggle against Phillip II, the King of France. Again, we find Robin Earl of Locksley, and his men (including Little John and his fearsome battle axe) and Alan Dalle, the warrior trouvère whom Angus Donald has equated with Blondel. As another reviewer mentioned, it might be preferable to read the books one after the other, although this is not absolutely necessary to enjoy this one.

The first thing I particularly liked about this volume was the topic. As Angus Donald mentions in his historical note, there are many books on King Richard but few that concentrate on his last years. This one does, and, as usual, the author manages to tell a superb, exciting and very historically accurate story. Although on paper King Richard I was much more powerful than his liege lord King Philip, the latter was a cunning diplomat who kept detaching Richard's vassals from him and encouraging them to rebel against the King of England throughout Aquitaine, Touraine, Anjou and Normandy, just like his father (King Louis VII) and grand-father (King Louis VI) had done in their time against previous Kings of England and Dukes of Normand. The author, who acknowledges drawing heavily from John Guillingham's magisterial Richard I, clearly shows how Richard put up a spirited defense and struggled for 5 years to reconquer, one by one, almost all of the castles and fortresses that had been lost during his captivity. It also shows him as the charismatic, energetic and skillful warlord that he was. Even what appear at first glance to be his acts of reckless bravery seem to have been mostly calculated risks, including those taken to win his victorious battle at Gisors.

There is much more to the book than this. The second excellent point is that it shows what medieval warfare was really like, with all its horrors, pillaging and massacres. It also shows war generally opposing relatively small armies - a few hundred or a few thousand on each side - with each trying to subdue and conquer the others castles and fortified towns through sieges and doing their best to avoid pitched battles where everything could be lost all of a sudden. These were wars of sieges, skirmishes and ambushes and rapid movement. The importance of siege warfare, and of capturing enemy castles quickly before they could be rescued, is very well illustrated in the book and the descriptions related to Château Gaillard are accurate. I particularly liked the two assaults on Verneuil and Milly and the hand-to-hand fighting on the walls. They were also wars that could only be sustained for a short periods so that they were many temporary truces. All of this is very well shown in the book, including the effects of war on the men (with one of our heroes being subject to what is now called post traumatic disorder) and the kind of behaviors that professional warriors such as the routiers (mercenaries) of Mercadier (who really existed and really served faithfully Richard until his death).

However, this volume is not only about warfare. More generally, it paints the picture of daily life and of the feudal world at the end of the 12th century whether in Alan Dale's manor or in Paris which was under major construction at the time, as indicated in the book (but I will not mention anything more to avoid spoilers). We also learn much more about Alan Dale's father, and why he was murdered, so there is a bit of a detective story's flavor added to it at times and even the Holy Grail comes into it.

Readers should also be aware that the portrays of the two Angevin brothers are largely (although not entirely) the traditional ones: Richard Lion heart "the hero" and John "Lackland" "the villain". Despite this, Richard, at least, was not caricatured: some of his less savoury sides are also shown. As for John, he has been so reviled that it has always been very difficult to come up with a case in his favor, although some have tried. I have two final little quibbles, perhaps, but certainly not enough for this book to be anything else than five stars.
- First, a "slip of the pen": contrary to what is mentioned, neither of Richard's grand-fathers (Geoffroy, Count of Anjou and William, Duke of Aquitaine) ) was Duke of Normandy, although his father (King Henry II and his great grand-father (Henry I Beauclerc, the last of William the Conqueror's sons) were
- Second, Aliénor of Aquitaine was not present when Richard, her favorite son, died of his wound at Châlus.

Also, for those interested in further reading in some of the topics covered in this book, I can recommend the following titles, in addition to the John Guillingham's book mentioned above:
- John France's Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades (1000-1300)
- Blood Cries Afar: 1216 by Sean McGlynn, which, despite its title, covers the last years of Richard's reign and the whole of John's reign.