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A review by tomasthanes
1066: What Fates Impose by G.K. Holloway
4.0
This was a tough book to get through (no reflection on the author). Here are the reasons:
1. It's history. Most people lump books on history in the same category as "root canals without anesthetic" and "pancreatic cancer" (even though all three are quite different).
2. It's a period of history when a lot of the names are very similar ("Harold" and "Harald"). If you're not paying careful attention, you'll lose track of who you're reading about.
3. The bad guys win. This shouldn't really be considered a spoiler unless you weren't paying attention in World History in high school. The Normans, at this time in history, really were pigs. They were arrogant and insecure and England went down hill for hundreds of years after the Norman Conquest in terms of freedom and justice. They used their Roman Catholicism to lie about and attack the legal monarch of England and to justify it with their religion. Personally, I don't like it when the bad guys win.
The author did a good job of telling the story of the event leading up to the Norman Conquest and the Battle of Hastings. Some of the dialog seemed a bit contemporary but on the whole it wasn't distracting.
1. It's history. Most people lump books on history in the same category as "root canals without anesthetic" and "pancreatic cancer" (even though all three are quite different).
2. It's a period of history when a lot of the names are very similar ("Harold" and "Harald"). If you're not paying careful attention, you'll lose track of who you're reading about.
3. The bad guys win. This shouldn't really be considered a spoiler unless you weren't paying attention in World History in high school. The Normans, at this time in history, really were pigs. They were arrogant and insecure and England went down hill for hundreds of years after the Norman Conquest in terms of freedom and justice. They used their Roman Catholicism to lie about and attack the legal monarch of England and to justify it with their religion. Personally, I don't like it when the bad guys win.
The author did a good job of telling the story of the event leading up to the Norman Conquest and the Battle of Hastings. Some of the dialog seemed a bit contemporary but on the whole it wasn't distracting.