BBC announce major new Saxon drama

“BBC Two announces new drama series, The Last Kingdom

A Carnival Films and BBC America co-production for BBC Two, The Last Kingdom is an adaptation of Bernard Cornwell’s best-selling series of books by BAFTA nominated and RTS award-winning writer Stephen Butchard. 

BBC Two, BBC America and Carnival Films, the Golden Globe and Emmy award-winning producers, today announced that production would begin in the autumn on The Last Kingdom, a new historical 8x60' drama series.”

It seems that the Saxons are at last to get a chance at popular culture. Without doubt the Vikings have been the dominant representation of early medieval peoples, giving us all kinds of stereotypical behaviours such as rape and pillage, clothing like helmets with wings or horns attached, and the image of a burly hair-suit barbarian.

Although the Saxon peoples were related in many ways to the Norse peoples, not least in culture, they have always been somewhat in the shadows of their more famous cousins. I have no doubt that in part this is a ramification of the successful invasion of Britain by the Danes, the period that Bernard Cornwell’s books cover, because to people who know very little about the early medieval age that is what the Vikings did; they conquered the Saxons.

It is true, they did destroy Saxon kingdoms like Northumbria, but it is also true that the Saxons ultimately went on to destroy completely the Viking kingdoms set up by the Danes. In fact the Saxons went to unite the whole of England and weld it into one of the great states of the times. They developed a robust culture governed by written law and in which the fledgling Christian Church enjoyed a rapid growth evinced by the number of churches being built throughout the island. At one point the Saxons were far ahead of the continent in building churches in stone.

Recent discoveries like the Staffordshire Horde have revealed a beauty to Saxon art and craftsmanship that has captured the imagination of the world. The popular view of the Saxons as a beaten people who were illiterate, mud-stained peasants, is being challenged and new representations of their social and cultural developments revealed. The Saxons are worthy of our respect.

The new drama series announced by the BBC represents an excellent opportunity for the Saxons to be recast in an image closer to what they are known to be for those who have taken the time to study them. Yes, it will show the destruction of Saxon kingdoms before the Viking onslaught, but hopefully viewers will come away with a more positive impression of the Saxons as a whole. Their civilisation lasted for over 500 years until the time of the Normans and even then it was not entirely eclipsed, it simple adapted to a new form, absorbed the foreign culture and became something new and even more robust in the process, giving rise to the modern British society of today.

petercwhitaker.co.uk

Gentleman of Fortune by Nick Smith

I like pirates even though they are not really the most admirable of role models. ‘Treasure Island’ is one my favourite novels and ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ one of my favourite films. Like most fans of the genre I think it is the carefree attitude mixed with the scallywag and a bit of dangerous adventure that is most appealing about it. So with that in mind I was quite looking forward to getting round to reading ‘Gentleman of Fortune’.

Set at the turn of the 17th into the 18th century it follows the adventures of one Jacob Hollum, a native of Whitby, North Yorkshire, who has a winning smile and a habit of making the wrong decision repeatedly. Returning home from a failed attempt to earn his fortune at sea Jacob drifts into becoming a smuggler and when the law catches up with him he flees to Holland to discover an extended family and a claim to aristocracy that he never knew he had. From his new home he enters into his Dutch family’s business as privateers. This is basically licensed piracy and was a common practice amongst maritime nations at war as it increased the number of warships at no extra cost to the government.

So Jacob sets off to sea again and has a few skirmishes, which are depicted by the author in a very entertaining and realistic manner. I found the sea life of the sailors far easier to understand and identify with than when I read Patrick O’ Brian’s ‘Master and Commander’. A sailor’s life was a hard one no matter in which ship he sailed and this is reflected very honestly in the book.

There is a problem, however, and that is in the language used by the characters; it is not authentic. They do not talk like people from the late 17th and early 18th century and quite a few words that are not recorded as being in use until the 19th century appear in the text. I always find this disappointing because I enjoy good dialogue but it is also a common mistake made in historical fiction, one that would should be spotted by an editor.

One of the other problems of writing a book like this is that your main character has to be something of a rogue, dangerous but not to the wrong people, a law-breaker but with a line that he will not cross. He or she should have a certain charm, a way of winning over the reader so that they can forgive them their sins and care enough to want to see them get to the end of the adventure in one piece. I am not sure that Jacob Hollum is one of those characters. He lacks Captain Jack Sparrow’s charisma, or Long John Silver’s knowledge of the world; his white teeth seem to be his main charm! When Jacob commits a reprehensible crime, no matter what the justification, it is difficult to view him in the same way again as before the event took place; I kind of stopped caring about him. However, Nick Smith is planning a series of books so there is time and place for Jacob Hollum to grow and perhaps grow on me again.

In conclusion I did enjoy ‘Gentleman of Fortune’, the fact that a large proportion of the story takes place in the part of the country where I live was always going to be an attraction, and it moves a long at a good pace. The sea battles are very entertaining and demonstrate a genuine skill by the author that could be further refined by some attention to detail in respect of vocabulary and the development of a rogue’s character.

After the Break is Over

Work commitments and a brief city break have kept me away from writing and social media for nearly two weeks, but I am not complaining. It is often good to have such absences to recharge the batteries, so to speak. Although I say that I had a break the fact is that although I did not sit down to a keyboard I did an awful lot of thinking about my work.

I am one of those people who can spend an awful lot of time in their head. I tend to think literary things through before committing pen to paper; hence I don’t tend to have copious notes lying around concerning plots, characters, or supporting information. In fact I tend to ignore the latter until after I have at least a first draft developing nicely.

So while I was away I spent time thinking over ‘For Rapture of Ravens’ and trying to decide what, if anything, needed to be added or removed to make it a better read. I plan on submitting the book for publication sometime between the end of July and the beginning of September and in all honesty I have only one more review to do as I complete the formatting of the text. I did this previously with ‘The War Wolf’ and it proved quite successful.

The result of all this cognitive exercise is that there seems to be precious little that I need to do to the current version. I ma happy with the way the characters have developed, especially some of the personages who were somewhat in the background in ‘The War Wold’, people like Aldfrid, Aethelmaer, and Thrydwulf, all of whom come to the fore at last.

With regards to the plot this was somewhat more difficult as certain key-points are literally carved in stone, the historical events I mean, and I could not deviate from them without risking the integrity of the book itself. This is a fact of life for anyone who writes historical fiction and it is something that you have to accept when you start or else you are not writing historical fiction but fantasy along the lines of what if the Battle of Stamford Bridge occurred two weeks later? The ‘what if’ alternative history idea is something that I am saving for my next project, it has no place in ‘The Sorrow Song Trilogy’.

One area that an author can develop with more freedom is the sub-plot. The tension surrounding the characters like Coenred is obvious; he is a warrior who is going to fight in the last three battles of the Saxon world. For characters like Mildryth this is a little different. As a woman she can only be a spectator to such events, but that does not mean that she cannot also be a fighter, albeit in a slightly different way, which brings me to the character of Wulfhere.

Wulfhere is a bad man, there’s no two ways about it. A thief, murderer, and liar; in fact the perfect counterpoint to Coenred. It seemed inevitable that they would both become enamoured with the same woman if for different reasons. Women are so often the victims in life but I did not want to portray Mildryth that way. I wanted her to be strong, courageous even, a woman who could rely upon herself in most situations. It seemed that by casting Wulfhere’s shadow over her those qualities could be developed as the greater story of the Saxons’ conflict with the Vikings grew in weight and intensity.

There is a scene in ‘For Rapture of Ravens’ where Mildryth once again comes face to face with her nemesis Wulfhere. This scene is a further development of the one at the end of the battle in ‘The War Wolf’, but whereas young Edwin was on hand then to help drive Wulfhere away this time Mildryth must do the task herself. At first this encounter was just an episode in the story of these two characters but it has since developed into being a catalyst in changing Wulfhere for the worse. Having spent some time thinking about it I believe that this is the right path for them to follow. It makes Wulfhere more dangerous, that is true, but also gives Mildryth an opportunity to display her own courage and fortitude before the kind of men who once ruined her life.

The outcome is not the conclusion of their relationship, that will come in the third volume, but it sets up their final encounter nicely to be the kind of dramatic event that you might expect from a brave woman who refuses to become a victim once again and a man who is now obsessed with destroying the woman who is a constant reminder to him of what he is not but has so often longed to be.

If my schedule runs to plan then hopefully you will be able to read both this and the main story of the Saxons’ epic struggle with King Hardrada of Norway when ‘For Rapture of Ravens’ makes its’ appearance very soon.