Essex Dogs
Ratings21
Average rating3.6
3.5 bumped up in spirit of encouragement. Jones is a Historian first, author second and I fear it sort of shows. He could have fleshed out the characters more, but more than that I wound have more development of the political strategy rather than just go from battle to battle.
Really enjoyed this book, a ragtag group of soldiers storming France during the start of the hundred years war. The main group reminded me of the First Law Northmen and I enjoyed their dynamic. The action scenes were great; particularly the opening scene which is clearly inspired by the opening of Saving Private Ryan; and the final battle which was really exciting.
I do think that the book needed more. It felt bare bones in terms of character, plot, and descriptions. Lovejoy and a couple others of the Dogs were more well defined, but with their being 10 Essex Dogs, some of them are just...there. And the rest of the English army are all pretty bland. I will definitely read the sequel though!
As a lover of Jones's non-fiction works (Powers & Thrones is sublime), I really wanted to like his first taste of fiction, but this book just comes up flat. Conceptually, I am taken by the illustration of the quick historical war narratives, and to his credit, Jones knows his history - the story feels authentic to the historical setting and allows the reader to join in the campaign to some degree
But ultimately, it falls short of being truly engaging fiction. Characters are flat, stereotypical, and above all uninteresting. Scenic descriptions are underwhelming and don't capture the feeling of being in France. I hear that the second book improves on these areas, and I may get to it at some point.
I was so excited for this one, but in the end it was a let down. The characters were not written in a way that makes you feel anything for them. Every time I sensed a spark of some development happening it flickered out just as quickly. I had trouble even staying engaged with the story because a lot of it dragged on and on and on. While this group of men were waiting for things to pick up along their journey toward battle, so was I... for the majority of the book. Rather than the anticipation building throughout the entire plot, I was simply bored and barely made it to the end. Pretty disappointed.
Well I really wanted to like this one but I guess it's just not for me. I didn't care for any of the characters. No death mattered to me and that's a huge problem for me. That's kind of the whole point of the book. I did think that he portrayed violence very well and that's about the only positive thing I have to say.