Book 1), The Archer's Tale (The Grail Quest

Unbelievable! A true disappointment. I have read all of the Saxon Tales and this is a disaster. A
very loose plot, So many loose ends that went nowhere! The ten books from the Saxon Tales
has a clear, concise plot that ran through all ten books. How could Cornwell even put this in print?
The Holy Grail was barely mentioned. The lance became the main focus-----NOT the grail! I
expected the same quality as the Saxon Tales and what a sorry excuse this book is!

The only thing that Cornwell can do now is write a sequel and try to recapture the quality
of his former novels.

There are so many glowing reviews of this book & Cornwell in general, that I took a chance & ordered it unseen. I enjoy historic fiction, even though the writing does tend to be weak & male-fantasy oriented for some reason. I really hoped to enjoy this book, since the advent of the longbow was such an upheaval of technology & the balance of world power.

The one thing that I did find rewarding about this book was an early discussion of Christian relics that included several I'd never heard of before, including a feather from the wing of an Archangel. Most relics are pretty concrete & unimaginative: a splinter of the Cross, a drop of blood from the Crucifixion, the bones of a saint. I was struck by the lyrical turn of mind it must have taken to capture imaginations & create a compelling, convincing physical relic from abstract mythological stories. Small business ingenuity in the Middle Ages :)

Regrettably, the characters & the plot were rather more cardboard, cliche & predictable than my already low expectations will allow. There is essentially no sympathy for the one-dimensional enemy--the French are treated like buffoons. So, it's hard to recommend this book for its great story &, unfortunately, its historical enlightenment isn't much better.

While there is a bit of history to be gleaned, it is so focused on the minutia & trivia of specific battles that it is essentially meaningless, unless you are fascinated by how each side arranged their troops on those particular days. I also found it strange that the author went on & on & on about dying horses & how to hamstring a horse & how to spear horses on lances, even as the soldiers starved. What? I'm sure they ate the horses. Strange thing to get squeamish about after treating us to repeated gore-fests.

There is no context, no background & no broad overview explaining the development--or significance--of the events, the mounted knight, or the longbow.

What there is, in excess, is brainless violence: battle gore, rape, pillaging, wanton destruction, fire & blood.

While this is not at all untrue of the period, the repetitiousness of it & the lack of discussion of the economic function of the feudal system that created this situation--or anything else of substance for that matter--suggests that the primary market for this book is impulse-driven adolescent boys who long for a world like this.

If you don't fall into that category, better try the library before you waste your dollars here. I'd recommend you look into James Burke's original "Connections 1" series for a serious--if brief--discussion of the rise of both the mounted knight & the English Longbow.

Nice tale, but poorly written. I am a published author with a degree in English, creative writing. The author has an exciting tale to tell, but doesn't really develop it well in terms of using language to develop events in a way that carries the reader forward. It's an easy book to put down between chapters and forget about. Because of the the slightly stilted language I was occasionally jolted out of the story line and reminded that I was just reading a novel. The story itself is quite interesting and the historical touches are great, but it's not a great example of good story telling, so I can't recommend it.

If you've read Cornwell's Saxon Stories then you're probably familiar with the formula. Intelligent soldier plays the hero, wins lots of battles, schemes, and has a slew of women on the side. The Archer's Tale mostly follows this formula as well.

Thomas isn't Uhtred though. Within the first 50 pages I sort of expected him to be, but eventually he stands on his own two feet. And it took less time for Thomas to grow as a character then it took the 5 or so books and 30 some years it took Uhtred. He starts as a young, impetuous man, with little thought for the consequences of his actions or what it means to be a good Christian, (partaking in raiding and raping, though we never see it, he freely admits he has done this). And then he sees the effects of rape on a woman he cares for and decides to change his ways.

Thomas just wants to shoot a bow for the English, and lead English archers into battle. Those are his dreams. But a few years ago, he promised his dying father he would avenge him, and he would find the lance of St. George, a holy relic and a holy saint to the archers and the English, which was stolen by the man that killed his father. He tells this story to Father Hobbe, who acts as a sort of fatherly figure to Thomas and holds him to this promise which was made in a church. So off Thomas goes, and finds both enemies and unlikely allies along the way.

While there is no character who could replace Uhtred in my heart, Thomas is special in his own way. He's a reluctant champion for the grail and the lance, and he's mostly a good Christian, though he has some doubts (St. Guinefort is hysterical to me). I adored Skeat and Father Hobbe and Sir Guillaume, and sort of in a strange way, the Prince, though you don't see much of him. I had a hot/cold relationship with Jeanette. I really wanted to love her, but couldn't in the end respect the way she treated Thomas.

This book has a much slower pace then the Saxon stories. Even the battle scenes were slow in comparison. I think they suffered without first hand accounts from the shield wall, and also, I really missed the insults. In The Archer's Tale, the running insult seems to be "bastard" instead of "arseling". But there weren't any taunts about mothers and such nonsense that I love. I think it has to do with the chivalry of the knights.

All around another well researched and well told historical fiction novel by Cornwell. I think this would appeal to any fans of his, fans of historical fiction, or anyone interested in Holy Grail history/myth.

This is an excellent historical novel covering the period at the very beginning of the Hundred Years' War, mostly being the tale of one archer involved, ending with the Battle of Crécy.

It is only the second book I’ve ever read by Cornwell, although that first definitely put him on my “favourites” list. He likes to do his research, even listing at the end his main sources for historical reference and inspiration. He specifically points out that he didn’t include much chivalry, because on the battlefield, with the blood and adrenaline, there wasn’t any. It is therefore a very bloody and gory tale, trying its best to depict the horrors of what cavalry warfare was really like. England remains proud to this day from its archers of the past, with the “two fingered salute” remnant apparently being a reference to that (although there is no historical evidence to support that, but it is known that English archers were killed if taken prisoner, being so hated by the French).

It is enjoyable in its gory detail. Thomas grows quite strongly throughout from the youth who enjoyed taking part in the rape and pillage, to actually pitying women and protecting them afterwards after seeing how harrowing it was for one particular women he came to know. This, for me, was a nice touch, when so many just took what they wanted in the thralls of victory and didn’t think anything afterwards (as a note, for anyone who thinks of these periods with nostalgia, I wouldn’t want to have been a woman in that age, not by any means).

With the talk of “relics”, I was definitely hoping that it wouldn’t transcend into some bizarre mystery reminiscent of Kate Moss, amongst others. Although it appears to be just a playing on the superstitions of the time (although Cornwell doesn’t elaborate in his endnotes on any historical references for this).

There were a few bizarre bits of annoying conversational repetition (someone grimaces, not because of what the other person said, but because of some stench or memory – the first time is fine, the second is frustrating, the third starts to grate severely), but I enjoyed seeing Thomas move along on his journey of self- and ancestral-discovery.

A couple of slower points left me cutting short on my reading hour, but otherwise it thoroughly deserves its mid-high rating.

I was a huge fan of Corwell's Napoleonic Wars-era Sharpe novels, but for some reason never got around to picking up any of his subsequent series. Looking for some page-turning historical action, I finally picked this up the other week and devoured it in days. Although to a certain extent, it felt a little formulaic, Cornwell's formulas are good ones and the results are entertaining.

The war in this series is the Hundred Years War, and the hero is a teenage boy living a quiet (ie. boring) life in a small English fishing village. A French raiding party more or less obliterates the village, and the boy is the only one to escape (killing plenty of Genoese crossbowmen with his longbow first). The raiders killed his father and looted the church's holy relic, and he joins King Edward's army in order to go to France and revenge himself.

Soon enough, he's swept up in the war, while managing to rescue not one, but two women from being raped amidst the chaos. Like Sharpe, he's a natural at war, being a gifted longbowman and cunning fighter. Similarly, he speaks his mind and doesn't suffer noble fools, which earns him a dangerous enemy. The story climaxes at the famous Battle of Crecy, and as always, Cornwell is at his best putting the reader on the front lines of a historic battle, describing everything in vivid detail while clearly leading one through the tactics and strategy involved.

Note: The British edition of this book is titled Harlequin, so don't be confused.

Set in the mid-fourteenth century, “The Archer’s Tale” (titled “Harlequin” in the U.K.) tells the story of Thomas of Hookton, a bastard-born son of a village priest. Thomas’s father wanted his son to take the cloth, but all Thomas wanted to be was an archer, one of the deadly English longbowmen whose mighty weapon would help decide so many battles during the Hundred Year’s War. After a wonderful prologue, we learn that Thomas got his wish, serving as an archer in the army of the Earl of Northampton during the siege of a walled town in Brittany named La Roche-Derrien.

Thomas is one of my favorite of Cornwell’s protagonists. He’s Oxford educated, speaks three languages, and is happiest when serving as a bowman in the king’s army. But he also has a promise to keep: to reclaim Hookton’s holy treasure, the Lance of St. George, from the man who stole it and murdered Thomas’s father. Despite the urging of Thomas’s friend, Father Hobbe, to keep that promise, Thomas is preoccupied with his life as an archer, until fate brings him low and sets him on the path to fulfill his oath.

That path begins with Jeannette, a widowed French countess who will do anything to make sure her young son inherits his late father’s title. Jeanette is a brave, defiant, and flawed character who hates the English, but soon finds herself surrounded by enemies, both English and French. After the English sack her home in La Roche-Derrien, one of those enemies becomes Sir Simon Jekyll, an arrogant and lecherous young knight who is the novel’s chief antagonist. Her and Thomas’s mutual enmity toward Jekyll brings the two of them together, igniting the spark that propels the story forward.

If the story were nothing more than a rollick through the early years of the Hundred Years War with Thomas and his band of archers, it would still be a wonderful tale. But Cornwell gives us more. In the prologue, it’s revealed that Thomas’s father is secretly noble, from a southern French family known as the Vexilles. Legend holds that the Vexilles brought back the Lance of St. George from the Crusades, but we later learn they also recovered something else: the most powerful relic in Christianity, the Holy Grail. Even more, the Vexilles are said to be servants of the devil who will use the Grail to bring down Christendom. This legend gives the “Grail Quest” series its name, for Thomas becomes convinced that he must do what King Arthur’s knights failed to do: find the Grail.

Like most of Cornwell’s novels, “The Archer’s Tale” is an adventure of sorts, taking Thomas from the small English village of Hookton, to war-torn Brittany, Normandy, and finally Crecy. It is also filled with brilliantly crafted battle scenes, including the famous Battle of Crecy in 1346 between Edward III of England and Philip VI of France. But it is Thomas and Jeanette, along with a perfect villain in Sir Simon, who make this book one of Cornwell’s best. This is the second time I’ve read the novel, and the re-read was even better than the first. For any fan of medieval fiction, I highly recommend it.

Young Thomas, from the coastal English village Hookton, is there on the day the town is invaded by the French. They massacre the men, capture the women, kill Thomas' parents and steal something from the church - a holy relic the village priest protected jealously.
The French are led by a knight, Sir Guillaume d'Evecque, who himself was hired by a mysterious black-clad stranger calling himself the Harlequin. When the Harlequin kills Thomas' father, before his death he makes Thomas promise that he will retrieve the relic.
But Thomas has no time for the mysterious - he wants to be an archer. And so he joins the group of archers led by Will Skeat to fight in France, under the banner of the Earl of Northampton. There he meets a woman called Jeanette, who has a battle of her own to fight.
During his adventures in France Thomas meets with Sir Guillaume again, finds out more about his family and his role in the greatest quest the world has ever known.

I've read this book in a Hebrew translation under the name "The Archer's Tale". I was amused to discover that the title was changed for the American market, as to not confuse them, because the word harlequin has a different meaning for them.
This was the first Cornwell book I read, but that's not the way I felt. I knew these characters - the clever sharpshooter; the brave and roguish officer; the two wiseass best friends; the high commander in whose eyes the hero distinguishes himself by doing something brave and unexpected - it's Sharpe in the Middle Ages.

Recall the famous speech to his rifle company in Talavera, from the TV series.

Sure, it wasn't actually said, but it well might have been. Everything else is exactly the same.
I'm assuming, offcourse, that the TV series was pretty close to the books, but I won't be at least surprised to discover that every other Cornwell books follow the same formula. It's like a singer-songwriter who writes his own tunes and when he does a concert, one can never tell when one song ends and another begins - they all sound exactly the same.

"...many deadly battles have been fought, people slaughtered, churches robbed, souls destroyed, young women and virgins deflowered, respectable wives and widows dishonored; towns, manors and buildings burned, and robberies, cruelties and ambushes committed on the highways." And so begins the epigraph of Bernard Cornwell's " The Archer's Tale " ( The Grail Quest, Book 1).

The Archer's Tale depicts the beginning of the Hundred Years War from the perspective of an archer, Thomas of Hookton, who survives the destruction of his village and the murder of his father ( the village priest ),who before dying begs him to recover the stolen lance of St. George and avenge his death. Three years later, Thomas is an archer in the English army. The book is divided into three parts. The reader follows Thomas's journey through Brittany, Normandy and Crecy.

Up until reading " The Archer's Tale ", I hadn't read anything by Bernard Cornwell. This error on my part has been corrected. I definitely plan on reading more books by this author. I really enjoyed reading this book, which is basically an entertaining medieval action packed adventure. There were times I felt I was in the middle of the battle scenes depicted in this book. That's just how good Cornwell's descriptions of the battle scenes are in this book. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone .You, the reader, will be transported to another time in history.

Even with all the action and adventure that's packed into "The Archer's Tale ", there is also some humorous moments in between all the fighting,sacking,and bloodletting. This is one of the many humorous exchanges between the characters in the book. This conversation is between Thomas and Father Hobbe,which takes place in a tavern after the English capture La Roche-Derrien :

"I'm going to get drunk, father ", Thomas said happily. " So goddamn drunk that one of those two girls will look attractive." He jerked his head at the widow's daughters. Father Hobbe inspected them critically, then sighed. " You'll kill yourself if you drink that much, Thomas."

"The hellequin...are the dead who have no souls. The dead who were so wicked in life that the devil loves them too much to punish them in hell and so he gives them his horses and releases them on the living."from Bernard Cornwell's "The Archer's Tale"

This first novel in Bernard Cornwell's "Grail Series" is a rock n' roll 14th Century swords, horses and armor action adventure. The characters are interesting but cliched, flawed enough to develop an emotive reader response, but without real emotion and depth. The story is fast-paced, heavy on detailed scenes of 14th century battle, tactics, equipment and armor. And yes, there's some sex too.

This novel sets the stage for a series focused on Thomas of Hookton, the bastard son of a priest who's grown up with a passion for archery, despite his father's best attempts at keeping him focused on intellectual pursuits. During a French raid to steal an awesome religious relic, the spear St. George used to slay the dragon, Thomas' passion is crystalized in a single pull of his bow, and the underlying premise of Cornwell's series is revealed: "In that one instant, as the first arrow slid into the sky, he knew he wanted nothing more from life. He was an archer."

Later, Thomas leaves his home in England and joins an archery unit known as 'the hellequin', in support of his Kings' military pursuits across the channel. Cornwell describes Thomas' developing expertise in the skills of war, "It was not just that he was a good archer--the army was full of men who were as good as he and there was a handful who were better--but he had discovered he could sense what the enemy was doing." And so a plot full of blood, revenge, chivalry, humor and even love, begins.

This is the third Cornwell book I've read. "The Archer's Tale" is exciting, interesting and diverting. It's not deep, but it's fun. It's not insightful, but the story flows well, and the pages turn themselves.

The book gets this review on the basis that it was originally entitled "Harlequin".
As i have had the trilogy for some time, and indeed have almost all of Mr Cornwells books to date, it was thought that this was a new book by an excellent author and storyteller whose consistency in the sheer quality of his writing has almost required me to purchase each of his new books as soon as they appeared.
It should also be stated that this is despite his apparent distrust of the Scots which somehow works its way into most of his writing however, as a Scot, it should be said that I do have similar thoughts about the English..
To re-title such a book is not only confusing but also considered to be slightly unethical and it is for this reason alone that the book entitled "The Archer's Tale" is rated in such a manner. It should also be said that the original book entitled "Harlequin", still gets four stars.

In the Archer's Tale, Bernard Cornwall does what he is known for very well and for the most part that's a very good thing. Thomas of Hookton, son of a wayward priest makes a plausible and appealing hero. Bastard son of noble family, at the age of 18 his village is ravaged and he is off to find fame, fortune and revenge.

The situations he finds himself in are interesting and plausible and the author segues nicely into Thomas's growing abilities and value. If I have a complaint, Cornwall is occasionally too coincidental, too pat. Thomas has two sworn enemies and wouldn't you know that in all of France they manage to hook up for the big battle at Crecy where he may or may not kill two birds with one stone.

It's rather surprising that an author who is so realistic in and painstakingly accurate with battle description would stoop to such tawdry scenarios to drive the plot, but nobody is perfect. Those who complain about the violence obviously haven't read Cornwell before, or have confused him with Phillipa Gregory. It's no bloodier then say the Saxon chronicles, and a good deal more lively than the last couple of installment in that series, which for me has begun to drag.

Definitely worth a read.

Prominent author Bernard Cornwell, famed for the Richard Sharpe series and the Arthurian Warlord trilogy, begins anew with a series set in a time of immense change.

It is the fourteenth century, the Hundred Years War is about to begin (lasting until 1428); the Black Plague has already begun ravaging Europe and taking life; and then there is still the Great Schism to come (a time where three popes ruled and the entire area of Christian Europe was excommunicated).

Our hero is Thomas of Hookton. In 1343 his town was sacked and pillaged by the marauding French, and everyone was killed except him. Now years have passed and he is fighting for the English army against the French; the stage is set for the Hundred Years War, while in the back of his mind lurks a revenge against the people who razed his town and killed his friends and family They have stolen a relic from his church, the lance that was supposedly used by Saint George to slay the dragon.

The crux and closure of the novel involves the first monumental battle of the Hundred Years War, the Battle of Crécy, the first great win for the English against the French. It is here that Thomas of Hookton, one of the best archers in all of Europe, will fight for the English, as well as avenge the destruction and death that he has suffered for so long, and in the course of battle, the famous lance of Saint George will shine like a beacon, as Thomas fights to reclaim what was stolen from him.

Once again Bernard Cornwell outdoes himself in this wonderful new series. While the writing is not a high literary level, the book is nevertheless compelling, and the history extremely well researched. Cornwell skillfully weaves in the details and facts of the period, serving as a colorful world for the strong characters to interact with.

The reader quickly learns that the reason England is so victorious against the French is because of the infamous longbow (a later coined term). We even see the first cannons ever used by Edward III, which fail pitifully and are used more in hope than effect. Cornwell ends the novel with the Battle of Crécy, setting himself up for a complete series of one of the most major wars in the history of civilization.

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If the knight was the M-1A1 Abrams main battle tank of the medieval battlefield, then the archer was the Hellfire anti-tank missile! Cornwell's battlefield descriptions could make a 30 year battle hardened veteran blanch. However, for me it's the way that he builds the character relationships and their inter conflict that keeps me coming back. Thomas of Hookton is a flawed character with a mission he neither wants nor is equipped to take on. Thomas is the bastard son of a mad priest who ran away from Oxford to follow his desire to become an archer. As Thomas soon learns there may be more to dad's madness than the ravings of a twisted mind.

The Archer's Tale (The Grail Quest, Book 1) is a well written tale of a time when the Roman Catholic Church and secular society began their long, bloody, and eventually successful spit. There is also and excellent audio book available at both the store and Audible. Once you've finished you want read the rest of the series

Vagabond (The Grail Quest, Book 2) Heretic (The Grail Quest, Book 3) 1356: A Novel

Bernard Cornwell ventures into the era of archery warfare. As he notes in his afterword, other civilizations used the bow and arrow, but only England developed it as a dominant weapon that could win wars. Archery took years to master - boys had to grow up shooting to develop the right physique - but in England had become a fad.

So, for a few centuries, many fine archers developed, enough where hundreds of archers could put thousands of arrows into the air in battle, dealing death from a distance. Archery was more effective, Cornwell says, than musketry, and Benjamin Franklin thought the colonists might have beaten the British sooner had they used longbows instead of muskets.

Archery turned the tide of medieval warfare. Until now, the armored knight - an aristocrat, with a small fortune invested in equipment and fine horses - ruled the battlefield, riding his fighting horse and chopping down men on foot. But in 14th century France, its north ravaged by English occupiers, French knights find that archers can kill them from a distance, their powerful eras piercing armor and certainly enough to cripple or kill their mounts.

There's a real democratization here. The archers are blue-collar guys, infantry soldiers who walk places, sleep on the ground and have to scavenge for food. Cornwell always loves these guys, be they Sharpe, Nathaniel Starbuck, or, here, Thomas of Hookton.

And they are England's edge - not the aristocrats, not the knights, not the men on horseback, whose French opponents are their equals. Crossbowmen on the French side have their own fearsome weapons, but the crossbows are slow to reload and less effective overall than the British longbows. It's the longbows that make the English unbeatable, allowing them to plunder the French countryside for years.

The plot: Thomas of Hookton joins up as an archer to fight in France after his home village on the English Channel is destroyed by a French raiding party. They kill his parents while pursing a curious relic, opening up a family mystery in the process.
In France, his standing as an archer steadily improving, he suddenly finds himself a fugitive after conspiring with a beautiful French widow to kill their mutual enemy, the boorish Sir Simon Jekyll. Rescuing her, but then abandoned by her, Thomas meets a French noble also seeking the truth about Thomas's family - and revealing to Thomas that the relic he seeks is no ordinary one.

Taking the noble's illegitimate daughter with him, Thomas rejoins the English. They are trapped deep in France without supplies, their way blocked by French rivers, in time to fight the historic battle of Crecy against an overwhelming French force.

There are a few things I didn't like about the book. I don't think Cornwell gets his narrative or dialogue voices quite right for the era, unlike the Sharpe series, which he nailed; the Starbuck series, where he did a great job capturing the 19th century American mind and language both North and South; and the Saxon Chronicles, where Uhtred's voice really stands out. In the last of those he did a much better job with capturing the pagan, mystical mindframe of his protagonist, his ways of speech and thought. Here, Thomas often sounds too modern for a story set a little before the time of Chaucer. In his other books Cornwell has found ways to suggest the flavor of the period's language without sacrificing clarity and readability; I'm hoping that in the sequels he does better with that.

Otherwise a fine story completely in the Cornwell vein.

I first encountered Bernard Cornwell's work via the BBC TV series on his Napoleonic Wars soldier, Richard Sharpe. This was a gripping series, very well produced as one might expect from the BBC, and full of action and strong characters. So I picked up The Archer's Tale and was immediately plunged into his other world, the late Middle Ages of the Hundred Year's War, with a climax at the famous Battle of Crecy.

As with the Sharpe series, he evokes that world in a wonderfully detailed and immediate way that is immediately convincing, and tells his tale with a plot that draws you in. The tangled relationships of English and French are well drawn - many descendants of the Norman French conquerors of England have become the English invaders of France, even though some of them were probably closer in spirit to their French cousins than to their Saxon or "English" tenants.

I wasn't totally sure about the accuracy of his medieval world-picture, in spite of the evident deep research. Reading Huizinga and other social historians, one is struck by the importance of myth and symbolism in the worldview of the people of that age: credulity and superstition were at a high level. I began to feel that Cornwell's people are perhaps almost too contemporary in their down-to-earth practicality and, one almost says, cynicism. But then again, I recall Chaucer and his open, frank assessments of everything, his cheerful wit and ready sarcasm for the pretentious. Maybe Cornwell has it right.

Some describe him as the land-based successor to Patrick O'Brian. Well, yes and no. Insofar as both wrote wonderfully complete re-imaginings of a previous world centered on a miltary theme, yes. But I noticed in the Sharpe series that the characters, although strongly drawn, are not as rich, varied,or complex as the cast of the Aubrey-Maturin series. O'Brian just has more dimensions. And linguistically, O'Brian goes deeper into 1800s idiom. (Though that may be an attribute of the TV series - I haven't read the Sharpe books themselves). In The Archer's Tale, of course, the linguistic challenge is of a different order. The dialogue was all "really" in Chaucerian Middle English or Norman French - or Celtic Breton - and that won't make a highly readable book in the 21st century! So I think he does a very creditable job in having his characters speak a serviceable, straightforward English, free of labored archaisms but salted here and there with words that ring true as a likely phrase from the time - " Sir Simon attacked you?" Jeanette asked."Why?" "Because I told him to boil his arse" Thomas said, and was rewarded with a smile."

Another difference is that Cornwell is indisputably gorier (is that a word?) He does acknowledge, in a "Historical Note" that he first approached the period thinking of "chivalry, courtesy, and knightly gallantry" but rapidly found out about the brutal reality of medieval warfare. But even so, he does seem to give us much more blood-soaked detail than O'Brian in his battle scenes. Of course, in O'Brian's naval setting, hand-to-hand combat played a lesser role - some ship boardings, some land fights. Still, Cornwell does lay it on perhaps 'praeter necessitatem', as the slightly later William of Occam would have said.

Final verdict? I am going to follow up and read a lot more Cornwell....

If you are a fan of Cornwell you will read this. I do think the Warrior/Saxon Chronicles are are a bit better, and the Sharpe Series well thats' an entity of its own. You have a familiar premise found in many of his books, in this case the orphaned bastard warrior with a noble blood on the rise of military rank on merit rather than entitlement. The main character, Thomas of Hookton, is on a quest to avenge his father's murder & retrieve St George's lance which sets up the grail quest for the rest of the series. Thomas lacks a bit of the edge found in Cornwell's other series & his adversaries are just a smidgen less despicable. The reality is these are foibles that should have no impact on you reading this book. Cornwell animates the past with his words better than any historical fiction writer out there. The phenomenon of the 14th century English Archer is reason enough to read this book.

A superb 14th century story about a young archer whose father is killed by an invading army. The soldiers take a lance that his father said was used by St. George to slay the dragon. The archer joins the English army and begins a quest to retrieve the lance and avenge his father. His adventures include finding a way for the English army to breach a fortified town, rescuing a beautiful French noblewoman, fighting and evading the evil knight, Sir Simon Jekyll, and fighting in the historic Battle of Crecy at the beginning of the English-French Hundred Years War. A very well-written adventure!

Do stories set in days of yore bore you to tears? Does the use of 14th century language smack of bad Shakespeare as interpreted by your community theater? Do damsels in distress, knights on white horses and Prince Charmings make you want to puke?

Well...you'll find some of that stuff in The Archer's Tale but you'll also find that it's easily overlooked due to a solid plot line, credible characters and a fair amount sword clanging action. It's still a story of damsels and knights, good and evil, wrong doing and revenge but that's okay. In my book, suffering some clichéd corniness is a small price to pay for a decent story.

The story follows the travails of a would-be Prince Charming as he tries to make good on a promise he made to his dying father. The path he takes is not straight and he finds himself at odds with himself and with others along the way. Some of the people you think are good turn out to be otherwise and some you think are bad may not necessarily be.

The biggest negative - and what cost the book half a star - is that it becomes clear at about the ½ way mark that there is no way the author is going to be able to wrap up all outstanding business by the end of the book. And, as suspected, by the time you finish you will have realized that there is enough yet to do to fill a number of follow-up books. Kind of a bummer because I'm not a big fan of book series. If you are, then no worries...plenty going on to merit reading more.

This book ain't gonna tickle your gray matter any. It's a fine good vs. evil escapism that will entertain fans of knights and princesses and dragons and nobleman and sacking of villages and/or fans of good solid stories.

"...many deadly battles have been fought, people slaughtered, churches robbed, souls destroyed, young women and virgins deflowered, respectable wives and widows dishonored; towns, manors and buildings burned, and robberies, cruelties and ambushes committed on the highways." And so begins the epigraph of Bernard Cornwell's " The Archer's Tale " ( The Grail Quest, Book 1).

The Archer's Tale depicts the beginning of the Hundred Years War from the perspective of an archer, Thomas of Hookton, who survives the destruction of his village and the murder of his father ( the village priest ),who before dying begs him to recover the stolen lance of St. George and avenge his death. Three years later, Thomas is an archer in the English army. The book is divided into three parts. The reader follows Thomas's journey through Brittany, Normandy and Crecy.

Up until reading " The Archer's Tale ", I hadn't read anything by Bernard Cornwell. This error on my part has been corrected. I definitely plan on reading more books by this author. I really enjoyed reading this book, which is basically an entertaining medieval action packed adventure. There were times I felt I was in the middle of the battle scenes depicted in this book. That's just how good Cornwell's descriptions of the battle scenes are in this book. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone .You, the reader, will be transported to another time in history.

Even with all the action and adventure that's packed into "The Archer's Tale ", there is also some humorous moments in between all the fighting,sacking,and bloodletting. This is one of the many humorous exchanges between the characters in the book. This conversation is between Thomas and Father Hobbe,which takes place in a tavern after the English capture La Roche-Derrien :

"I'm going to get drunk, father ", Thomas said happily. " So goddamn drunk that one of those two girls will look attractive." He jerked his head at the widow's daughters. Father Hobbe inspected them critically, then sighed. " You'll kill yourself if you drink that much, Thomas."

"The hellequin...are the dead who have no souls. The dead who were so wicked in life that the devil loves them too much to punish them in hell and so he gives them his horses and releases them on the living."from Bernard Cornwell's "The Archer's Tale"

This first novel in Bernard Cornwell's "Grail Series" is a rock n' roll 14th Century swords, horses and armor action adventure. The characters are interesting but cliched, flawed enough to develop an emotive reader response, but without real emotion and depth. The story is fast-paced, heavy on detailed scenes of 14th century battle, tactics, equipment and armor. And yes, there's some sex too.

This novel sets the stage for a series focused on Thomas of Hookton, the bastard son of a priest who's grown up with a passion for archery, despite his father's best attempts at keeping him focused on intellectual pursuits. During a French raid to steal an awesome religious relic, the spear St. George used to slay the dragon, Thomas' passion is crystalized in a single pull of his bow, and the underlying premise of Cornwell's series is revealed: "In that one instant, as the first arrow slid into the sky, he knew he wanted nothing more from life. He was an archer."

Later, Thomas leaves his home in England and joins an archery unit known as 'the hellequin', in support of his Kings' military pursuits across the channel. Cornwell describes Thomas' developing expertise in the skills of war, "It was not just that he was a good archer--the army was full of men who were as good as he and there was a handful who were better--but he had discovered he could sense what the enemy was doing." And so a plot full of blood, revenge, chivalry, humor and even love, begins.

This is the third Cornwell book I've read. "The Archer's Tale" is exciting, interesting and diverting. It's not deep, but it's fun. It's not insightful, but the story flows well, and the pages turn themselves.

The book gets this review on the basis that it was originally entitled "Harlequin".
As i have had the trilogy for some time, and indeed have almost all of Mr Cornwells books to date, it was thought that this was a new book by an excellent author and storyteller whose consistency in the sheer quality of his writing has almost required me to purchase each of his new books as soon as they appeared.
It should also be stated that this is despite his apparent distrust of the Scots which somehow works its way into most of his writing however, as a Scot, it should be said that I do have similar thoughts about the English..
To re-title such a book is not only confusing but also considered to be slightly unethical and it is for this reason alone that the book entitled "The Archer's Tale" is rated in such a manner. It should also be said that the original book entitled "Harlequin", still gets four stars.

The year is 1342, the English, led by Eduard to third devastate France. Their most powerful weapons are shooters who are called Harlequin. Among them is Thomas of Hookton, the French troops killed the his father who is priest in village Hookton and ravaged the village. The French have stolen relic Spear St. George that his father kept in the church. Here Thomas kills his first enemy and decides to take revenge on the French, and returns the stolen spear. Connects to the army as a shooter and goes to war. The book is read in one breath and takes us through the terrible battle in which no mercy to the enemy on battlefield. Thomas expects a lot of adventures and discovering secrets about his father. Who was not be just an ordinary village priest.

In the Archer's Tale, Bernard Cornwall does what he is known for very well and for the most part that's a very good thing. Thomas of Hookton, son of a wayward priest makes a plausible and appealing hero. Bastard son of noble family, at the age of 18 his village is ravaged and he is off to find fame, fortune and revenge.

The situations he finds himself in are interesting and plausible and the author segues nicely into Thomas's growing abilities and value. If I have a complaint, Cornwall is occasionally too coincidental, too pat. Thomas has two sworn enemies and wouldn't you know that in all of France they manage to hook up for the big battle at Crecy where he may or may not kill two birds with one stone.

It's rather surprising that an author who is so realistic in and painstakingly accurate with battle description would stoop to such tawdry scenarios to drive the plot, but nobody is perfect. Those who complain about the violence obviously haven't read Cornwell before, or have confused him with Phillipa Gregory. It's no bloodier then say the Saxon chronicles, and a good deal more lively than the last couple of installment in that series, which for me has begun to drag.

Definitely worth a read.

Prominent author Bernard Cornwell, famed for the Richard Sharpe series and the Arthurian Warlord trilogy, begins anew with a series set in a time of immense change.

It is the fourteenth century, the Hundred Years War is about to begin (lasting until 1428); the Black Plague has already begun ravaging Europe and taking life; and then there is still the Great Schism to come (a time where three popes ruled and the entire area of Christian Europe was excommunicated).

Our hero is Thomas of Hookton. In 1343 his town was sacked and pillaged by the marauding French, and everyone was killed except him. Now years have passed and he is fighting for the English army against the French; the stage is set for the Hundred Years War, while in the back of his mind lurks a revenge against the people who razed his town and killed his friends and family They have stolen a relic from his church, the lance that was supposedly used by Saint George to slay the dragon.

The crux and closure of the novel involves the first monumental battle of the Hundred Years War, the Battle of Crécy, the first great win for the English against the French. It is here that Thomas of Hookton, one of the best archers in all of Europe, will fight for the English, as well as avenge the destruction and death that he has suffered for so long, and in the course of battle, the famous lance of Saint George will shine like a beacon, as Thomas fights to reclaim what was stolen from him.

Once again Bernard Cornwell outdoes himself in this wonderful new series. While the writing is not a high literary level, the book is nevertheless compelling, and the history extremely well researched. Cornwell skillfully weaves in the details and facts of the period, serving as a colorful world for the strong characters to interact with.

The reader quickly learns that the reason England is so victorious against the French is because of the infamous longbow (a later coined term). We even see the first cannons ever used by Edward III, which fail pitifully and are used more in hope than effect. Cornwell ends the novel with the Battle of Crécy, setting himself up for a complete series of one of the most major wars in the history of civilization.

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If the knight was the M-1A1 Abrams main battle tank of the medieval battlefield, then the archer was the Hellfire anti-tank missile! Cornwell's battlefield descriptions could make a 30 year battle hardened veteran blanch. However, for me it's the way that he builds the character relationships and their inter conflict that keeps me coming back. Thomas of Hookton is a flawed character with a mission he neither wants nor is equipped to take on. Thomas is the bastard son of a mad priest who ran away from Oxford to follow his desire to become an archer. As Thomas soon learns there may be more to dad's madness than the ravings of a twisted mind.

The Archer's Tale (The Grail Quest, Book 1) is a well written tale of a time when the Roman Catholic Church and secular society began their long, bloody, and eventually successful spit. There is also and excellent audio book available at both the store and Audible. Once you've finished you want read the rest of the series

Vagabond (The Grail Quest, Book 2) Heretic (The Grail Quest, Book 3) 1356: A Novel

Bernard Cornwell ventures into the era of archery warfare. As he notes in his afterword, other civilizations used the bow and arrow, but only England developed it as a dominant weapon that could win wars. Archery took years to master - boys had to grow up shooting to develop the right physique - but in England had become a fad.

So, for a few centuries, many fine archers developed, enough where hundreds of archers could put thousands of arrows into the air in battle, dealing death from a distance. Archery was more effective, Cornwell says, than musketry, and Benjamin Franklin thought the colonists might have beaten the British sooner had they used longbows instead of muskets.

Archery turned the tide of medieval warfare. Until now, the armored knight - an aristocrat, with a small fortune invested in equipment and fine horses - ruled the battlefield, riding his fighting horse and chopping down men on foot. But in 14th century France, its north ravaged by English occupiers, French knights find that archers can kill them from a distance, their powerful eras piercing armor and certainly enough to cripple or kill their mounts.

There's a real democratization here. The archers are blue-collar guys, infantry soldiers who walk places, sleep on the ground and have to scavenge for food. Cornwell always loves these guys, be they Sharpe, Nathaniel Starbuck, or, here, Thomas of Hookton.

And they are England's edge - not the aristocrats, not the knights, not the men on horseback, whose French opponents are their equals. Crossbowmen on the French side have their own fearsome weapons, but the crossbows are slow to reload and less effective overall than the British longbows. It's the longbows that make the English unbeatable, allowing them to plunder the French countryside for years.

The plot: Thomas of Hookton joins up as an archer to fight in France after his home village on the English Channel is destroyed by a French raiding party. They kill his parents while pursing a curious relic, opening up a family mystery in the process.
In France, his standing as an archer steadily improving, he suddenly finds himself a fugitive after conspiring with a beautiful French widow to kill their mutual enemy, the boorish Sir Simon Jekyll. Rescuing her, but then abandoned by her, Thomas meets a French noble also seeking the truth about Thomas's family - and revealing to Thomas that the relic he seeks is no ordinary one.

Taking the noble's illegitimate daughter with him, Thomas rejoins the English. They are trapped deep in France without supplies, their way blocked by French rivers, in time to fight the historic battle of Crecy against an overwhelming French force.

There are a few things I didn't like about the book. I don't think Cornwell gets his narrative or dialogue voices quite right for the era, unlike the Sharpe series, which he nailed; the Starbuck series, where he did a great job capturing the 19th century American mind and language both North and South; and the Saxon Chronicles, where Uhtred's voice really stands out. In the last of those he did a much better job with capturing the pagan, mystical mindframe of his protagonist, his ways of speech and thought. Here, Thomas often sounds too modern for a story set a little before the time of Chaucer. In his other books Cornwell has found ways to suggest the flavor of the period's language without sacrificing clarity and readability; I'm hoping that in the sequels he does better with that.

Otherwise a fine story completely in the Cornwell vein.

I first encountered Bernard Cornwell's work via the BBC TV series on his Napoleonic Wars soldier, Richard Sharpe. This was a gripping series, very well produced as one might expect from the BBC, and full of action and strong characters. So I picked up The Archer's Tale and was immediately plunged into his other world, the late Middle Ages of the Hundred Year's War, with a climax at the famous Battle of Crecy.

As with the Sharpe series, he evokes that world in a wonderfully detailed and immediate way that is immediately convincing, and tells his tale with a plot that draws you in. The tangled relationships of English and French are well drawn - many descendants of the Norman French conquerors of England have become the English invaders of France, even though some of them were probably closer in spirit to their French cousins than to their Saxon or "English" tenants.

I wasn't totally sure about the accuracy of his medieval world-picture, in spite of the evident deep research. Reading Huizinga and other social historians, one is struck by the importance of myth and symbolism in the worldview of the people of that age: credulity and superstition were at a high level. I began to feel that Cornwell's people are perhaps almost too contemporary in their down-to-earth practicality and, one almost says, cynicism. But then again, I recall Chaucer and his open, frank assessments of everything, his cheerful wit and ready sarcasm for the pretentious. Maybe Cornwell has it right.

Some describe him as the land-based successor to Patrick O'Brian. Well, yes and no. Insofar as both wrote wonderfully complete re-imaginings of a previous world centered on a miltary theme, yes. But I noticed in the Sharpe series that the characters, although strongly drawn, are not as rich, varied,or complex as the cast of the Aubrey-Maturin series. O'Brian just has more dimensions. And linguistically, O'Brian goes deeper into 1800s idiom. (Though that may be an attribute of the TV series - I haven't read the Sharpe books themselves). In The Archer's Tale, of course, the linguistic challenge is of a different order. The dialogue was all "really" in Chaucerian Middle English or Norman French - or Celtic Breton - and that won't make a highly readable book in the 21st century! So I think he does a very creditable job in having his characters speak a serviceable, straightforward English, free of labored archaisms but salted here and there with words that ring true as a likely phrase from the time - " Sir Simon attacked you?" Jeanette asked."Why?" "Because I told him to boil his arse" Thomas said, and was rewarded with a smile."

Another difference is that Cornwell is indisputably gorier (is that a word?) He does acknowledge, in a "Historical Note" that he first approached the period thinking of "chivalry, courtesy, and knightly gallantry" but rapidly found out about the brutal reality of medieval warfare. But even so, he does seem to give us much more blood-soaked detail than O'Brian in his battle scenes. Of course, in O'Brian's naval setting, hand-to-hand combat played a lesser role - some ship boardings, some land fights. Still, Cornwell does lay it on perhaps 'praeter necessitatem', as the slightly later William of Occam would have said.

Final verdict? I am going to follow up and read a lot more Cornwell....

If you are a fan of Cornwell you will read this. I do think the Warrior/Saxon Chronicles are are a bit better, and the Sharpe Series well thats' an entity of its own. You have a familiar premise found in many of his books, in this case the orphaned bastard warrior with a noble blood on the rise of military rank on merit rather than entitlement. The main character, Thomas of Hookton, is on a quest to avenge his father's murder & retrieve St George's lance which sets up the grail quest for the rest of the series. Thomas lacks a bit of the edge found in Cornwell's other series & his adversaries are just a smidgen less despicable. The reality is these are foibles that should have no impact on you reading this book. Cornwell animates the past with his words better than any historical fiction writer out there. The phenomenon of the 14th century English Archer is reason enough to read this book.

A superb 14th century story about a young archer whose father is killed by an invading army. The soldiers take a lance that his father said was used by St. George to slay the dragon. The archer joins the English army and begins a quest to retrieve the lance and avenge his father. His adventures include finding a way for the English army to breach a fortified town, rescuing a beautiful French noblewoman, fighting and evading the evil knight, Sir Simon Jekyll, and fighting in the historic Battle of Crecy at the beginning of the English-French Hundred Years War. A very well-written adventure!

Do stories set in days of yore bore you to tears? Does the use of 14th century language smack of bad Shakespeare as interpreted by your community theater? Do damsels in distress, knights on white horses and Prince Charmings make you want to puke?

Well...you'll find some of that stuff in The Archer's Tale but you'll also find that it's easily overlooked due to a solid plot line, credible characters and a fair amount sword clanging action. It's still a story of damsels and knights, good and evil, wrong doing and revenge but that's okay. In my book, suffering some clichéd corniness is a small price to pay for a decent story.

The story follows the travails of a would-be Prince Charming as he tries to make good on a promise he made to his dying father. The path he takes is not straight and he finds himself at odds with himself and with others along the way. Some of the people you think are good turn out to be otherwise and some you think are bad may not necessarily be.

The biggest negative - and what cost the book half a star - is that it becomes clear at about the ½ way mark that there is no way the author is going to be able to wrap up all outstanding business by the end of the book. And, as suspected, by the time you finish you will have realized that there is enough yet to do to fill a number of follow-up books. Kind of a bummer because I'm not a big fan of book series. If you are, then no worries...plenty going on to merit reading more.

This book ain't gonna tickle your gray matter any. It's a fine good vs. evil escapism that will entertain fans of knights and princesses and dragons and nobleman and sacking of villages and/or fans of good solid stories.

Harlequin is Bernard Cornwell's first book in The Grail Quest Series and we are introduced to Thomas of Hookton for the first time. This book is more well known as "The Archers Tale", but here in New Zealand it has been released under the name Harlequin. The story is set around the time of the 100 Years War with the main protagonist's being France and England. Thomas, the son of a priest starts his adventure after leaving England to join the army of King Edward III and do battle in France. Not only is he there to fight for honour and money, but to recover a sacred relic, a lance stolen from Thomas's village of Hookton, when the French sacked it and killed his father. Thomas's father is not originally from Hookton and his family heritage is a secret that Thomas is intent on uncovering. Thomas is an accomplished archer and despite all the gallantry of the Knights, and masses of men-at-arms, it is the English King's common archers that spread fear throughout the French troops, and ultimately determine the outcome of battles. Cornwell's works of military history, of which his most famous are the adventures of Richard Sharpe, are hugely detailed and infinitely researched. Although the characters in Harlequin are fictional, many of the battles portrayed actually occurred which adds to the interest of the story. Cornwell has that magical writer's quality where he can thrust the reader into the era he is writing about. It's akin to entering a time portal every time you pick up the novel. Once you are there he puts you in the heart of the battlefield and it's difficult to return to the 21st century without being sickened by the reality of warfare in this dark age. He pulls no punches with Harlequin and the horrors of battle and the treatment of civilians are vividly rendered. As with all Cornwell novels and as indicated by the title of the series `The Grail Quest' there is an underlying story evolving with the main character that runs parallel to the fortunes of the army he fights for. Thomas of Hookton exhibits many of the characteristics of Richard Sharpe. He is physically strong and tall, he likes his woman and he is an efficient and ruthless adversary in battle. Above all, Thomas is a flawed character. I look forward to book two in the series, `Vagabond' to see how Cornwell develops Thomas's personal traits. This is an era where battles are brutal affairs fought with vicious weapons. In contrast to this, the traditions of the knights, Lords and other nobles in the story provide an interesting insight into human behaviour. One moment a soldier can be merciless and cold-blooded and the next moment, a gallant gentleman. Cornwell explores this human trait nicely and it adds to the flavour of the story. I enjoyed this book. I don't rate it up there with the best of the Richard Sharpe books, as I have an affinity with the Napoleonic Wars and with Sharpe himself. If you think the French and English hated one another during this era, wait until the Scots make an appearance in the second book in the series, and be appalled at how they treated one another. Recommended for those with an interest in an action packed historical novel. Highly recommended to those with an interest in military history novels.

I suppose it was wrong of me to hope a military fan-fic author would do decent characters or plots. And Cornwell doesn't. His 'Jeanette' character is a maddeningly sexist instrument for endowing whatever emotion the protagonist should be feeling. The coincidence-ridden plot feels artificial and silly. Worse still are the anachronisms, where I half expected the characters to pull out credit cards or talk about telephones.
But the battles are interesting - military-historian-wannabees get their tactics right - and the use of ~1300s military technologies are interesting. I'm inexplicably tempted to (later, much later) read some of the others in the series.

Bernard Cornwell (the Richard Sharpe series, the Starbuck series) is a master of historical fiction, and "The Archer's Tale" is his first foray into the early years of the Hundred Years War between England and France.
"The Archer's Tale" opens with a horrifyingly brutish assault by the French on the small village of Hookton, which protects a mighty relic through its tiny size and complete lack of importance. The relic, the black lance used by St. George to slay the Dragon, is seized by the Harlequin, and the town razed. The Harlequin also kills his uncle, an old priest with a murky past. Cornwell's description of the destruction and rape of Hookton is masterful in its economy and its clarity -- this book quickly establishes that it is not for the squeamish!
Thomas, the archer, escapes the sack of Hookton through his mastery of the bow, which is the dominant military weapon of the era (the late 1300's). Contrary to common perception, archers were not the small wimps who hung out in the rear while the mighty swordsmen and cavalry fought the battles. An archer was fantastically strong owing to years of stringing their mighty bows, and Thomas is an archer's archer. He vows revenge on the man who has brought destruction to Hookton.
Possessing more lives than a cat, Thomas journeys to France and plays a crucial role in the sack of a French village. Earning the respect, love, or hatred of those whom he encounters (he inspires strong feelings, does our Thomas), Thomas uses his wits, his skill with a bow, a good head for warfare, and just plain blind luck to journey from battle to battle, from siege to siege.
Cornwell brings the Middle Ages alive with his vivid descriptions of life in small villages as well as his depiction of the mighty French city of Caen. We get a good sense of the world Thomas inhabits, from the critical role of religion to the importance of allegience to a lord to the harsh realities of losing a battle. Cornwell does not shy away from the consequences to the elderly, to women, and to children if their defenders lose to the foe, whose army is more likely to be made up of murderers and rapists than heirs of the Knights of the Round Table. Life on the losing end was nasty, brutish, and inevitably short.
Of course, life isn't much better for the men, who throw themselves into battles worthy of "Braveheart" in their horrors. While he never gets heavy-handed, Cornwell shows the terrors of war, from the disembowelments, beheadings, boilings, and other gruesome deaths, to the terrible cost in horses and the thankless role of the mercenary.
Through it all, Thomas pursues his oath of vengeance, although not with the singlemindedness that would make him boring. Hounded from time to time by a friendly cleric and fatherly commander, Thomas often seeks the solace of a quiet life with an attractive woman (he meets more than a few) in the midst of the carnage of war, and it rarely works out.
While not as titanic as Colleen McCullough's "Masters of Rome" series or as detailed, "The Archer's Tale" is a riveting story set in a harsh era. Short on intrigue, long on battles, "The Archer's Tale" is an entertaining read that seems much shorter than its 380-odd pages.

This violent, action-packed adventure is the first installment in what looks to be Bernard Cornwell's new Richard Sharpe-type series. Though the Sharpe series is fairly well known and very easy to find, I cannot claim to have read any of those books, and so cannot make any comparisons. This is, in fact, the first Cornwell book I've ever read. I had hoped to be introduced to this author through his novel, STONEHENGE, as it had me somewhat intrigued, but alas that was not to be my fate. I'd already had THE ARCHER'S TALE in my possession, and so I went to reading it. Now, more than a few months since having finished it, I very well suspect it was a poor choice to begin on.
This story is set in England and France during the 14th century, the early beginnings of the Hundred Years War. The hero is Thomas of Hookton, bastard son of an expatriate French nobleman living in a small village along the southern coast of England. After that village is brutally attacked by French invaders and all its inhabitants, save Thomas, are killed, Thomas enlists himself as an archer in the English army of Edward III.
In his quest to recover the lance of St. George, a sacred relic stolen from Hookton's church during the attack, Thomas refines his skills in archery and battle strategy. Throughout the story, it is in fact he who conceives key attack maneuvers that gain the English under the Earl of Northampton their victories, culminating finally with the famous battle at Crecy. Along the way, he rescues a widowed French countess from wolfish English soldiers sacking her village. He nurses her through trauma and, for a while, she becomes his cohort. Though Thomas fights in France and Brittany for the sole purpose of avenging himself on the mysterious "Black Knight" who had led the attack on Hookton and then stolen the lance, it's essentially the vicious Sir Simon Jekyll, a young English knight also fighting in the Earl's army, who is Thomas's main adversary throughout the course of this novel. While our hero gets himself into and out of one fine pickle after another, he bemoans the fact that he must ultimately fulfill the promise he made to his father to retrieve the sacred lance. Indeed, he has trouble keeping himself focused on that goal, and without the constant prodding by a priest accompanying the army, Father Hobbe, he likely would have lost his way.
Cornwell's battle scenes are, as a whole, quite riveting, finely detailed and, far as I can tell, historically accurate. They are also gruesome and bloody - with men and horses hacked up mercilessly. I know I cannot fault the book on this point - War, after all, is war. It is upon other failings that I take censure: this is neither an in depth story filled with endearing, highly evolved characters as in Follett's PILLARS OF THE EARTH, nor is it an epic tale of honor and chivalry as in Sir Walter Scott's IVANHOE - neither a meaningfully worded, rousing heroic, nor epically enchanting saga is this. It is simply an historical adventure, and a graphically violent one at that.
THE ARCHER'S TALE concluded on a rather scintillating note - very well set up for a sequel. That sequel is now out, and it's called VAGABOND. For those who enjoy fast-paced adventures, this series may certainly make for some good reading. I shall likely eventually give in and read VAGABOND sometime in the not so far distant future - as that mysterious Black Knight, Count Vexille "the Harlequin" is one of the more interesting villains I've come across in literature. I'll just have to grit my teeth and swallow my aversion to all this widespread medieval carnage.

It's the old cliche about novels that you see in reviews all the time: They are a page turner, or you can't put it down.

For the three or four days I read this book, that was true of The Archer's Tale for me.

I couldn't get to sleep. I tried, but I always turned over and picked it back up where I had left off. Bernard Cornwell draws such a good picture of Thomas of Hookton's world you don't want to do anything else but read this book.

As this novel opens, forces from almost all sides are working against the hero -- Thomas of Hookton. He's the bastard son of a crazy priest who has advised him to get on with his life.

An expert marksman with a longbow, Thomas is at a crossroads in his life when French raiders fall upon the seaside town of Hookton early on the morning of Easter 1342. Well educated, but drifting, Thomas is pondering a purpose to his life, and he's gotten a girl pregnant.

War, as it is apt to do, is about to change all that for Thomas. The French come, led by Sir Guillame d'Evecque along with a shadowy sort called The Harlequin, looking for relics Thomas' father might have at the church.

They kill and pillage and find a few odds and ends in the church. Then the men at arms leave and behind them the village of Hookton is pretty much destroyed.

The French scoot after taking their booty and several women, including Thomas' pregnant girlfriend (he doesn't really shed any tears over that even hopes she finds a better life) but not before Thomas kills several French men at arms with well placed arrow shots.

So begins The Archer's Tale. Thomas finds his purpose, which is to cross over to France, find the men who attacked his village, and seek vengance. To do that he has to join the army and slay French troops opposing the English warriors trapsing across France.

Bernard Cornwell, who always does a wonderful job with the Richard Sharpe books, strikes a good balance between action, adventure and the odd romance Thomas encounters in this book, which opens a series of three to date about Thomas of Hookton (the other two are Vagabond and Heretic).

Thomas is certianly not an everyman of his time. He's educated, should have been a priest but he wound up an archer instead. He uses his wits to cross behind enemy lines and provides for himself and the odd companion he picks up along the way through his skills as a warrior and a scholar.

Thomas is sort of caught between two worlds. He is not nobility, and many times he is cast down upon because of his low archer status. He also has enemies in the English army as well as the French. So, in the book he ends up fighting both a couple of times.

The history and realism are wonderfully woven into these books. Cornwell also does an excellent job showing how an army marches and wears out. The leaders are always worried about things like armor, arrows and boots. After several months in France, it is a tired, poorly shod English army that squares off against the French at the battle of Crecy.

The background is historically rich and the reader will not only be entertained by Thomas quest for manhood and revenge but also will be educated about this time in history.

When I went to see George R.R. Martin speak a couple of months back, he mentioned that he liked reading Bernard Cornwell, citing how he liked how well he was able to write a large battle while keeping the view of the characters in mind. On this recommendation, I decided I wanted to give Cornwell a try myself. I picked up this book after some deliberation over which book I was going to read. Needless to say, it was not a wasted decision.

The story follows the life of Thomas of Hookton, an English archer from the massacre of his village to the battle of Crécy. Set in the early years of the Hundred Years War, Thomas is trying to find those responsible for killing his father and stealing the Lance of St. George, but he finds himself bound to a fate others are more ready to accept for him than he is. A larger conspiracy of Cathars, devil worshippers and the holy grail are caught up in this tale and those yet to come.

The book is filled with enjoyable characters that have both their strengths and flaws. Thomas is smart and quick; possessing his own sense of honor as well has a grounded sense of what ought to be real. Father Hobbe is a priest trying to save Thomas' soul and believes he has found his own mission as well. Will Skeat, Thomas' commanding officer, is both sour and loyal, providing Thomas with a father figure to rely upon. Sir Simon Jekyll is simple and vengeful is his actions, providing an obstacle to the charmed life Thomas seems to lead on occasion. And these are just a few.

Vagabond is already on my shelf to read. I really enjoyed the Archer's Tale (Harlequin to those in the U.K.), and I would recommend it to a number of friends for a number of reasons. The tale would appeal to fantasy readers for its Medieval setting, those interested in the Grail for Cornwell's allusive take on the matter or just people interested in action or historical fiction. The book has a variety of appeals all of which were factors in drawing me in once Martin laid the first hook.

I'll be the first to admit I'm not a huge fan of the war novel- I much prefer fantasy- and, after Steven Pressfield sucked me in with Last of the the stores and promptly turned me off with the bloated Tides of War, it took me a while to trust again. I found this book, bereft and alone, in a pile of unwanted fiction and decided I had nothing much to lose in giving it a try. After all this is Bernard Cornwell, the man who made it possible for me to see Sean Bean on horseback, disheveled and decked out in epaulets, and for that I owed him some concession.
Not having read any of his prior novels I can't comment on how derivative or overused the plot and characters might be but with a few minor quibbles it was an excellent page turner. The battle scenes are taut and interesting and not so drawn out that you find yourself skimming along to get through it all. The supporting cast is excellent for the most part, although Will Skeat and the Earl are largely interchangeable they are nonetheless looked forward to. It's actually the three major characters that you will find trying your patience.
Thomas makes for a nicely flawed hero, but all too often he saves the day for the English troops by finding that one essential ploy to defeat the French; he's either impossibly lucky or so willing to give credit to others that he never gets promoted up the ranks. Sir Simon Jeckyl is appropriately caddish as the main villain of the piece but he does seem rather foolish and downright inept at times. The real ant at this picnic is Jeanette, you know she's being set up as the love interest, and everybody seems to want her, unfortunately what starts out as a potential spitfire quickly turns into bitter ash. The girl can pretty much impale the center of a daisy on a crossbow bolt with her eyes shut and what happens the second she gets around a man? Instant crying, protesting rape victim. Rather than fight, which we know she's capable of doing, she just stands there while assorted people rip her bodice. It just seems in direct violation of her earlier prowling of the parapets.
While somewhat annoying, none of this really hampers the book overmuch. It has its flaws, but you'll still have a bloody good time.

I have been reading Bernard Cornwell before digital copy ever existed. I love fiction and I love history. Bernard Cornwell is not an author or writer. He is an artist that expresses via the pen.

I rarely recommend an author to just anyone that enjoys reading. Usually I qualify what category or genre a reader enjoys before giving such a recommendation. In the case of Bernard Cornwell, if the topic of reading comes up, I typically list him in my top authors to recommend.

Set in the preliminary stages of the Hundred Years War, Cornwell's novel presents grim action and ruthless adventure as England and France wreak havoc on each other's shores. Thomas of Hookton, sole survivor of a vicious attack on an English coastal hamlet, swears vengeance on the French and Genoese raiders who destroyed the entire village, stole a sacred relic and murdered his father, the priest. Trained as an archer (a profession which the English perfected to their millitary advantage but which was neglected by other nations), young Thomas spends several years in France, as the English king and his earls dispute the lands of Brittany and Normandy with the French king.
Cornwell weaves a fast-paced tale despite the inclusion of details about medieval armor, castles, war machines and even the strategy of actual battles. On the romantic side, Thomas is attracted first to a strong-willed French heiress nicknamed the Blackbird, and then to the gentle, illegitimate daughter of one of his French enemies. But beneath the obvious challenges to his body and heart, a subtle war is waged in his own mind: is the stolen relic really the lance of St. George, which makes men invincible in battle? Chafing under the commission imposed upon him by his dying father, as well as a penance from the army chaplain, the young man must come to terms with his own faith. Should he credit old tales of a dark force seeking to overthow all earthly kindgoms in an heretical attempt to quench the light of Christianity? This is an enjoyable read--a delightful swashbuckler--in an age when men became butchers for their country or personal profit. I recommend this book to any student of Medieval history.

The Archer's Tale by Bernard Cornwell is an excellent read. Amazing for the historical novel genre in its easily read narrative. I have long been interested in trying Bernard Cornwell, having read many of the reviews on this very page. I am glad that I finally took the plunge. This book was a sheer delight to read.

The story involves an archer by the name of Thomas from Hookton. After his village is decimated, he joins King Edward the Third's fight against France in what is the beginning of the One Hundred Years War.

There are colorful characters throughout, including Thomas's nemesis Sir Simon Jekyll, a nobleman in search of wealth, a mysterious woman known as the Blackbird, and Thomas's boss Will Skeat. The group of characters and their travails make for excellent reading.

I can certainly understand the popularity of Bernard Cornwell now that I have tried one of his books. I will continue to read this author and have much reading to make up, as he is very prolific with numerous series. I would compare the pace and feel of this book to the movie a Knight's Tale with Heath Ledger.

The choice of a young archer for this latest series beginning in the mid thirteen hundreds is an interesting one. The invention of the long bow changed the way battles were engaged in its time. This story line also depicts the interwoven stresses upon the life of the peoples living through the start of the Hundred Years War, when as many battles were fought to gain religious power and approval from Rome (and therefore better access to their great financial resources) as for possession of kingdoms and their lands. Thomas of Hookton is a typical Cornwell creation in that he retains a secret goal which sends him questing far and wide, and his particular skill wins him valued placement with powerful men of his time. There are great battle scenes, sex scenes and good historical content. As usual, the brush strokes of the story were so vivid that I found myself breaking away from my reading to do a little further research into the history behind the fiction.

The Archer's Tale didn't live up to its back cover copy. While the battle scenes are detailed, one ran into another, and another, and another... How interesting can several hundred descriptions of people getting gored/shot/stabbed/beheaded/trampled/impaled, etc. be? As Thomas, the main character, observed, war is gray, and much of this novel fell into a dull, gray zone for me, most likely because Thomas was a dull character. While his physical description was interesting, the internal man had the personality of pudding. Why did he maintain a different look? Where were his emotions other than, as another reviewer noted, "shrug"? The Blackbird had great promise as a character, but halfway through, the relationship between her and Thomas is summed up in cursory narrative, and she's whisked off the main stage with no explanation other than that she was 'a hard woman.' Some of the best characters in fiction were hard women, but Jeanette's depths are not plumbed here. Thomas appears to have no depth. He's merely an eyepiece through which we observe one battle after another. I recommend Cecelia Holland's excellent historicals instead.

Bernard Cornwell was made famous because of his historic fiction series about english soldier Richard Sharpe in the Napoleonic Wars. However, in the last few years, although he has not abandoned Sharpe, Cornwell began to gather attention because of his books dealing with historic fiction set in the Medieval Era. First there was the highly-acclaimed "Warlord Chronicles", a modern and accurately historic vision of the Arthurian legend. Now, "The archer's tale" or "Harlequin" - the book's british name - is the first one in the "Search for the Grail" series.

Set at the start of the Hundred Years War, "The archer's tale" concerns Thomas of Hookton and his desire for revenge against the french, who have destroyed his village on the shores of the English Channel, killed his father, rapted his girl and took back to France his family's most revered object: the lance of St. George. In french territory, Thomas will have to learn how to be the best archer in His Majesty King Edward's army, defeat fortified cities, protect a beautiful widow and, most of all, find the infamous Harlequin - the man who stole the relic - and avenge his family's name.

Cornwell's knowledge of the period, battles, characters, costumes and habits seems enormous. Although character development clearly is not his bist feature - leading to some obvious scenes of good characters against bad ones - Cornwell's excellent descriptions of the battles (especially the Battle of Crecy, the apotheosis of the book) and the non-stop focus on Thomas of Hookton, a very sympathetic character, creates the necessary atmosphere for an above-average mediaeval historic fiction.

This book is part of a series, so although the book ends after the Battle of Crecy, the quest for the Grail goes on with "Vagabond" and "Heretic", two books I'll surely buy.

Grade 8.0/10

Invigorating, fairly accurate for the times and gritty telling of the life of a medieval archer during the time of the Hundreds Year War (i.e. a name coined by historians much after the era).

FYI: The Hundred Years War went on and off from 1337 to 1453 A.D.
Basically, the best way to see this, without me waxing eloquent or turning this into a term paper is: view this as a fight between two distant cousins who both had a claim to the French throne (i.e their ancestors had been married to each other at one point, thus, distant cousins). Then, toss in diseases that wiped out thousands of people, bickering French royal family members, bickering French nobility and the English having the edge (i.e. they had better taxation for calling up the troops and divying out supplies, as well as better tactics/stategies, better leaders
and the war bow . . . it wasn't called the long bow until much later). Okay, one more thing, the French got beat up pretty bad until the very end, when they began to reclaim over half of their lost territories . .. enter Joan of Arc, etc.

Cornwell's first book of the trilogy focuses on a young man who is learning to become an archer is a small english village along the coast. His father is the parish priest who has a secret of a long and noble past. Anyway, the village is raided by French raiders and one of them turns out to be his distant cousin who is searching for an old lance suppossedly being the lance that was used on Jesus Christ.

So the young archer, seeking revenge and wanting to learn his craft, leaves to join the English king as he wages war against the French on the throne. What follows are a series of skirmishes, raids and gritty fights. Along the way he also has a few affairs with women, and, the first one, who is something of a sub character with her own plots, jilts him as seems to happen to the more popular Sharpe character.

Our young archer also encounters an enemy knight, who serves as a thorn in his side, and, well, tries to kill him during several instances. Tale ends with the young archer having to go to the southern parts of France, during off war season times, to heal a friend and further investigate what his cousin is up to (i.e. BTW, since the trilogy title gives it away, it's a search for the Holy Grail b/c the cousin is from a heretic line called the Cathars who were believed to have held the Grail).

Once again, the overall focus is on the fights and the archer's use of the war bow and the dramatic impact it had on enemy knights. There is an especially good focus on the Battle of Crecy, focusing on it for over fifty pages and with several points of view.

FYI: The Battle of Crecy was in 1346. It stands out as one of the earlier English victories because it was quite close. The English won b/c of the war bow, excellent strategy/tactics, some luck and the fact that the French had very poor tactics/strategy (i.e. rather than outflanking the British, they charged; rather than picking the British off piece by piece, they charged forward
in a poor fashion).

Enjoy!

BTW, Cornwell mentioned he might come out with a fourth book in the distant future.

I thought this was an outstanding start to a new series by Bernard Cornwell. I'd grown a little bored of Richard Sharpe, and the Civil War series never captured my attention the way this one has. He's starting from the beginning here with his eighteen year old protaganist, Thomas of Hookton. The book was filled with fascinating historical details. One review here castigated the author for not showing that the middle ages were "riddled with superstition, fear and stupidity," But I think Cornwell does clearly show the superstitions, and fears of the ordinary people, while the degree of stupidity in the middle ages is undoubtly the same as the degree of stupidity today. While Thomas is more educated and skeptical than many of his peers this is explained by his unique background.

I was a little disappointed with one of his female characters, Eleanor. She seemed bland and empty, her only use to be a foil for the other female character, the countess. Eleanor, if we judge from the Sharpe series, is also doomed, probably to die from illness (for historical accuracy) or from the hands of his enemies (to add to his hatred.)

After reading The Archer's Tale I systematically - and quite pleasurably - worked my way through all of Cornwell's other works. But this book remains my favorite. Thomas of Hookton is Cornwell's most engaging character to date - innocent, romantic to the extreme, and deadly. Like Cornwell's other heroes, Thomas has been grievously wronged. But in the Grail Quest series, Thomas must subsume his desire for vengeance to a greater goal. In his wanderings through Europe, the chivalrous Thomas falls in love with a number of beautiful women, but unlike the bimbos Sharpe manages to fall for, these women are fascinating, feisty, and can certainly hold their own with a crossbow!

Although Cornwell has written about more epochs than I can count, he seems most at home in the Middle Ages. The age of the long bow truly comes to life in this novel - and, once again, Cornwell proves that there really is no better better way to learn history than at tip of a blade.

The Archer's Tale is definitely worth your time if you are a fan of historical fiction, especially medieval historical fiction. Knights in armor, kings, castles, cavalry, swords, shields, arrows, fighting, killing, rape, pillage, plunder, and an engrossing story to match the fast, exciting action. The best part is that it follows history correctly more than most novels.
At first I thought that a story about an archer would be boring because I had the uneducated view that archers fought from the rear of the cavalry like cowards, I couldn't have been more wrong. English archers are killing machines, they stand on the front lines and they kill with the enemy riding down on them. So, don't let the fact that an Archer tells the tale instead of some knight in shining armor turn you away, you'll enjoy the story from the archer Thomas just the same if not more.
Therefore, you have a respectable character to follow as a great story is told of a relic that must be taken back from evil and returned to the side of God. The story starts simple enough but evolves into Biblical proportions, literally. Great story, great action, great historical fiction! Also highly recommended is Pressfield's Gates of Fire, if you like one you'll like the other!

With The Archer's Tale, Bernard Cornwell has started a new series. Set in the fourteenth century on the eve of the Hundred Year's War, this one features Thomas of Hookton the sole survivor of a French raid on a poor, south England fishing village. In the prologue we meet Thomas, see his father--a priest--murdered, watch him kill his first Frenchmen with an arrow from his longbow, wonder why the raid has focused on retrieving an old lance--supposedly St. George's, learn that there is a mystery about his birth abd watch with him as a pretty young maid --probably carrying his child--is taken away by the raiders. All that in the first twenty pages! Cornwell, of course, is a master of historical fiction. And he is at the top of his game here. Using the typical device of placing ordinary men in extraordinary historical settings, Cornwell teaches us much about medieval life, towns and warfare. The book culminates with the great battle at Crecy--a battle which had been at the edges of my understanding for decades. As the story end, Thomas, callow no more, is called on to greater deeds--a quest for the Holy Grail no less! Hurry up publisher, get the next volume out ASAP. 'Tis great fun!

With "The Archer's Tale" Bernard Cornwell transports his readers to the mid 13th century and the start of the Hundred Years War. His replacement for Richard Sharpe is Thomas of Hookton, an archer in the army of Edward III.
We learn in the prologue that Thomas is the illegitimate son of the Hookton parish priest, an educated man of mysterious noble origins. Thomas learns Latin and French from his father (which is puzzling because we find out later that the priest's native tongue is langue d'Oc) and archery from his maternal grandfather. French pirate overrun Hookton killing everyone except Thomas. They are led by the priest's nephew who wants an important relic his uncle has hidden in the Hookton church.
Thomas then joins the King's army in order to find and take revenge on the man who massacred his family and his town. Like Sharpe, Thomas soon comes to the attention of a powerful historical figure, the Earl of Northhampton. He also has Sharpe's knack of making deadly enemies of the venal and the villainous -- in this case a knight who serves in the Earl's command. Two women of noble status play key roles in Thomas' life as he fights his way from Brittany to Normandy and into France. The climax of the book is the battle of Crecy.
"The Archer's Tale" is filled with the wealth of historical detail that gave the Sharpe series its air of authenticity. The reader learns the minutae of using the English longbow in battle, about life in a medieval army, and about medieval life in general. Lest I give the wrong impression, the book is stuffed with plenty of exciting, gory, mayhem too. Thomas is an altogether worthy replacement for Sharpe. His intriguing antecedants and his secret quest promise further adventure.

This is the first book in a three book series - Archer's Tale, Vagabond, and Heretic. As I am an audiobook junky I will tell those who are interested that there are unabridged audio downloads of these books at audible.com. These are masterfully told and kept my attention throughout. These are my first Bernard Cornwell books but definitely won't be my last. If these are any indication of his story telling prowess then I'm definitely a new fan.
Thomas of Hookton is raised from childhood to be an English longbowman. Raised by his eccentric and mad relative (a priest) and orphaned young in his life the story of Thomas's search for the secrets of his family's past which holds within them the secrets of the Holy Grail is fascinatingly told. Rich vivid characters and a rivoting storyline along with masterful storytelling. Well worth the time to read and one I will listen to again and again.

i found this to be better than the sharpe novels. we've got a man whose village is attacked. he swears to find and bring back a holy lance. he goes to fight in the hundred years war as an archer. there he meets allies, gets friends, and intrigues treathens to make him a dead man. BC is great at details. always enjoyable to read his battle descriptions. on the human level, however, he's not as great. no, the descriptions of the people's lives are good. it's how he makes the characters. the talentes, moralistic commoner. the hopeless snob. a lost love. and the main character is attacked by an enemy within his own ranks. BC has a typical way of doing things. i wish he could vary, give the plots more depth, make the characters with more characteristics - some good, some bad. it's a good read. could have been great, but i just can't handle the intrigues and the characters at times

In "The Archer's Tale" Cornwell takes up the Hundred Years War in this first volume of a trilogy. Thomas of Hookton becomes an archer-for-hire after his father is killed during the sack of his village in southern England. Little does Thomas know that the murderer was, in fact, his cousin, a French nobleman from a shadowy family with ties to the Cathar heresy. Unraveling these connections, seeking the necessary revenge, and taking up a quest for the Holy Grail consume the pages of the rest of the trilogy.

Thomas has many of the traits Cornwell fans will recognize from heroes of other books: a propensity for making enemies of powerful, nasty men; involvement with women who have a habit of either dropping him or getting killed; and loyalty, bravery, and single-mindedness.

This is a great read, and is highly recommended.

Having read the excellent Warlord Chronicles, a three book epic of Arthur, written by the same author, I eagerly looked forward to his latest work. Set in the mid-14th century, it is the tale of Thomas of Hookton, the illegimate son of the local priest. His village on the coast of England is sacked by French pirates, who seem to have a particular goal in mind, of stealing a relic, a lance, which hangs in the local church. Angered at the loss of his family, Thomas enlist in the army as an archer. The remainder of the tale takes place in France, where Thomas is involved in some of the major skirmishes and battles which begin the Hundred Year Wars. There is a very interesting sub-plot involving a young widowed noblewoman and the search by Thomas for the family which his father shunned years ago.
The characters are memorable and well drawn out. The battle scenes are easy to follow and yet convey what it must have been like in such primitive conditions. I really enjoyed the book and look forward to what surely must be a sequel since while some loose ends were tied up, others remain open.

I liked this book--not because I was looking for historical accuracy, but because I like the sense of things. In this story, things just seem to fall into Thomas' lap. He really is just too good to be true. Thomas acknowledges to himself that he promises things too easily, and that is his problem throughout the book. That, and the fact that it is hard for him to follow through on those promises.
I liked how the reader doesn't find out until after the massacre who Thomas' father is. I liked how Thomas wised up to Jeannette and realized she really was a conniving social climber. I liked how Sir Guillaume's relationship with Eleanor was simple and true, and not distorted by class. Most of all, I liked this book because I was constantly being surprised by new information.
You can read history, and you can read fiction. If you choose to read historical fiction, know that information is going to be played with to suit the plot. Personally, I thought that the author did a good job in presenting the battles--chivalry has no place in battle. I thought that he did a good job presenting the characters--you have all types in this book, which makes it enjoyable.
I would recommend this book.

This is the kind of historical fiction that can sustain itself over a series of books. That is good as this is the first of three (The Grail Quest). What I enjoyed in this book was the knowledge that Cornwell uses to establish the context of the story. His knowledge of the national movements, motivation of various leaders, the technology that is crucial to each side, is simply superb. In this book, the main character is likeable enough that anyone would want to know what happens next. His motivations never get muddled or are neglected.

One strength of Cornwell's writing is that his characters are true to the time. Their worldview is captured in what they do, how they think, where they go, and what they believe. This is not one of those Historical novels set in the 13th or 14th centuries populated by 21st century characters. Thank-you Mr. Cornwell.

Finally- Cornwell's books creates an urge in me to go to the UK, France, and see the land for myself. It is that good.

I look forward to the next volume in the series.

I've read all of the Saxon series and Agincourt, and will have to say I think this one is the best so far. I think the writing is better, and the characters more sympathetically portrayed. Uhtred in the Saxon series seems to have a limited range of emotions, and after a few of the books it begins to boil down to what will happen in the next battle, which becomes increasingly predictable. But the dialog and interactions between the characters in The Archer's Tale are much more finely drawn, and while I read what they are saying to each other it draws up mental images of their voices and expressions. Thomas is a more complete person than Uhtred, and we have hints that he can become more than the person that his times have made him, that the story is not just about triumphing as a warrior, but growing in understanding. Not having read the final two books in the series I hope that potential will be realized by the end, but suspect that would be too much to hope for.

THE ARCHER'S TALE is an exciting, action-packed novel with interesting and well-developed characters: Cornwell has done an excellent job of capturing a medieval mind-set, where most people believe in dragons and demons and miracles even though they've never seen any. It's full of fascinating details about the violent and messy reality of medieval combat, but explanations are never allowed to slow down the pace for very long. The plot is fairly simple, with some rather unlikely coincidences, but it builds up to a satisfying crescendo, leaving just enough issues unresolved to whet the appetite for the next book in the series. It's a welcome break from all those fantasy novels where horses are just four-legged jeeps, nothing ever rusts or rots, and magic weapons can solve everything.

I am a Cornwell fan, and unlike most others, who were converted by the Sharpe books, this tale was the one that snared me. I first read this book in the English edition, titled "Harlequin." The American version is nearly identical but the title is more direct and true. This is an "archer's tale." Thomas of Hookton is a brash, tough warrior in the Sharpe tradition, and his old school tale of good captains, errant knights and complicated women will entertain you for hours or days (depending on how fast you read). Along the way you'll learn why the long bow was so important to the success of English armies and how England used it to win the Battle of Crecy and others. It's the classic Cornwell mix of fact and fiction that he does better than most contemporary writers. Highly recommended!

I received the book from a friend as a 'good read'. At the time, I had little knowledge and less interest in the 100 years' war, but had nothing else to read, so I started it. I found the book to be a well written, engaging, well paced look into the life of a common archer who finds himself in the service of the English during the 100 years' war... Cornwell puts the reader in Thomas of Hookton's hip pocket, and there the reader stays as Thomas survives battles, love, lust, injury, failure and triumph in day to day life of 15th century Europe.

The book is historically very acurate, with a minimal articstic liberties taken, and sparked me to learn more about the period. I found it so enchanting that I read the other two books in the series, and started researching more about the war itself... Highly recommended!

**Reviewed for Book Geeks Unite!
Set in the 1340's, Bernard Cornwell, has captured the spirit and essense of life at this time. Magnificently researched, with vivid descriptions of battles, the reader can almost hear the clash of swords, the thump and hiss of arrows being fired, the screams of horses and men, and smell the blood and smoke of the battle. Fans of Historical Fiction should not miss this series!
~Michele
Book Geeks Unite!

OK. I'm being overly rhetorical. But sake's alive, if TAT isn't one hell of a good read. I listened to this one on the daily commute. Terrific story, terrific scene-setting, terrific characters. For 10 hours I was utterly steeped in the world of medieval archery. TAT (at least the taped version) concludes with a historical epilogue. Cornwell clearly did his research. I greatly appreciate his discussing what was factual(ly-based) and what was pure invention in the novel. It seems that the bulk of the novel fell in the former category. TAT is redolent of the times it describes: of medieval war, life, religion, customs. It is superbly entertaining.

This is the beginning of a new series by Bernard Cornwell, author of the popular Sharpe series. This book is set during the Hundred Years war between the English and French monarchies. The hero is a bowman, essentially a mercenary in the service of the English King, though with a better educational background. This is actually a better book than many of the Sharpe novels. The background detail in greater and Cornwell makes a real attempt to display the reality of medieval warfare, as opposed to the silly romantic accretions found in most novels about this period. Despite Cornwell's best intentions, the book does not really describe key elements of Medieval life. Essential features such as the feudal bond as the basis for society and the penetration of religion into all aspects of life are not dealt with.

I did like it but it left me feeling like he was writing to a formula. Don't get me wrong. It's a very good book, but it seemed to me if you have read Cornwell before you will not be surprised by various 'twists' etc.

Great read. Lots of history but written in such a way as to keep you looking forward to the next page.
Probably PG rating due to a little rough language and graphic battle descriptions.
I'm reading the next book in the trilogy now.

Having been recommended this one by a friend, I only had a week to read this before I gave it back. It didn't take a week, nor did it even take a day or two. This one caught me from the first word and held me until the last.
That being said, the Archer's Tale is not perfect. Bernard Cornwell is not a great literary artist. That being said he IS a good one. His blend of prose with historical fact is a fun combination, although his use of dialogue and description of male/female relationships is a little tired.
All in all though I do recommend the title. It's a fun read in the sense that some movies are fun to watch, but aren't really critical reads.

Bernard Cornwell is by far the best author to bring the middle ages to life. He blends historical events and characters with fictional characters to bring this period to life. His research and knowledge of the times comes across to the reader in a very lively and entertaining way. I have read Agincourt, the Archers tale trilogy, the Saxon series, and am now finishing up the Arthur series. They are all terrific stories and I am worried what I will do when I am finished with Excaliber. Mr. Cornwell you will just have to write more!

The Archer's Tale is an outstanding tale of a young man's coming of age as an English archer. Set in the backdrop of the Hundred Years War, The Archer's Tale is a fascinating and exciting story. As with so many of Cornwell's other historical fictions it is a riveting page turner full of the pageantry, and the brutality of Medieval battle. Cornwell begins this fast paced tale with a brutal attack on the small costal village of Hookton and the action does not stop throughout the book. With the usual collection of interesting characters and vivid imagery the Archer's Tale will be a welcome read for any Cornwell fan.

This has been one of the most pleasant and surprising reads I have encountered. Now, I read, on average, one large paperback novel a week. As an avid reader, I have also become quite picky. I enjoy the finer books, the gourmet. This novel was based upon the life and times of Thomas of Hookton, and his experiences in northern France during the opening of the Hundred Years War. After seeing Henry the Vth with Keven Brannaugh, I have been most curious about the war, and this was the single most accurate novel I have probably had the honor of reading. Get this book, read the series, and long live Mr. Cornwell!!

After having read Bernard Cornwell's other series such as Sharpe and Uhtred's this Grail book is a slight disappointment. It just does not carry the magic B.C. is able to conjure in his other books. It is hard to put a finger on why this one is not nearly as good as his other books. It is still a good read however. B.C. will probably never write a bad book what with his talent and his eye for research and details, even if the story is a bit off.

When I discover that a new Cornwel book is gong to hit the market I do not hesitate to get it right away. In fact, I usually purchase his books from the store.co.uk months before they come out in the US. I found this book to have all of the qualities I love in Cornwell's other books , with a little darker edge to it. In most Cronwell books you have the good and the evil. In the Archers Tale some of the good people are evil enough to help demonstrate how brutal the world was 650 years ago. If you like Sharpe, and were depressed to think that perhaps his adventures were coming to an end, don;t be too disheartened because Thomas of Hookton is a worthy replacement.

So my military friend gave me this book with glowing reviews. She couldn't rave about these books enough, same with her husband- West Point graduates both. I'm assuming that the book was required reading for military history purposes. That's about all this book is. I love history, I love historical novels, I think John Jakes North & South trilogy is phenomenal. This was crap. Making up a character and throwing them into an historically accurate battle doesn't necessarily make for a great read. There's an art to it to make it interesting. The characters are one-dimensional and boring. No character development, very little plot outside the battles. SPOILER ALERT: one paragraph actually reads as such: 'Sir Guillaume looked ashamed for a brief instance. "I killed your mother. I think I did, anyway, but she attacked me and I was angry." He shrugged. "...., and in killing your mother I did nothing more than you have done in Brittany." "True," Thomas admitted.' So basically this dude just told the main character "so I was the one who ransacked your village and I personally killed your mother, but hey!, you've done it too, so we cool?" To which Thomas is like, "yeah, man, we cool." If terrible writing like that peppered throughout a text book on war strategies is your thing then this is the book for you.

Right from the first chapter you know this is another Bernard Cornwell hit. The tone is set with a daring raid, a quick set up of "good guys" and "bad guys" and a unique spin on the Hundred Year War. Bernard Cornwell manages to blend his awesome command of history with a snappy driving plot and typical Cornwell larger-than-life-yet human characters. Cornwell brings to a boil and we never quite get down to a low simmer -- which is a good thing. Grand adventure, hip characters and a thriller-like pace make for a great read and another Cornwell triumph. Perhaps I didn't quite enjoy this at the level I did his "Saxon Chronicals" or the "Arthur" trilogy, but it's immensely wonderful for all of that.

Another fine adventure of the Hundred Years War, featuring English archer Thomas of Hookton.
Small quibble p. 329 Thomas asks his Jewish doctor about Daniel's prophecies, to which he replies " ...because Daniel ate a bad oyster and had a vivid dream."
As a Jew Daniel would not have eaten any oysters as they are forbidden along with other shellfish.

I didn't realize, going in, that this was a historical fiction. I thought it was only fiction. It is a very good read and I'm looking forward to the next 3 books in the series.
At the end of the book the author explains his "inventions" in actual history and it is very smooth and doesn't deviate from actual events.
The main character, Thomas, is stubborn but quite likable. You find yourself really getting behind him and routing for him.
You are left with a wonderful conclusion and at the same time a good cliffhanger.
My only problem with the book, and I'm sure it will continue, is that there are way too many "g*ddams". I'm sure we all get the point after the first dozen times it's said.

**Reviewed by M.L. Breaux for Book Geeks Unite!
Set in the 1340's, Bernard Cornwell, has captured the spirit and essense of life at this time. Magnificently researched, with vivid descriptions of battles, the reader can almost hear the clash of swords, the thump and hiss of arrows being fired, the screams of horses and men, and smell the blood and smoke of the battle. Fans of Historical Fiction should not miss this series!
~M

More like 3 and 1/2 but I couldn't bring myself to give 4. Maybe because th ebook is "The new deal"
Anyway
Count on Cornwell to give you good battle scenes, other then that don't get this book(Or get it at the Library). The plot can be seen in the much better Warlord trilogy. I don't know the book just seemed to lose something in the translation.
Thomas's town is attacked he is (luckily) out of town at the time and is able to kill a few of the attackers with his bow. He learns that the village priest(his dad) who he thought was just nuts was really a noble hiding from his crazy family. Where it goes from there really gets wacky
Overall-Read if you are an old hand at this, not a good Cornwell introduction

As always , if you like Cornwell, this is good stuff. Dealing with a thirteenth century English long bowmans adventures after his priest father is murdered. It pretty well has it all, even a grail quest.Alot of Archaic French termenology that is a bit imposible to understand, the names of the different pieces of armour and weaponry.

The Archer's Tale centres around Thomas of Hookton, an archer who joins the English army in France, after his father is murdered, and an ancient relic, is stolen from the church, when his village is plundered by French bandits.

I found this book a fascinating read. The 14th century is brought vividly back to life in its pages, as various battles are fought, based around true events, and the strategies and weaponery used are described very well.

Thomas also makes friends, enemies, and has love interests along the way. The mixture of fictional, and factual characters, is very well done, and makes the story that more interesting. An enjoyable read.

I picked up this book in England (where the title is Harlequin) because I had seen a lot of positive comments about Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series, which I have not yet read. After reading this book, I definitely look forward to the rest of the Grail Quest series, as well as delving into the Sharpe books.
As a big fan of historical novels, this story was right up my alley - I particularly appreciated the way Cornwell worked in historical references and weaved his fictional characters into real events, such as the Battle of Crecy. While I do agree with some of the other reviewers that the character development was a little weak, overall this story moved along quickly; in particular, the graphic, detailed, well-researched descriptions of the battles (and there were many), as well as the devastation wrought on the French countryside and population, were excellent and absolutely gripping.
Furthermore, the protagonist, the archer Thomas of Hookton, is an interesting character who is the centerpiece of a number of intertwined subplots involving a relic stolen from his home town, an intriguing family history, a rivalry with a sleazy but cunning English knight, romantic ties to two very different French women and the search for Holy Grail itself. The way Thomas goes about managing these many complexities kept the story interesting as the plot moved along from battle to battle across northern France. I am definitely looking forward to picking up Vagabond to continue the story.

One of the lines in this book about the Medieval war between France and England is that the knights keep the enemy and place so the archers can kill them. Another very good historical piece by Cornwell, set in the time of Agincourt. Cornwell has a keen eye for the historical, and tells the tale through the eyes of well developed characters that are men of their time, not ours. Highly recommend to Historical Fiction fans.

In the UK we had this under a different title (Harlequin) where it is currently available in paperback.
I am not a dedicated fan of Mr Cornwall, I thought his US Civil War stuff was okay, but I have never got around to reading the Sharpe series...but I have to say I thought this one was very good indeed. Action packed but mainly true to British History and the 100 Years war, although there is no need to know much about English history to enjoy this.
A blood soaked rush from beginning to end.

I started the book, put it down for a year and started again. It caught the second time and I am glad I read it as the author hit his stride about 100 pages in. I liked it enough to finish the trilogy and liked the last two books more than the first. Worth the read. Good action, and enough surprises to keep you guessing.

I thoroughly enjoyed "Grail Quest" by Cornwell. I have read several of his historical fictions and find them captivating. Historical fictions give an added sense of reality in that they are set in a historically correct and usually significant time period. In this case it is the begining of the 100 years war between England and what evolves into France. Brittany is the battle ground and it dissappears as an independent state as the two future powers establish themselves.
The lead characters in the story unfold in the same story telling fashion that has made Cornwell a must read for me. The Sharpe series set during the Napoleonic wars was my first introduction and if you have read them or enjoyed the TV adaptation you will enjoy this book. It is not the characters, however, that I remember best about this book. It is how Cornwell uses words that had different meanings or usages during the story period then they do now. He describes in his story how the medieval soldiers would cry out the word "havoc" as the signal to switch from attacking a town to plundering the town. This bit of trivia fascinates me. I find that for the next several days I see the word being used in its modern usage and I have a different perspective. It is like when you buy a new car thinking it is the only one like it and then you see dozens on the road.
A good story.

In this book Bernard Cromwell introduces Thomas of Hookton.

When his village is destroyed by French raiders, Thomas takes up vengance as an archer and also seeks to recover a holy relic stolen from his father.

Cornwell's skill rests in describing the battle and campaign scenes as well as the camp life the the English army encountered during its French adventures (ones that would ultimately fail, though over the reign of a number of English kings.

This book is the first of the series, so be sure to start the chronicles here.

"Harlequin" is the name of this book published in the UK; "The Archer's Tale" is the same book with a different title, published in the USA. Harlequin/Archers Tale is the 1st book in the 3-book medieval Grail Quest series. It is about a young English man whose father is the supposed holder of the Grail and The Lance of St. George. Thomas becomes an archer when a French war band travels deep into Britain to retrieve the Lance of St. George. Thomas travels across Britain to retrieve the lance. During his journeys he finds many friends and finds the lance. Bernard Cornwell's writing is exhilarating and keeps you riveted to the book. Cornwell has the talent to create epic historic battle scenes: Lots of thrilling, heart-pounding fighting among archers, knights, and men-in-arms. Harlequin and the other books in the Grail Quest series are all equally good. I recommend this book and the Grail Quest series whole heartedly. For anyone who likes traveling history via battles and romances, this book will be perfect for you.

I forget how many times I've read this book over the years, but it never loses interest for me. What an amazing period in the history of England and France. The horrors of war at the time, which have often been romanticized, were stunning, particularly the practice of wasting the countryside. Thomas of Hookton is a fascinating hero, of the ranks, yet with a nobility of his own. The powerful influence of archers upon the battles of the time, which eventually brought the time of the armored knight to an end, was fascinating to read about. Can't recommend the book enough.

The Archers Tale.

Thomas of Hookton has been cast into a life that he has not asked for. Ala Richard Sharp.

The slaughter of his family the destruction of his home town and the hundred years war give this series the possibility of becoming as popular as the Sharp series. The Archers tale opens in the 14th century when England and France are well into the war. The subsequent tales follow poor Thomas from Crecy, back to England and back to France once again. Always on the heel of his cousin the black knight the Count of Astarac. Cornwell has a masterful way of creating characters describing action and putting the reader right behind his characters as they pull their longbows back and take aim. All three of these book are wonderful and promise long hours of enjoyment to all the read them.

I found this book to be well-written, engaging, and easy to follow. A real page-turner. Story flows easily. Makes you eager to read part 2 of the trilogy! Good insight into the life of a common soldier during the Middle Ages.

This was one heck of a book. Cornwell did very good research on this time period even down to the weather. For anybody interested in this time period or anybody that is even just looking for a good novel to read, Get this book. Its great. Trust me, I am a Medieval studies major, and it is hard to find a novel of the period that has been researched so well. I found almost nothing wrong in the historical aspect of this book. GREAT!!!!!

I love the way Bernard Cornwell transports me to another place and time. I become one of the characters in the story and live as the character does. I m already reading the next book in the series. Please read the Richard Sharpe series if you've a mind to be part of the Napoleonic wars..

I've read many of his books, including the entire Sharpe series. These are highly entertaining, well written, Historical Fiction. A added bonus for me with this book is the fact that I'm seriously into archery. I would have given this book 5 stars if I had felt closer to the main charactor.

I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading the next two offerings in this series. The Archer's Tale gives us a grim look at the beginning of the Hundred Year War the brutality of the times. The action sequence were outstanding and not romanticized. The juxtaposition of cruel brutatality for loot and the dying chivalry of the times showed the sharp contrasts existing within each character.

I found the cast of characters intriguing, but the main two characters, Thomas and Jeanette, seemed to fall just short of being fully realized. Their actions went unexplained at some points and their emotional development unexplored.

Those points aside, I think this book has made me a fan of Mr. Cornwell and I look forward to reading his many other novels.

This was the first book I've read by Bernard Cornwell, and it certainly won't be the last. The quality of the writing is amazing for a novel that takes place so far in the past. This is history as it's meant to be, people and their struggles and interactions, rather than a collection of facts.
The book is very descriptive and its not hard to visualize the unique locations, smell the smells, hear the sounds, etc. The characters are easy to accociate with and understand. What I liked most about this book is that it doesn't overly romantacize medieval warfare. Instead it's portrayed exactly as it was, a mad scramble of low blows, screaming horses, weary soldiers half-starved and sick praying to live it through the next few moments.
Overall, a great read and I highly recommend this book, as it covers many genres-compatable with readers with many interests.

I have difficulty with my normal life because when I read Cornwell's novels, I don't want to do anything else. I love "being there" in the historical setting. It has helped me with my own understanding of English history. The battle scenes are "awesome".

THE ARCHER'S TALE was my introduction to Bernard Cornwell. While I favor historical fiction, I never thought I would be intrigued by novels about distant wars or battles. Was I wrong! The story draws you in straight in the beginning and leaves you wanting more.

I defer to nessiemonster's (see An excellent adventure, June 23, 2003) description of the story and comments on the accuracy of the history. It's a very well-written review.

Don't miss VAGABOND and HERETIC, the second and third in the trilogy, respectively.

Here is an exciting, well written fiction based on well known facts mixed with little know ones that make the reader feel part of history. Fortunately this is the first in a series as I for one didn't want the telling to end.

As always, this book has been well researched and put together. Cornwell is the master of historical military fiction and he is at his best in the battle scenes. The Archer is a great start to what I hope is a great series. I have read almost all of the Sharpe series and look forward to The Vagabond, which is by my chair at home!

The best book of "The Grail Quest Trilogy". I hoped the story of Thomas of Hookton would become more vibrant as I read, but for me, it remained a well written, action-packed, yet somehow boring series. If you usually enjoy Bernard Cornwell, as I do, buy this book, but resist the temptation to see how it all ends. You may be disappointed.I bought all three, and the characterizations just got more two-dimensional as I went.

I believe that Harlequin was released in the USA as "An Archer's Tale". As with most of Cornwell's tales it has been well researched and does give a brief insight into life and war in Medieval Britain and Northern France. Of particular interest is the details of the construction of the English Longbow, a formidable weapon in terms of range, accuracy, rate of fire and power, (it could put an arrow through a 3 inch oak wood door at 50 yards) As a novel it follows the life of a young archer in the army of the one of the Dukes fighting for the King of England who gets his woman (several times, like Sharpe)and oscillates between despair and poverty to grace and favour, again like Sharpe.
Really enjoyed it and recommend it.

I must admit that I don't read a lot of historical fiction,
but on a friend's advice, I picked up this book and found it
to be an interesting read. As a writer, I always am amazed when
an author can reconstruct a past world and set a story in motion
which draws the reader into it. Armed with only word, there are
some very talented authors of this genre. Cornwell certainly is one of them.

Loved this book. Bernard Cornwell brings his characters and their settings alive on the page. Add to that the mystique of the quest for the Holy Grail and the pitched battles of the Hundred Years war, and you've got a real page turner on your hands. Check out my review in verse at https://historynmystery.wordpress.com

This book was, I think, a first go at Cornwell's 'Agincourt' novel. It's good, but not as finely crafted as the latter. Still worth a read. Better yet, read this, then read Agincourt to see how Cornwell has developed as a writer.

I have been a fan of Bernard Cornwell's books ever since Winter King. His books are all gritty, realistic portrayals of a very different world that we live in. Cornwell eloquently uses words to paint a vivid picture, and the stories come alive with his skill in desription. Thomas of Hookton, like Derfel Cadarn, is a compelling hero, unwilling to accept what destiny has to store for him while rising to the challenge all the same. From the initial skirmish at Hookton till the amazing imagery of the battle of Crecy I was hooked (pun not intended). Great writing from a fantastic author.

Bernard Cornwell is a master of early British history. His historical fiction brings me to the edge of knowing what was happening in the early days of British history, with the sights, smells, and sounds of everyday life and fights for freedoms. Unusually violent at some points, I believe that life during those times is mirrored in his writing. Awesome!

Cornwell's, "The Archer's Tale" is an excellent example of this genre. Historically accurate, but focused on a believable and interesting fictional character. Fascinating information of use of archers in the period preceding the 100 years war.

The entire series is amazing. I claim this for myself, as Bernard Cornwell's best series to date. I love this writer, he takes my interests and indulges them with his incredible ability to have a story seem so real, its reader is taken hostage until they have finished it completely.

I read this book under the English title "Harlequin", book one of The Grail Quest. I am constantly amazed how such a prolific writer can produce books of such quality. Thomas of Hookton is a hero very much in the Richard Sharpe mould. He is a person that you can relate to, honest and down to earth. I was griped from the first page and ended up writing this review whilst trying to find if book two of the Grail Quest was on the shelves. If you enjoy historical novels packed with action and adventure, you will love this book. If only history had been this good at school!

The history is accurate, the characters are engaging, and the story lines are superb - everything you want from historial fiction. Read just one Bernard Cornwell book and you'll be hooked for a very long time. Trust me - read "The Archer's Tale" and you'll find it quite impossible not to finish the series.

If you enjoy entertaining medieval story telling, then this is the first of a trilogy for you. I happened upon B.C.'s books while browsing a store so I had no preconceived notions about this author. I can say that his historical fiction paints a bleak but fascinating picture of life in the 14th century.
Thomas, the main character, has a full life with his duty, oaths, and personal quest. His attitude, character development, and trials make him a likeable hero.

I originally started reading Bernard Cornwell with his book Agincourt. Reading this series I was scared that the plot would be the same as Agincourt. This book threw that fear away though with its new and enthralling story!

THE ARCHER'S TALE IS THE FIRST CROMWELL BOOK I HAVE READ. THE STORY LINE GRAB AND HELD MY ATTENTION FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE LAST PAGE. I LEARNED MUCH ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ARCHERS AND HOW THEY WERE THE FIRST LINE OF ATTACK AND DEFENSE AND THE STRUGGLE OF THE WARRIORS OF WAR AS THE DEATH TOTALS INCREASED AND THE BLOOD POOLED AROUND THEIR ANKLES. THE IMPORTANCE AND VULNERABILITY OF THE ALL IMPORTANT HORSE WAS AN EXPERIENCE TOO. I HAVE GONE ON TO THE FULL GRAIL SERIES, WITHOUT A MOMENT OF HO HUM BOREDOM, YOU WILL TOO. The Archer's Tale : Book One of the Grail Quest (The Grail Quest)

THIS BOOK IS THE FIRST IN A SERIES OF OUTSTANDING BOOKS RE: THE "HOLY GRAIL" AND WHILE EACH BOOK MAY BE READ AS A STAND ALONE THEY ARE FAR BETTER READ IN SEQUENCE. B. CORNWELL DOES A REMARKABLE JOB OF COMBINING BOTH HISTORICAL DATA AND THE ARTISTIC LICENSE NEEDED TO CREATE AN INTERESTING AND HIGHLY RIVETING STORY.

If you are a fan of B. Cornwell's work, then this is a perfect addition to his body of work. It take you off on yet another journey with a perfectly flawed hero. True to form, the novel leaves the reader longing for the next book, day, hour or minute.

An excellent read. The book reads as one would drive a fast car on a winding cliff road - exciting, quick, waiting for the next veiw whilst anticipating the bend. Flows beautifully into the sequel, which one effortlessly purchases on Kindle to continue the gripping saga.

The Hundred Years' War has never been this much fun! Thomas of Hookton is a gentleman, a scholar, and a crack archer who gets into some sticky situations. My first, and definitely not last, Bernard Cornwell book. Unputdownable!

This book has some chapters that are brilliant and whilst reading those the book is brilliant, however there are some very tedious sections which are a struggle to get through. In the end though Cornwell manages to do the most important thing and creates a character that you care about.

The Last Kingdom (The Saxon Chronicles Series #1)the whole series Is great just like all of Bernard Cornell's writings. Can't wait for another book to appear! There is a great book he wrote with another person and I believe it was his wife. Can't think of the title but a must read.

I originally started reading Bernard Cornwell with his book Agincourt. Reading this series I was scared that the plot would be the same as Agincourt. This book threw that fear away though with its new and enthralling story!

THE ARCHER'S TALE IS THE FIRST CROMWELL BOOK I HAVE READ. THE STORY LINE GRAB AND HELD MY ATTENTION FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE LAST PAGE. I LEARNED MUCH ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ARCHERS AND HOW THEY WERE THE FIRST LINE OF ATTACK AND DEFENSE AND THE STRUGGLE OF THE WARRIORS OF WAR AS THE DEATH TOTALS INCREASED AND THE BLOOD POOLED AROUND THEIR ANKLES. THE IMPORTANCE AND VULNERABILITY OF THE ALL IMPORTANT HORSE WAS AN EXPERIENCE TOO. I HAVE GONE ON TO THE FULL GRAIL SERIES, WITHOUT A MOMENT OF HO HUM BOREDOM, YOU WILL TOO. The Archer's Tale : Book One of the Grail Quest (The Grail Quest)

THIS BOOK IS THE FIRST IN A SERIES OF OUTSTANDING BOOKS RE: THE "HOLY GRAIL" AND WHILE EACH BOOK MAY BE READ AS A STAND ALONE THEY ARE FAR BETTER READ IN SEQUENCE. B. CORNWELL DOES A REMARKABLE JOB OF COMBINING BOTH HISTORICAL DATA AND THE ARTISTIC LICENSE NEEDED TO CREATE AN INTERESTING AND HIGHLY RIVETING STORY.

If you are a fan of B. Cornwell's work, then this is a perfect addition to his body of work. It take you off on yet another journey with a perfectly flawed hero. True to form, the novel leaves the reader longing for the next book, day, hour or minute.

An excellent read. The book reads as one would drive a fast car on a winding cliff road - exciting, quick, waiting for the next veiw whilst anticipating the bend. Flows beautifully into the sequel, which one effortlessly purchases on Kindle to continue the gripping saga.

The Hundred Years' War has never been this much fun! Thomas of Hookton is a gentleman, a scholar, and a crack archer who gets into some sticky situations. My first, and definitely not last, Bernard Cornwell book. Unputdownable!

This book has some chapters that are brilliant and whilst reading those the book is brilliant, however there are some very tedious sections which are a struggle to get through. In the end though Cornwell manages to do the most important thing and creates a character that you care about.

Another very good offering from Bernard Cornwell. Great historical information, well written. Many parallels to The Saxon Stories however. Having just read Uhtred's tale, Thomas of Hookton seemed remarkably similar. Still a great read.

Bernard Cornwell does it again! This was a sweeping medieval story of an archer, Thomas of Hookton's vast, fascinating journey of discovery, love, and revenge. Cornwell does an exceptional job of getting his story across, however, he tends to be a little wordy with descriptions. Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys medieval historical ficiton. It is a very worthwhile read!

Probably an interesting story in the end, but I just can't get through the graphic violence. The story begins with a raid on an medieval English village in which nearly everyone is killed. The survivor begins the rest of his life avenging the deaths of his family and the theft of a religious relic. Sounds promising, no? But after getting through the initial violent beginning the book continues in the same vein.

It occurred to me that maybe this kind of graphic violence is what appeals to (or rather is meant for) men who want to read adventure-type books - lots of blood, descriptions of what arrows do to various parts of the body, horses 'screaming' (a particular ugly picture in my mind), and other descriptions of various ancient tools of war. No thanks.

I was looking for a captivating historical fiction read on vacation (picked the book up at a used book store). Instead of a book where the story is key I got book with violence as the main character. Too bad.

Another excellent work done by Cornwell. This book literally kept me staying awake all night! The characters have a realistic personality to them and really draws the reader's interest. Overall it is another superb work done by Cornwell. He truly is one of the best historical fiction authors out there! Recommended highly!

A quote from this book:
''Tomorrow's horoscope?" John of Hainault asked the astrologer. The man shook his head. N e p t u n e approaches the bendings tomorrow, sire. It is not a hopeful conjunction.'' [The spacing in the word Neptune is mine, for emphasis]

Do I need to write anything else? The book was OK until this point. When I saw Neptune being mentioned in a book set in the middle of the 14th century, I decided I will never read anything from this author again. Luckily this was the first book of his I read. So I didn't waste a lot of my time...

By the way, Neptune was discovered in September 23, 1846. So yeah, either the astrologer came from the future or mr Corwell didn't do his research...

I usually prefer American Historical fiction. I happened on one of Mr. Cornell's books when the store suggested it to my reading list. Now I have read several of his books and can't wait to read the next book in this series. His books are just so darn good!!!

Bernard Cornwell's 'The Archer's Tale' is exciting and historically fascinating! It gives such a compelling description of the brutality and utter disregard the elite had for the very people who made their relatively comfortable lives possible.

After trying to read Ken Follet's claptrap tome "Pillars of the Earth", I was steered to this book by an the store reviewer. Unfortunately, it's not much better. I can't understand why these books get such rave reviews. The characters are flat, stereotypical, and predictable. The writing is at a 7th or 8th grade level. The plot is stale and arbitrary. But ooh! It's violent and there's lots of rape and battles, so it must be interesting. Yawn.

For the record, I gave up on page 43, by which time the recently-introduced villain Sir Simon had been described as replying "sourly" FIVE times in as many pages. Can't these authors afford editors?

Garbage.

Follow up: I picked this book up again when there was nothing else to read in the house, during a blizzard. It was still unbearably bad.

The Last Kingdom (The Saxon Chronicles Series #1)the whole series Is great just like all of Bernard Cornell's writings. Can't wait for another book to appear! There is a great book he wrote with another person and I believe it was his wife. Can't think of the title but a must read.

The hero goes with his band of archers, on a killing and raping spree across France. This he enjoys. Life is good. They leave farms and defenseless villages destroyed. Very romantic stuff. The nobility do alright though. The villian decides to rape nobility and this is his great flaw. If he stuck to screaming peasants it would have been OK. The heroine is saved from him by her nobility apparently. She falls in love with the hero. Perhaps she likes it rough. All historically accurate, but why anyone should accept this as a viable romance or adventure I don't know. Unless the readers who love this book are human - in which case it is understandable. Humans are given to mauling each other in a way beasts never do. How this book can be distinguished from a deary wallow in the worst human behavior and the ussual facile validation of it, I can not say.

Well, firstly the packaging should have BOLDLY stated that the book was abridged. Secondly, the title should have concluded with "PART 1" to let the buyer know that it was incomplete.
Why do all the French sound like pip-squeaks? It was like Peter and the Wolf with Smith using a reedy flute to do all the French voices. I wanted to bite off my own ear. And what happended to the character development of the Black Bird? She goes from deadly enigma to whimpering twit in a heartbeat.
I could go on, but why throw good verbage after bad. I find that I don't care about the characters at all.
Kris

The year is 1342, the English, led by Eduard to third devastate France. Their most powerful weapons are shooters who are called Harlequin. Among them is Thomas of Hookton, the French troops killed the his father who is priest in village Hookton and ravaged the village. The French have stolen relic Spear St. George that his father kept in the church. Here Thomas kills his first enemy and decides to take revenge on the French, and returns the stolen spear. Connects to the army as a shooter and goes to war. The book is read in one breath and takes us through the terrible battle in which no mercy to the enemy on battlefield. Thomas expects a lot of adventures and discovering secrets about his father. Who was not be just an ordinary village priest.

I love any book that Bernard Cornwell has published and The Archer's Tail is no different. It is another masterpiece by a talented author. If you haven't read this book yet, I suggest you get it, especially at this low price.

Having read a good chunk of the Sharpe Series by Bernard Cornwell, and really enjoying them. I thought that this would be a great chance to branch out into his other series to see if they equal the previous work. I don't know what it was specifically that just drained me of really enjoying this book. Whether it was the chapters dedicated to exposition on the main characters or the fact that there was an introduction of a major plot point in chapter one that really doesn't pick up until well after 50% of the book is going. The battle scenes are on par with other Cornwell books that I have read and most of the character motivations, background, and even sidekicks are quick sanding of his characters that I read in the Sharpe series. Just enough changes to make it seem like they are new. This book just didn't pull me in and make me want to keep reading it. It was more, as I read the book, as if the Cornwell had a premise and stumbled his way into some historical events, forgetting the setup way back in the 1st chapter until it was vital to bring it around again right near the end. The ending was jarring and surprising, not in a good way; but more as if "How the heck did we get here?!?!!? Who are these people again?!?!?!" sort of befuddled way.
Your own mileage may vary for this book, but I don't think I will finish this series and dread picking up another one of Cornwell's other series outside of the Sharpe.