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No matter how you slice it, the book is about how to build a stone temple in ancient times. There is a story behind this, an interesting and complex tale of people from all over present-day England, surrounding three brothers, sons of a chieftan, and their aspirations, plottings, dreams and failures. There is travel throughout the ancient island with Cornwell's requisite description of place and people, but it still comes back to building the stone temple; so the title suggests, so the book goes... This is not, in my humble opinion (and I am a big fan of Cornwell), Bernard's best work. It is interesting enough. There is treachery, murder, rivalry, betrayal, lust, insanity, god-worship, slavery, battle, bravery, courage and cowardice, but all offered in less heaping helpings than usually offered from Cornwell. Surely, it was no small task for our neolithic ancestors to collect the stones, shape them, move them and stand them so precisely, but the description of such consumes probably 75-80% of the book. Cornwell does his best to make this description interesting, but I believe that where this book really falls short is in its length. The tale could have been told in fewer pages with fewer people and less outside storylines. The back-story is sufficient, but nothing outstanding. To be honest, I'm a bit surprised by the praise offered by the "experts"; people that get paid to review. I think the experts failed us on this one. This is an average read with Cornwell's exceptional ability to lay out the scene bringing the rating up slightly. This is certainly an interesting read for anyone that is interested in ancient history, but I don't think that the average historical fiction reader will find much to be excited about here. The battles are weak in comparison to Cornwell's usual epic warfare storytelling. There is no real mystery, though the book does not promise this; I have just come to expect this from Cornwell so I offer it as an aside. I am very interested in anything prehistoric/ancient and I did enjoy reading about the tools, processes, people and lifestyles of our forefathers, but I realize that some may not take so much enjoyment from the tale. ***I give 4 stars, my personal rating, understanding full well that some may disagree and so also offer the reasons why I believe some may not be quite so interested. Overall, I would rate this a 3+, rounding up to 4 because Cornwell can make even the grinding and standing of stones sound interesting. But some may want to skip this one and move on to a more involving tale.***Read full review
Book is good but is a slow and hard read, seems to leave the plot to pursue seemingly unrelated adventures. I have to admit that I am just over half way through the book, but at this point there are a lot of LOOSE ends.
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