Quick Book Reviews Blog

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that there are some truly terrible people in this world, some of which have committed mass genocides, bringing unimaginable pain and suffering to millions upon millions.  Regardless of whether we are talking about a serial killer or a dictator, at the back of our minds, we do want to know how they have come to be where they are. 

Most of us see the Middle Ages as being an era filled with glorious knights, honorable kings, well-meaning peasants, beautiful princesses, swords, books, fancy cups, and so on and so forth.  However, what many of us forget to imagine, when thinking of the Middle Ages, is the horror. Indeed, these were extremely violent times when teachings of faith were taken very literally, a time when justice was about as arbitrary as it could ever be. 

The first book in the Century Trilogy, Fall of Giants , introduced us to the five families, the setting, the characters themselves, the morals of that time. The second book by Ken Follett in this trilogy, Winter of the World , picks up where the first one left off, as each family is headed for some kind of war-related turmoil.  I really won’t go into detail as to which family faces what (let’s admit it, it would take a me a long time and you probably wouldn't even read it anyways), but in one way or another, each one of them finds itself entangled in some kind of significant conflict, whether it’s against actual people or ideas.

When we think of times past, how people must have lived, interacted and worked, let’s admit it, most of us have a very limited and romanticized notion about that. We know bits and pieces from what we read in books and saw in movies, and from those pieces we try and put together the big picture as best we can.  Not to say Ken Follett has lived at the beginning of the twentieth century, but he seems to be a man who has done his research and knows more than most about that time period… after all, he wrote an entire trilogy following the story of five families in that world, with the first book of it being Fall of Giants .