Honesty, was a bit disappointed with this. Follett can't get out of his bread and butter - almost every character maps 1:1 with a character from his other series, and not in the good "there's continuity in this series and this book fits with the rest" way but in the bad "that book sold well, if I reskin the characters with new names and a slightly different setting, maybe I can do it again." I think what gets at me is that I wanted a little more realism - a bit more of a sense that I learned something about this point in history - but didn't get that from this book. ( )

En la misma línea que el resto de su saga "Los pilares de la tierra". Espectacular.
Esta precuela mantiene la tensión de principio a fin con unos personajes muy interesantes y poderosos narrativamente. En este caso es Ragna el principal con diferencia, inteligente, agraciada, desgraciada, hábil, decidida, y muchos más calificativos que le confieren un aura especial, aunque Edgar, Wynstan, Wilf, Aldred entre otros le van a la zaga por muy poco.
Las diferentes tramas confluyen con elegante sutileza con no pocas dosis de sorpresa. Muy bien. La inmersión en la época de la Inglaterra del siglo X-XI es absoluta.
Se puede leer perfectamente después del primer volumen de la saga. No es necesario leerlo en quinto lugar. Hay que leerlo. ( )

I only happened upon Ken Follett’s Kingsbridge series this summer, so unlike fans who read the first book, Pillars of the Earth, when it was published in 1989, I did not have to wait 31 years for the fourth book, which is a prequel to Pillars, taking place in the last few years of the 10th century and the early 11th. For me it was less than two months between finishing Pillars, World Without End (2007), and A Column of Fire (2010), so I had not really forgotten much. These are books that can be read as stand-alone without losing anything because there are centuries separating the stories, so the characters are different in each book. Instead the tie among the books is the place: Kingsbridge, a fictional place in south England.

I enjoy Follett’s research and interesting, though sometimes predictable, storytelling. His writing is nothing special but reads well. There were a few times in this book that he used phrases or referenced items that I feel skeptical about being period-appropriate, and that was distracting to me. He acknowledged in the Acknowledgments at the end of the book that the Dark Ages have left us few records, neither writings about daily life nor surviving buildings, as most were built of wood. He writes: “This leaves room for guesswork and disagreement, more so than with the preceding period of the Roman Empire or the subsequent Middle Ages. Consequently, while thanking my historical advisers, I must add that I have not always followed their advice.” Perhaps he should have. Those distractions aside, I enjoyed this prequel more than A Column of Fire, but less than The Pillars of the Earth. ( )

I really enjoyed this rich character study of Ragna of Cherbourg, Edgar the Builder, Aldred the monk and all the others. Dark Ages indeed.... ( )

Just couldn't get into the story. It started off well but after the viking raid my interest in the family waned. I gave it a few chapters (2.5 hours of audio) and decided this book isn't fir me ( )