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kristamccracken's review against another edition
4.0
Can't wait for the next one in the Templar seies.
scottk1222's review
3.0
I devoured this book in 2 days(would have been 1 day but I do have to work and play with my dog).I think there was only one place toward the end that it actually dragged for me.I can not wait for the second in the series to come out in PB.I know that there has been some debate about the historical accuracy (especially on Jack's website). However I think with Historical FICTION you are allowed artistic liscense.
velocitygirl14's review
2.0
This book felt a lot like my second year Middle Ages class to be honest. It was mostly facts that felt like I was reading a textbook. It was cool to learn some facts about a few of the other factions of the knights of the church, but it would have worked better as a popular history book rather than a novel.
wolvereader's review
1.0
Holy shit, I just saw that this is book one of a trilogy. I think there are laws about publishing that much crap. This might be the worst book I've read since--man, I don't even know. It's worse than even the Da Vinci Code, and I read that like 5 years ago. I'm going to try to finish it, but I can guarantee you that I'll be staying far away from Jack Whyte and his templars after I choke this one down.
I'm not done yet, but since I don't see how the author could possibly make me love the book in the last third, I think it's safe to start my review.
Basically, this book is a fictional account of the founding of the Knights Templar. Fine, with historical fiction, you get some slack for a ridiculous story. Besides, the author has to try to fit into the genre that the mouth-breathing fans of Dan Brown have created (truth-bending, exposition-heavy, plot-light, historical-conspiracy-fiction). Even with those low expectations, this book is awful. We follow the main character Hugh de Paynes starting with his initiation into a secret society of French-nobility crypto-jews at age 18. We suffer a bunch of exposition. Then we fast-forward to the first crusade. We suffer some exposition, then Hugh is knocked out cold and we miss most of the battle. Then we fast-forward another 10 years or so.... It goes on.
The character development is about the level of the Hardy Boys, where we're told exactly what everyone's (very cardboard) character traits are. The dialog is George Lucas-bad. The author spends paragraphs on detailed description of items that have no actual bearing on the plot...
This book is awful. If you read it after reading this review, I want you to let me know so that I can remove you from all of my contact lists.
I'm not done yet, but since I don't see how the author could possibly make me love the book in the last third, I think it's safe to start my review.
Basically, this book is a fictional account of the founding of the Knights Templar. Fine, with historical fiction, you get some slack for a ridiculous story. Besides, the author has to try to fit into the genre that the mouth-breathing fans of Dan Brown have created (truth-bending, exposition-heavy, plot-light, historical-conspiracy-fiction). Even with those low expectations, this book is awful. We follow the main character Hugh de Paynes starting with his initiation into a secret society of French-nobility crypto-jews at age 18. We suffer a bunch of exposition. Then we fast-forward to the first crusade. We suffer some exposition, then Hugh is knocked out cold and we miss most of the battle. Then we fast-forward another 10 years or so.... It goes on.
The character development is about the level of the Hardy Boys, where we're told exactly what everyone's (very cardboard) character traits are. The dialog is George Lucas-bad. The author spends paragraphs on detailed description of items that have no actual bearing on the plot...
This book is awful. If you read it after reading this review, I want you to let me know so that I can remove you from all of my contact lists.
brettt's review
1.0
Modern thriller writers get more wrong about the Bible and church history than almost any other subject, but the history of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, usually known as the Knights Templar or the Templars, runs a close second.
Jack Whyte, in Knights of the Black and White, manages to combine wild speculation about both into a didactic series of lectures that sinks what starts as a pretty fun medieval adventure. Whyte suggests that Hugues de Payens, the founder of the Templars, created the order as a cover for his real work, which was excavating the Temple of Solomon for the secret Order of the Rebirth of Sion of which he was a member. The Order guards secret knowledge handed down for thousands of years, which proves that Jesus was human, Paul was an evil manipulator, and that most everything the official church teaches is false. History records the names of only a few of the original nine Templars and records almost nothing of de Payens beyond his birth in France somewhere around 1070 and his death in 1136. A tabula this rasa makes an excellent canvas for pseudo-history, and Whyte borrows liberally from the discredited Michael Baigent/Richard Leigh theses of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail in doing so. That would be no problem if he didn't insist on lecturing through his characters' mouths every couple of chapters about biblical scholarship, theology, morals and the like, and making a new shocking! revelation in between.
Whyte can write some wonderful passages, as when his knights excavate an ancient chamber built exactly like one of their meeting-houses, but he's so consumed with showing why Everything You've Ever Known is Wrong that he kills any enjoyment he may have earlier developed. Get 50 pages or so from the end of Knight and grit your teeth and promise yourself you'll slog through to the finish. Then remember it's the first of a trilogy and toss it into the book donation pile.
Original available here.
Jack Whyte, in Knights of the Black and White, manages to combine wild speculation about both into a didactic series of lectures that sinks what starts as a pretty fun medieval adventure. Whyte suggests that Hugues de Payens, the founder of the Templars, created the order as a cover for his real work, which was excavating the Temple of Solomon for the secret Order of the Rebirth of Sion of which he was a member. The Order guards secret knowledge handed down for thousands of years, which proves that Jesus was human, Paul was an evil manipulator, and that most everything the official church teaches is false. History records the names of only a few of the original nine Templars and records almost nothing of de Payens beyond his birth in France somewhere around 1070 and his death in 1136. A tabula this rasa makes an excellent canvas for pseudo-history, and Whyte borrows liberally from the discredited Michael Baigent/Richard Leigh theses of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail in doing so. That would be no problem if he didn't insist on lecturing through his characters' mouths every couple of chapters about biblical scholarship, theology, morals and the like, and making a new shocking! revelation in between.
Whyte can write some wonderful passages, as when his knights excavate an ancient chamber built exactly like one of their meeting-houses, but he's so consumed with showing why Everything You've Ever Known is Wrong that he kills any enjoyment he may have earlier developed. Get 50 pages or so from the end of Knight and grit your teeth and promise yourself you'll slog through to the finish. Then remember it's the first of a trilogy and toss it into the book donation pile.
Original available here.
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