Dear Mr. Cornwell,
Like so many I’d like to thank you for Uhtred. He is a character that resonates with so very many people. I believe I’ve read all your books, many multiple times, and am amazed by your dialogue, battle descriptions and sense of place and time. So many wonderful hours spent in the worlds you’ve created. Thank you is completely inadequate to express my appreciation but it will have to do.
I’m also a huge fan of the Netflix series but have a concern with the new season. I was so impressed with the first three seasons as they seemed to hew very closely to your writing, given the needs that the film narrative has, but this last season has seemed to depart rather significantly from the books. One of the things that I’ve appreciated in the series, books and Netflix, is the depiction of the characters as people and not caricatures. They spoke as people spoke, The battles are fought with strategies that seem very plausible but the new season of the Last Kingdom feels like there’s been a huge change away from the plausible to the cinematic. All of a sudden there are no shield walls and lines of warriors throw themselves at each other without thinking, pretty cliched dialogue has cropped up and instead of creating a defenses that could actually happen like placing rocks in the river to trip the shield wall of the Vikings, the cinematic version dug pits in front of the defenders, covered them over and the attackers conveniently run to attack the widely spread out heroes without stopping to think it might be a trick. That doesn’t seem to be the world that you’ve created. Sorry to go on and I know this is not something you have much control over. but I’ve loved this show precisely because it has stayed close to your vision and have looked for a way to express my concerns to the show runners but haven’t been able to find out how to reach them. Hopefully, last season was an aberration and they’ll get back to the basics. Don’t mean to be “that guy”, but feel passionately about these characters and hate to see them diminished.
Thank you again for all the hours of work that went into the research and writing of all your books. They have been very meaningful to me.
Vince