World Without End

I used up my amazing middle ages descriptive skills on The Pillars of the Earth so take what I said in that post, spring forward two hundred years, change some characters, add the plague and WHA-LA! you have World Without End, Ken's second masterpiece. Seriously not fair that he has two masterpieces. Most people don't even get ONE. I don't have a masterpiece yet so I hope he didn't steal my one chance.

So far I have made it sound like WWE is awfully similar to Pillars, but it's not. It is in the sense that it rocks and I was sad when it was over, but different in that it includes THE PLAGUE. I don't know about you guys but throw a crazy deadly epidemic in and I'll read just about anything. Ok. So I am seriously not doing this one justice. Pretty much my sentences trying to make it sound great are making it sound lame. So if you have not a good impression so far, think the opposite. Although, after listening to both books back to back, I might recommend reading something in between so you don't get confused. For example, in Pillars there is Alfred and in WWE there is Alfric. Practically the same name with practically the same personality. Overall, it's a solid read and I am glad it was there to pick me up out of the bumbling depression that set in when The Pillars of the Earth ended.

Ooh ooh! I almost forgot to mention.... I was pretty much addicted to this book. If I was awake I was listening to it (thank goodness the kid doesn't quite understand all the English language yet or his innocent little ears would've been in for a special kind of treat). I mentioned the plague runs rampant through Europe...Well one night after falling asleep with Ken I dreamed the plague had wiped out most of the population. I had plans to live in a van with a couple other chicks. Things were dark and pretty desperate since we were afraid to raid the grocery stores because of the dead plague victims lying in the aisles. Back to real life. Did you know the plague still exists in some areas of the U.S.? Not really a problem since an easy bacteria to treat, but in the western states there are (groundhogs?) with the type of flea that can potentially carry the plague. According to college epidemiology professor some of them do. So if you want the full middle ages experience....