[.ca] The Eagles' Brood (A Dream of Eagles, Book 3) (ISBN 0140170480)

Amazon.ca:
In The Eagles' Brood, the third novel in his Camulod Chronicles, Jack Whyte introduces a new narrator. Caius Merlyn Britannicus, known to his friends as Merlyn, is growing from a young boy to Commander of Camulod and living a life that will establish his place in legend. Whyte's great talent in the Camulod Chronicles is the use of everyday historical detail to make the world of fifth-century England as real to the reader as it is to his characters, and in The Eagles' Brood, this approach really pays off. As Roman influence declines, other factors, including restless local warlords and kings and a Christian church growing in strength, take its place. One result is an increase in warfare and adventure, and there may be as many sword fights in The Eagles' Brood as in the previous two volumes combined. Yet it is typical of Whyte's attention to detail and to the intellectual life of the Britons that some of the bloodiest action takes place en route to a debate over the theology of Saint Augustine. The Eagles' Brood also offers an alternative starting point for someone who has not read the earlier books and doesn't want to tackle the entire series of fairly large volumes. This is possible because Merlyn is the bridge that takes us from the Roman-dominated world of Publius Varrus to the world of the Britons, in which the baby Arthur will grow up. Wherever you start, though, the Camulod Chronicles offers flesh-and-blood characters living in an historical era so well portrayed that it's easy to see how it became legend. --Greg L. Johnson

The Eagles' Brood:
Exciting, fast paced action, difficult to put down.

Too Much Padding!:
The first book of this series, The Sky Stone, was original, well constructed, with amazingly clear detail on life in 5th century Britian. The main characters were well drawn and each, the heroes and the villans, held my interest. The second book, The Singing Sword, was almost as good but there was a little padding going on. The Eagles Brood, the third of the series is a wonderful 300 page book - padded into a 600 page book. The story line follows the previous books, but it is too much of a good thing. The details of life during that time were well and exhustingly explained in the first two books. We don't need the detail all over again. The book is over populated with insidental characters that are presented as major figures who then are quickly killed off or just left out of the ensueing narrative. Minor characters, with important messages, just seem to pop up here and there in order to pull the stoey line back on track and help move it along. Frankly, towards the end of this book I was just waiting for it to end. Enough is enough!

One step closer to Arthur!!:
I enjoyed the third book in the Camulod series slightly less than the previous two.I felt that the author got bogged down with detail in both the battle scenes and the theological discussions.Merlyn comes through as very human rather than the complete mystic that he's been portrayed in other stories,being brought out of his rather pompous attitude towards right and wrong by his cousin,Uther. If you are planning to read the entire series,this is an important bridge between the earlier times of the Roman occupation and the first emergence of Arthur,as a baby.Now for number four-The Saxon Shore.

Difficult to put down:
I forget how I came upon this series of books but I can tell you that once you start you will not be able to put the books down. This Canadian author must have travelled back in time to be able to write so discriptively and knowledgeably. The series begins just shortly after the Romans leave Great Britain and continues on through the life of Merlin and on through the early years of young Arthur. I cannot begin to tell you how enjoyable this series of books are....a must read.

Continuing an excellent series:
This is the third volume of a superb series about the life and times of King Arthur from a historical perspective. Whyte's narration and writing style continue to be excellent. Was this the way things really happened? Did Merlyn (using Whyte's spelling) and Uther actually exist, and really live their lives as Whyte describes? We'll probably never know for sure, but Whyte certainly made me believe they could have. All of his characters are three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood people - and though I know how the story had to turn out (this is, after all, the story of Arthur), there were quite a few moments in this volume that took my breath away. At some points I honestly believed that Whyte was going to play some kind of dirty trick on me and veer off into an alternate universe. Along the way Whyte gives us several lessons in history and the religion of the time. I'm not enough of a scholar to know whether or not a debate such as the one he describes actually took place, but I certainly believed in his description of it. And he presents both sides of several religious arguments in a way such that any layman could understand them, without his (Whyte's) obviously taking one side or the other. My only complaint with this particular entry in the series is that Whyte doesn't really dig into the life, history, or personality of Lot of Cornwall. What little description he does give makes Lot out to be evil personified, but I really would have liked to learn more about what made this man tick. Unlike the first two, there is a little bit of "magic" in this volume, if you can call dreams magic. It seems that Whyte's Merlyn has a bit of precognition - his dreams accurately predict several events in the story. But there is no overt magic - nobody turns into a newt or anything else. I'm eagerly looking forward to volume four.