Bulletin Board

Hello I have so much enjoyed your books on the Starbuck Chronicles ..I have just finished reading The Bloody Ground Volume Four. Just please tell me there is a Volume 5 or there will be because I can't find one anywhere ..Thanks for your time and Happy Holidays, Mike Vaccaro

thanks for all the great stories. But being a southern man myself I feel I must beg you for a conclusion to the starbuck series . PLEASSSE! PLEEASSSE! Matt

Waiting with baited breath for Uhtred to be given the chance to finish what others started. Gerrit Zwiep

Am finishing the last Sharpe book, having read them all in order--much to the delight of our local librarian--and have also finished the Grail series, Starbuck, Arthur, Stonehenge,& the Saxon series. I think that makes 35 terrific reads in all and am waiting for more! Thaks for the great times! Jerry Prater

Dear Mr. Cornwell, I'm a 15 year old Brazilian citizen, and I have been a reader of your books for the past three years. I would just like to thank you for the wonderful books you have been writing, be certain that you have many fans here in Brazil (I have many friends in Rio de Janeiro who, like me, love your work). I read six of your books in the translated version, and bought the other ones in Amazon.com. Either in Portuguese or English, they were excellent! Thanks again, Isabel

Dear Bernard Cornwell, Thank you for introducing me to C S Forester. I was hanging out for Sharpes Fury or The Winter King and came across Death to the French and The Gun. I have since found Mr Midshipman Hornblower. I have read the first and most of the third. In a way, Sharpe is a splendid hommage to Rifleman Dodd. I still havent found a copy of The Winter King, but will keep trying in both new and second hand bookstores. I have both others in the series but want to read the first volume first. One of your email correspondents asked about other books about Arthur. Of course, there is The Once and Future King by T H White. One series I particularly enjoyed was by Mary Stewart. It started with The Crystal Cave and is told from the point of view of Merlin, beginning with the development of his power. The fourth volume, after Merlin lost his power to Nimue, I found much less enjoyable. Sigh. Memo, dont kill off your hero. Many thanks again, Elizabeth Smith

Dear Bernard Cornwell, This may be a bit esoteric for the Your Questions bulletin board, but I thought you might be interested. Thank you for your generous reply to my question about the Three Fates in Greek and Norse myth and religion. I have had a quick look on Wikipedia and found an interesting article with a number of references which I hope to follow up. I see what you mean about Gravess White Goddess but will try to get hold of a copy, anyway. The Wikipedia article included the following. *The term Triple Goddess was popularised by poet and scholar Robert Graves who noted that an archetypal goddess triad occurred throughout Indo-European mythology. He was not the originator of this concept, and it appears as a recurrent theme in the Myth and Ritual school of classical archaeology at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. *Another cross-cultural archetype is the three goddesses of fate. In Greek Mythology there are the Moirae; in Norse mythology there are the Norns. The Weird Sisters of Shakespeare's Macbeth and Wyrd Sisters of Terry Pratchett's novel of the same name are most definitely inspired by these deities.* My initial thinking is that the transmission of the Indo-European Fates triad may have happened at the same time as the transmission and development of Indo-European languages during the pre-historic migrations throughout Europe. Perhaps some proto-myth of three women spinning our fates existed and moved with the migrating peoples, changing as it went. I hope to follow this up. Would you be interested in hearing any results of my search? If this was the case, it would overcome the difficulty of geographic distance between Greece and the Nordic countries. That is, the transmission occurred over a long period of time, rather than being the result of immediate contact by, for example, missionaries or traders. However, that said, the Norse people did get at least as far as far as Istanbul, or, as it was then, Byzantium or possibly Constantinople, by sailing down the Danube to the Black Sea. (The portage around the rapids and gorges must have been a challenge!) The guards of the Byzantine emperor were at one time former Vikings, though I am not sure how long they had been there. One of the lions outside the Arsenale in Venice, which were stolen from Constantinople in the so-called fourth crusade in the 14th century, in reality, the sack of the city, has Viking runes scratched into its marble flank, no doubt by a rather bored guard. Or so I understand. Elizabeth Smith

B.C.....the first read was "redcoat" and next "the sharpe's series" and on and on....look forward to reading "Lords of the North"...I hope to see some future works in regards to Jamestown's John Smith and his escapades or the characters in King Phillips war and one last appeal...expand the Redcoat character into a series....and finally; I love the era of the French and Indian wars and all of it's rascallion characters and villians...the frenchies , the brits and the colonials...great dynamics... keep your head down as you know there is "no rest for the wicked"...thank you ...chuck johnson

Dear Mr. Cornwell, This is a humble request that you require that the audio versions of your books be released unabridged. I am sure that the 40% that is heartlessly sliced away is as valuable and wonderful as the bits left. Please do not underestimate your audio audience- we want all the words too! Thanks, Steve

Mr Cornwell im just glad that you found your gift and it was one you could share with the word. I loved your Arthur books, I just this minute finished Excalibur, great read, thanks.

Scott Husband

In reference to the question "Why do men love war" in the "Your questions" section, a clear, lucid, academically grounded answer can be found in John Keegan's "A History of Warfare." Happy Holidays!
James