I have loved Ken Follett ever since I stumbled on ‘Pillars of the Earth’ while wandering through the Montreal central library after two days of a brutal Bar exam. He’s fairly formulaic but I thought this was part of his charm, until I read ‘The Armour of Light’.
It just felt like everything was a gross caricature of his signature style: the main antagonist was cartoonishly villainous for no reason, the romantic relationships just happened without rhyme or reason (or depth!), the social changes were…emotionless? I don’t know how to describe what was lacking. Compared to the Fall of the Giants cycle, where you did get genuinely engaged with the labour struggles of the working class characters, everything just felt trite in this book.
I think I’m just going to pretend that only the two first books of that series exist now.
Anyone else feeling let down by this one?
Currently about 60% through Armour of Light i am finding it enjoyable but not the best in the series unless this last 40% really grabs me it will likely fall into the worst of the series for me. Part of it is the time period i prefer earlier dark ages. I did enjoy the prequel 4th book personally.