Stephen Lawhead's Scarlet - Continuing the new Robin Hood series
Written: Mar 05 '08 (Updated Jul 04 '09)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Very well written and entertaining
Cons: Leaves things wide open for book three
The Bottom Line: I can't wait until the next book is published!
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| phungus's Full Review: Stephen Lawhead - Scarlet |
Stephen Lawhead’s Scarlet is the second book in his King Raven Trilogy, which attempts to retell the classic Robin Hood story with many new twists. The excellent first book, Hood, tells of how Robin Hood came to be, and this book is about Will Scarlet. It was published in September 2007.
Through most of this book, the character of Will Scarlet is in prison for a crime he did not commit. Sure, he’s committed various offenses against the cruel and oppressive local royalty, but the crime for which he has been given the death sentence was not one he committed. Scarlet is made to wait a few days so that he can be hung during a big celebration. The local Sherriff, a wicked man, wants Scarlet’s death to be the highlight of the day’s entertainment.
While Scarlet waits in his cell, he is visited by a local monk who is curious about his story. The first two thirds of the book are told like Scarlet is dictating to the monk, who in turn asks a few questions. For this type of story, this method of storytelling works quite well. It also cuts out a lot of the unnecessary backtracking needed to catch people up on what happened in the first book, Hood. You should definitely read Hood before getting into this one.
Scarlet’s tale is one of sadness and loss. He talks about all the heinous crimes committed by the crown as the literally ran people off their own land and created a subculture of homeless refugees. Like Robin and his merry men, these people all banded together and the beginnings of an uprising are in effect. Scarlet pledges allegiance to Hood and his men, but gets caught up in a failed scheme that landed him in prison. Scarlet’s only hope is that things can be delayed long enough for Robin to find a way to break him out, but neither of them have any way of communicating.
I found this book to be an entertaining read that goes by very quickly. It has a lot of chapters and white space, so the book is obviously a bit shorter than Hood. Even so, it works very well in terms of character development. Although Will Scarlet is the title character, he isn’t really the main character here. The primary purpose of this book is to show how poorly the people were being treated by the upper class, and Scarlet is the vessel through which the story is told.
Since this is the middle part of a trilogy, the story goes right until the last paragraph and leaves things wide open for the final book. As an individual story, I found this one to be a little bit predictable. There are a couple of plot twists that I was able to figure out as soon as they were presented, but I still enjoyed reading this book. In short, I think Scarlet does better as part of the King Raven Trilogy than it does as a standalone novel.
I’ve become quite a Stephen Lawhead fan since I first discovered this series. Besides these books, I’ve also started reading his series called The Celtic Crusades. All of his other works deal with historical fiction, and he’s an excellent writer when it comes to creating realistic tales that have modern day applications. That’s what good historical fiction is all about.
If you are a fan of the Robin Hood story, you should check out this King Raven Trilogy. The next book in the series, Tuck, is due out sometime in 2009. It should offer an exciting conclusion to this series, given how much was built up in this book.
King Raven Trilogy:
1. Hood
2. Scarlet
3. Tuck
Recommended:
Yes
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