A fine Medieval tale - Rated 
This is not the sort of book I would normally pick up but the thought of a story about building a cathedral in medieval England with so many rave reviews made it very appealing. I'm glad I did as it is a very engrossing story.
A real old fashioned tale told with real confidence. We have involving human stories but all centred around building the cathedral and for me this was the attraction. How often do we look at our great ancient cathedrals without realising how many years of intense physical work they took to design and build and the toil and hardship whole communities had to endure to bring them in to existence. These were dedicated souls who believed in what they did and often died in the process. Ken Follett weaves a wonderful story and interesting folk to help us visualise it. Evil rogues in William, lovers in Jack and Aliena, Philip as our conscience and the beautiful cathedral as the story evolves. It may be a blockbuster tale but you can't t help but love it.
It does read a little hurried to me at times in that our teller does not hang around too long on many parts of his story or characters. It moves along at a fair old lick but then I guess that's what makes it so readable. But there are times when you feel the need to know some of the characters a little more and feel the hardship of the life, travelling, living in Kingsbridge and fearing danger at every turn.
Such a great tale that I cannot criticise its literary merit - it's what story telling is all about. It brings our history alive. Roll on the tv series later this year, I for one can't wait! Prior Philip could be a superstar!
Don't understand the hype - Rated 
This book was recommended to me by a friend, and I must admit when I read the outline of the story it did seem like a book I would enjoy.
The history surrounding the story is interesting, and the details around the events of Thomas the Becket are as close to the actual events as historians can verify. Follet paints a clear picture of life in the 12th Century, but what lets him down are the two dimensional characters, apart from maybe Tom Builder. The rest border of cliche, the 'baddies' are too bad, some, like Waleran Bigod, whos motives, apart from pure greed and power remain underdeveloped. It was all a bit too 'soap operaish' for me. Some of the plot lines were interesting, but I didn't need Follet to keep on reminding me if our heros 'had won' the mental battle.
In the end I convinced myself to ignore the faults, accept it for what it is, and finish it once and for all. Which I did. I wouldn't say I didn't enjoy the book, because I eventually did, but I was disappointed in it, to me it didn't live up to the hype. However, I would recommend it for a good holiday read, nothing more.
An Experience - Rated 
An historical novel with so many twists and turns that I found it difficult to put down - thoroughly enjoyable. However, if you do put it down it is necessary to review what you've read to keep the thread. Ensure you put a full day on one side to read it.
A fantastic read, in spite of some weak points - Rated
Yes, there's maybe one or the other turn too much, and, yes, there are a few moments where one feels reminded of a soap opera. That's why the self-acclaimed title of a `classic masterpiece' might go one notch too far. But forget the few weaknesses - if you're looking for an exciting and captivating story, this is simply one of THE great sagas, comparable perhaps to the US civil war dramas `North and South' or `Gone with the Wind'. And Follett is a fantastic story-teller; you are literally pulled into the time period, and the book keeps up a high pace and your interest from the first to the last of the over 1000 pages, all the way through. An interesting aspect is also how timeless human characteristics are, and the challenges to organize and manage. In fact, politics and conspiracies in the church of the 12th century - and how to navigate these - are all too similar to the ones of today's big corporations. In that regard the pillars could even be interesting as a business book... most of today's managers can learn a lot from Philipp and Aliena ;-)
Don't worry about some of the negative comments published here. If you actually like to read, you will love this one, and you absolutely shouldn't miss out on it.
How gullible am I ? - Rated
Never having heard of this book, and Ken Follett never having appealed to me previously, I read it on the recommendation of a friend and deliberately avoided the reviews beforehand.
Now having read the reviews, what strikes me most is that the majority of 4 and 5 star reviewers seem to mention that they were intially put off this book by its length.
Well, the length of an amazing book can range from 'On Chesil Beach' to 'War and Peace', please don't be swayed either way by the page count- it is irrelevant. This book could have been half its length and been passable, but it plodded on and on and on full of recaps, reiterations, reminders and explanations of the bleeding obvious.
Not sure if the author really did underestimate his audience, aimed it at a non book reading tabloid audience, or merely lacked an editor.
Yes, it is a page turner, (once you reconcile yourself to skim reading about half of it to skip the unnecessary repetition), and yes,the subject matter really can be fascinating. It just happens to be an irritatingly badly written soap opera with characters-by-numbers.
I really did want to like it, and tried to enjoy it as a rip roaring pulp fiction story, but I've ended up re-reading 'The Name of the Rose' and have the final Shardlake book lined up should I ever want to revisit this genre again.
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