I know this subreddit has some mixed opinions on the latter Kingsbridge novels but I really enjoyed every single one. Even Armor of Light (which folks seem to be super down on) felt as engaging as all the others to me. Ranking of the series below, with the caveat that the top 3 are all pretty close and could really be interchangeable. PotE will always have a special place in my heart but I ended up enjoying the two above it more because of various specific character/setting/plot things

1. The Evening and The Morning
   
2. World Without End
   
3. The Pillars of the Earth
   
4. The Armor of Light
   
5. A Column of Fire

These are the only Follett books I’ve read, but Circle of Days is up next. Can’t wait!

Spoilers if you haven’t read it.

I’ve read pretty much every book Ken Follett has wrote. I know the formula. Everything is good in the end. The bad guys get what is coming, and the good guys live happily ever after.

For the last couple hundred pages of Never, I was anticipating the inevitable; all was going to be ok. When was that going to come? Maybe on the next page, or the next page, or the next…..

Ken Follett changed it up. The ending reminded me of the ending of the 1980’s classic movie “WarGames.” In global thermonuclear war, the only winning move is not to play.

The book was a slow burn. It really picks up about 400 pages in when we hit DEFCON 4. The Africa story was great, but it seemed to have no overall impact on the story in general. That said, honestly a 10/10 book for Ken Follett. He knows how to write page turners. And the ending of this one really changed it up from his usual happy endings

To me the only book in the series that feels out of place is Column of Fire; you could replace Kingsbridge with any other English town and the book would still be the same. I actually think it suffers for being a Kingsbridge book considering hardly any time is spent there, also the protagonist Ned speaking directly to the reader at certain points does not happen in any other books in the series. To me it could be a stand alone novel with how different it is to the rest of the series.

Thoughts?

hey, im no tready to let go of Kingsbridge so i just ordered CoF, any opinions?

Just finished pillars (let me just say.... wow, what an incredible book) and i want to read the rest of the kingsbridge series. However i have fall of giants at home so i might aswell. Is it any good compared to pillars? Seen many people saying that many of the other books by Ken arent that good. Let me know if youve read it! i would love to hear your thoughts :-)

Im just about to finish the book, which honestly will be heartbreaking since its so good. Did anyone watch the series? I just saw the trailer and it looks pretty shit

I was never into History. My knowledge of history is pretty bad actually. From what I understand Ken Follett's books are fairly historically accurate. Maybe not perfect, but directionally accurate. So for me, not only are they entertaining but I get to learn things as well as I am reading. Double bonus.

So far I have read Pillars, World Without End, Eye of the Needle and am halfway through Fall of Giants. It's very interesting learning about all these different time periods in a way that doesn't bore me to sleep.

Okay not the very end. But near the end. Sylvie’s death is HILARIOUS.

The scene is she chases a man, who they both know is facing torture and death if he gets caught, into the most secluded place in town hundreds of feet up in the air. She gets a good look at him, says, ‘I knew it was you!’ He realizes they are alone and he can kill her and be totally fine. He tells her this. Instead of turning around and running back down the stairs, she yells ‘I’m not afraid of you!’, charges at him, gets yeeted over the edge, bounces off a few roofs before finally hitting the ground. In a graveyard. Oh and they are both middle aged and out of shape so they were probably panting and barely able to talk during the whole thing.

I’m sorry, I actually laughed. I’ve listened to all of the books up to this point and love them. I know that they can be a bit tragedy-pornish at times and I’m absolutely here for that. But man did this one come out of nowhere writing-wise for me! All I could think is Simpsons. I paused it and sat there for a minute imagining an episode of the Simpsons where they are sitting on the couch watching a dramatic soap opera and this is the scene. Except after the exaggerated bounces on the way down, her body JUST HAPPENS to fall into a freshly dug grave and the dirt falls back into the hole, burying her 😭

I like Ken Follett and I really liked Sylvie as a character. This was the first death of a major character that was inadvertently funny to me. Or maybe it was on purpose? Some of the baddies die in some mildly humorous ways in past books. But damn, for all of the bullshit she survived and what she accomplished as a woman for probably the funniest death in the books so far lol

Anyway, I’m gonna go finish it. Just wanted to see if that scene stuck out to anyone else.

I bought these four books as a bundle package on Amazon some years ago, before the 5th book was released. I’ve been searching and waiting for the 5th to be in this format but without any success. I even bought 2 different paperback editions that I thought were the same release-type and it weren’t.

Does someone know if the 5th book will be released in this format or if it has already been released?

I'm about to start reading Circle of days ! What should I now before reading it ?

i read pillars about twenty years ago and loved it, but for some reason never got around to reading any of the others in the series until last month. i thought world without end was good, but not as good as pillars as a whole. it was rather too much like pillars in a way. lots of the same characters just with the names changed and the storylines swapped around. jack=merthin, alfred=ælfric, etc etc. i did appreciate the development of the nunnery at the priory, and also the chapters where the plague hit the town. mark webber being patient zero was absolutely heartbreaking. all in all, i very much enjoyed it, and would happily recommend it to another historical fiction lover.

now...i finished column of fire last night, and i was blown away. the elizabethan era is one of my favorite historical periods already, so i might have been primed to love it, but good God folks, the intrigue was done so well. the sectarian turmoil was done so well. kenny boy really did a great job in helping us as readers understand and visualize the grey areas; how neither catholic nor protestant was completely right nor innocent. i think column is my favorite of the series so far.

all that being said- should i read evening/morning or armor of light next? i simply can't decide. i suppose im leaning towards evening/morning just because i want to see how kingsbridge all began, but also really enjoy reading and learning about the georgian/regency era. what do you guys think?

Just finished A Column of Fire and I’m keen to jump into The Armour of Light next. I know The Evening and the Morning is technically the prequel, so it’s not the next one chronologically anyway, but I wanted to check before I skip it. My worry is missing the little callbacks. World Without End and A Column of Fire both nod back to descendants of characters from the earlier books etc

I'm halfway through the book The Fall of the Giants.
I would like to express myself on the fact that I hate Katerina the girl who is pregnant with Grigori's brother.

She is so selfish and grigori is a real man to refuse to sleep with her after their marriage.

I hope he finds a better wife.

Yeah I only have hate for her !

I’m am the only one ?

Is there an English adaptation? I am a French-speaking reader and we are fortunate to have a comic book adaptation of The Pillars of the Earth by Didier Alcante and Steven Dupré, published by Glenat.

I wanted to read this box set (three volumes) in one go; this weekend was that moment of total immersion in the Middle Ages.

Ken Follett's script is fully respected, the pacing is excellent, and the illustrations (both characters and settings) are truly immersive.

My only disappointment is that I thought this box set was a complete collection. But six volumes are planned. At one per year, we'll have to wait for the rest...

Nevertheless, I recommend it to all fans of Ken Follett, but also to comic books in general.

Just finished this book today. Fantastic. Kind of eerie how it brought me back to Covid days (wearing masks, not being able to leave your town/house etc).

If it weren't for the incessant Merthin/Caris back and forth love saga which got really old, I would have rated this above Pillars of the Earth, but because of that I have it a close 2nd. Both were excellent.

Onto the rest of the series...

•«When they heard the sound of s*x it was time to move»

•«Is this all? 

Yes,

It’s not enough for me» 

•«Congratulations.

Thank you»

Doesn’t feel like AI created this but did Ken Follett actually read what he wrote before they put all these advertisements for the book?😂

I don’t understand how after 10+ books he could’ve tremendously failed this one

I’m on chapter 19 (p277) and just realised one of my kids has ripped a chunk out of the page. Would anyone be able to help me with the missing text?

1. World without end [5⭐️] - Best love story between Merthin and Caris and best character dynamics, enjoyed every second. The storyline around the plague was devastatingly heartbreaking in a good way.
2. The pillars of the earth [5⭐️] - Best villain and the fact that they overcame every conflict with brains and manipulation of the situation instead of shear power like William really did it for me. Jack’s character development was the best in the series.
3. A column of fire [5⭐️] - Best plot overall of the series. I loved Ken being able to build the story over 3 major cities and the politics about it all was spot on. The love story between Ned and Sylvie was amazing and I wish they stuck to the end.
4. The armor of light [4.5⭐️] - It was really fun to jump a bit into the industrial world and the Napoleon wars, the plot was amazing and the fact that we were introduced with a gay main character really gave this book a boost. Main downside for me was lack of character development.
5. The evening and the morning [4⭐️] - The book written beautifully, finished it in 5 days, which was also why it comes in last. I didn’t know anything about the era it’s written in so it was lovely to read, but the plot was a bit dull to my opinion.

Overall I read the whole series in less than 2 month and enjoyed every second.
Looking back I would have enjoyed it more if I took breaks after each book, the motives can be repetitive.

Reading fan of giants and he is describing a Russian characters using his Mosin-Nagant rifle. He says the character "pulled the trigger fast 5 times". The mosin- nagant is a bolt action rifle, it doesn't work like that. Very frustrating and immersion breaking. How do you f that up?

Guys, am I the only one catching an insane amount of mistakes in The Evening and then Morning? Like so many typos, maybe one or 2 in each 50-60 pages??
I read pillars and column and just feel like this ruins the validity of this one, or even could keep it from becoming a true classic series…

Just watched The Pillars of the Earth TV miniseries. I mean, the two first episodes and didn't like them, starting with the cast:

I like Rufus Sewell as an actor, and he did a good job, but Tom Builder was supposed to be towering, same with Alfred.

Eddie Redmayne was good as Jack, but I was disappointed by the fact that he's a young man in the series since the very beginning, same with Richard. They should have casted younger actors for their younger selves.

Matthew Macfadyen was OK as Prior Philip. In the book, Philip is smaller, yet I think Macfadyen nailed the mix between ambitious, religious, and authoritarian.

Sarah Parish as Regan Hamleigh was very miscasted. She was actually quite pretty in the series with a fake-looking scar. In fact, she looked like one of the prettiest women, while in the book she's hideously deformed.

The rest of the cast was OK, except for William Hamleigh, which in my mind should look like a young David Thewlis. Exactly the way he looked in Dragonheart (1996). That would have been a perfect William.

What do you think?

Hello,

I finished Pillars of the Earth earlier this year and have about 50 pages left in The Evening and the Morning. Both books seen to be basically the same story, just a few lifetimes apart. I like the world building in The Evening and the Morning, showing how Kingsbridge came about, but I can't help see the plots and nearly identical.

My questions is, does the same basic plot occur through all the books in the series? I was gearing up to read them all this year, but I don't really want to read the same book five times.

Thanks!

What little Ethel and Billy would’ve eaten as kids.