The Armor of Light
Ken Follett
The long-awaited sequel to A Column of Fire, The Armor of Light, heralds a new dawn for Kingsbridge, England, where progress clashes with tradition, class struggles push into every part of society, and war in Europe engulfs the entire continent and beyond. The Spinning Jenny was invented in 1770, and with that, a new era of manufacturing and industry changed lives everywhere within a generation. A world filled with unrest wrestles for control over this new world order: A mother’s husband is killed in a work accident due to negligence; a young woman fights to fund her school for impoverished children; a well-intentioned young man unexpectedly inherits a failing business; one man ruthlessly protects his wealth no matter the cost, all the while war cries are heard from France, as Napoleon sets forth a violent master plan to become emperor of the world. more
737 pages, Hardcover
First published Viking
4.26
Rating
27394
Ratings
1809
Reviews
Ken Follett
439 books 53635 followers
Ken Follett is one of the world’s most successful authors. Over 170 million copies of the 36 books he has written have been sold in over 80 countries and in 33 languages.Born on June 5th, 1949 in Cardiff, Wales, the son of a tax inspector, Ken was educated at state schools and went on to graduate from University College, London, with an Honours degree in Philosophy – later to be made a Fellow of the College in 1995.
He started his career as a reporter, first with his hometown newspaper the South Wales Echo and then with the London Evening News. Subsequently, he worked for a small London publishing house, Everest Books, eventually becoming Deputy Managing Director.
Ken’s first major success came with the publication of Eye of the Needle in 1978. A World War II thriller set in England, this book earned him the 1979 Edgar Award for Best Novel from the Mystery Writers of America. It remains one of Ken’s most popular books.
In 1989, Ken’s epic novel about the building of a medieval cathedral, The Pillars of the Earth, was published. It reached number one on best-seller lists everywhere and was turned into a major television series produced by Ridley Scott, which aired in 2010. World Without End, the sequel to The Pillars of the Earth, proved equally popular when it was published in 2007.
Ken’s new book, The Evening and the Morning, will be published in September 2020. It is a prequel to The Pillars of the Earth and is set around the year 1,000, when Kingsbridge was an Anglo-Saxon settlement threatened by Viking invaders.
Ken has been active in numerous literacy charities and was president of Dyslexia Action for ten years. He was chair of the National Year of Reading, a joint initiative between government and businesses. He is also active in many Stevenage charities and is President of the Stevenage Community Trust and Patron of Home-Start Hertfordshire.
Ken, who loves music almost as much as he loves books, is an enthusiastic bass guitar player. He lives in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, with his wife Barbara, the former Labour Member of Parliament for Stevenage. Between them they have five children, six grandchildren and two Labradors.
Community reviews
My favourite Kingsbridge novel since World Without End. The Armor of Light is more like the first two novels in feel and style than A Column of Fire and The Evening and the Morning, staying mostly within the confines of Kingsbridge and following its citizens through their daily lives. I love it when Follett uses Kingsbridge as a microcosm of English society and politics at the time. Here, the Industrial Revolution and late-Enlightenment ideas influence the lives of the Kingsbridge people, as well as ideas of revolution and human rights after the French Revolution. Follett gives us many glimpses of history, though all of it is fed through the fictional city of Kingsbridge. more
3 Stars. Having read and enjoyed all earlier books in the Kingsbridge series, I regret I was disappointed with The Armor of Light. I did not care for Follett's previous standalone novel, Never, and this was only slightly better, in my opinion. The Kingsbridge series followed significant historical events through the ages, entertainingly informing the reader about politics, religion, and history engagingly reflected through the main characters' lives. This book follows the same pattern from 1792 to 1824. more
I liked this more than A Column of Fire, but I don't think it's quite as epic (for me anyways) as The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End. I loved the focus on Kingsbridge and seeing how it's developing over the centuries. I enjoyed all the references to the previous books that are mentioned in throwaway lines. Some of the history was really illuminating - I had never heard of 'press gangs' before and I'm not surprised, but definitely horrified. I also really loved the relationships and characters. more
Wouldn't it be amazing if he wrote one last book in the series and it starts in sync with the Century trilogy. I have one dream. more
Ken Follett's Kingsbridge series has been a favorite of mine for over a decade. Combining the richness of English history and the complexity of small town drama, these multi-generational literary tomes are brilliant, memorable, and influential. From understanding life the clergy to recognizing the vast human and industrial improvements over a four-century period, readers are entertained to no end. In this latest installment, America has formed and the British are at war in France with Napoleon. The Spinning Jenny has been invented and the people of a small British town learn how to survive through it all. more
This one was definitely lacking something. I didn't have strong feeling one way or the other for any of the characters. Ok, there was one I greatly disliked, but his role in the book just kept shrinking as the story went on. The characters also felt like they were never really part of the action. A lot of things happen, but they were more just observers to it instead of being the cause. more
If you like misery, rotten human conditions, poverty, sexism and wars, this 18th century novel is for you. 0 10 stars. more
Armor of LightFiction>Historical Fiction>1770-1820 EnglandI waited FOREVER for this to come out. I was on the library wait lists as soon as they existed. I also worried this might not live up to the first 3 (or 4) books of the series. After all, The Kingsbridge Trilogy started in 1989 and these last 2 releases were clearly just in response to the fans loving them, there being room is history for a couple more timelines, and the high probability that the book would sell. I'm OK with all that but I was just hoping it'd be good old-fashioned Follett historical fiction and I was not disappointed. more
Just a brief note. The story runs from 1792 to 1824. I did not know what to expect, after reading the disappointing “Never”, but this one was much better. The storytelling is terrific. Although very engrossing, the characters lacked depth and they did not cause any impact. more
Whenever I read that Ken Follett has a new installment of his Kingsbridge series in the offing, I always find myself hoping against hope that literary lightning will strike twice and he will turn out another volume as brilliant and magnificent as Pillars of the Earth, the original novel in the saga. Unfortunately though, formulaic plotlines, poor character development, and the use of modern language by historical characters have made his recent renderings increasingly mediocre. In Armor of Light, Follett has chosen to use his novel set in the 18th and 19th centuries as a vehicle for his own 21st century virtue signaling and social agenda. The story was boring and felt recycled, and most of the characters two dimensional. After all the time and expense I've doggedly devoted to Kingsbridge through the years, including three readings of Pillars, I think I'm done. more
No soy nada objetiva con esta saga. Esta vez estamos en la época de la revolución industrial y las guerras napoleonicas. La trama, como en todos los libros de la saga, gira en torno a Kingsbridge. En ella conocemos la historia de nobles y clase baja y como interactuan entre ellos. La lucha obrera, de las mujeres…Coincide también con las guerras napoleónicas; muchos soldados fueron reclutados de malas maneras y otros por necesidad. more
Overall I liked this book, but can't help but feel like the magic is gone from this series. As these stories became more national and international in A Column of Fire and The Armor of Light, it just lacked the charm of the previous installments. It seemed like in this book, even with the structure, that Follett just wanted to progress from different historic events to others and pull his characters along, but what resulted was for me a more detached style of storytelling, especially in the last half of the book. It was still a story well told, and plotted superbly, but a shadow of the greatness that was Pillars of the Earth. . more
Ken Follett does it again with this book. It’s great to return to Kingsbridge in this book set in the late 18th and early 19th Century. As always with Ken Follett he creates great characters, both good and bad, and he does an excellent job of making you have to read on to find out what is going to happen next. As you can imagine from the time this was set, amongst the Industrial Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, this isn’t all hearts and roses. The authorities are clamping down on the ‘workers’ as they are running scared following the French Revolution and fear the same will happen in England. more
This was again a whopper of just over 1,000 pages but man oh man. It was another enthralling read by one of the best writers of historical fiction. This book is part of the Kingsbridge series, a series that takes you on a journey through centuries of European history, all centered around the fictional town of Kingsbridge. The Amour of Light is set between 1792 and 1824. The attention to detail is astounding and Ken Follett seamlessly weaves historical events, politics, religion, and war into a gripping tale of ambition, love, and survival. more
Suffers from the same problem A Column of Fire had, in a diffusion of purpose. Though more of it takes place in Kingsbridge, it builds toward and has its final part set in France again, this time going up against Ol Boney, in scenes that wishes they were half as engaging as Cornwell's Sharpe series. Follett can't take that up close and personal view, and keeps reverting to a God's eye that stops any feeling of engaged tension and reads like a Youtuber's battlefield summary. It's a bit similar with the rest of the plot points he bakes into the narrative, where he's so keen to show off the research he made into sweeping social and technological changes, the characters at times just become cutouts to stand next to his real purpose in summarizing a historical period in fictional form. What Pillars of the Earth managed so well was firstly building interesting characters and drama, and letting the historical context be a compelling backdrop to that central story, and now it's like they're just stock characters that need to be there to tell a story about the historical context. more
Mr Follett manages again to engage us in History together with ordinary people who try to find themselves in the circumstances beyond their control. Ambition, love, sometimes unrequited, weakness, intelligence, betrayal, all these and more drive inhabitants of Kingsbridge at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. I especially liked the portrayal of a city which opens to the Industrial Revolution, theme which may seem boring but which is not, thanks to Mr Follett's writing skills and style. . more
Follett concludes the Kingsbridge series with the end of the feudal system. In Armor of Light, he explores the impact of industrial advancements and the Napoleonic wars. His main characters are ambitious, amorous, kind, or villainous. Through their hardships and scandals, he demonstrates the injustices of the legal system and the obstacles to forming trade unions. It was an enjoyable read, though I wasn't as invested in the characters as I was in their ancestors. more
Das vierte Buch um die fiktive Stadt Kingsbrigde. eine Mischung aus Hauptmanns " Die Weber" und Tolstois "Krieg und Frieden ". nur ohne den Tiefgang der Klassiker. Ken Follet erzählt in seinem Epos die Geschichte der napolionischen Kriege. die Hauptfiguren seines Romans bleiben für mich dabei ungewöhnlich flach. more
This book is another massive historical tale of hard working people, villains, and everything in between. It’s about the invention of the spinning jenny, worker’s rights and unions. Some parts of it feels like we haven’t gotten very far. The rich have always ensured that money and power remains in the hands of the few. Engrossing and worth the effort. more
This book felt like a different author wrote it. I got through the first four chapters and had to put it in my DNF pile. The book felt like flatly written fan fiction. This thing was this. That thing was that. more
I liked Armour of Light almost as much as the first two Kingsbridge novels. This book made it clear to me that what I like most in Ken’s writing is the daily events of the characters and the economic background, even if sometimes it has a flare of a soap opera. I loved all the bits related to the Industrial Revolution and the beginning of automation process on the wool business, and its impact on its workers, their rights and subsequent revolt, exacerbated by the war. Looking back, Pillars of the Earth should have been my first sign that what I liked was business, and I’m glad I eventually changed majors. This one is also a confirmation that I would love to study industrial management engineering. more
Returning to Kingsbridge and the solid community that has developed, Ken Follett invites readers to see how things have changed and what new sentiments are in the air. Those who have followed the series from its beginning will see that Kingsbridge has advanced according to society’s new views and inventions, which Follett addresses once more in this late-18th and early-19th century piece. With great characters and powerful themes, Follett delivers once more and keeps readers fully engaged until all is settled, only to open new and exciting possibilities for yet another novel in the series. I cannot help but devour books in this series, though their length makes it a monumental task. As Kingsbridge enters 1792, there is revolution in the air. more
The latest installment in Follett's wonderful series is somewhat disappointing. The Armor of Light takes place in Kingsbridge, the site of the other wonderful Pillars of the Earth titles. What makes this entry different, however, is that the characters are rather unremarkable. The Industrial Revolution, war with Bonaparte's France, and the English class structure aren't powerful enough to cover the lack of reader connection to the characters. more
3+/4- stars. The Kingsbridge series continues and is still readable, though I find the writing style again to be shallow and lacking the drama of the earlier books. We have the usual themes of the poor fighting against injustice, this time during the Industrial Revolution. There is as always a lot of politics, some religion, and tons of historical description about the life and times during this time period (late 1770's/early 1800's), especially details about weaving and its new machinery. I did find the section of about 60 pages of long, drawn-out military description - including most of the battle of Waterloo - to be tedious, and ended up skimming through most of it (granted, military strategy does not hold interest for me as it may for others). more
A formulaic addition to the series. Plus, I for one, wish Follett would leave out all the graphic descriptions of romantic encounters. . more
Ken Folletts neuer Historienroman spielt in der Zeit der Industrialisierung. Mit dem Buch endet offenbar auch der Zyklus rund um Kingsbridge. In diesem neuesten, dem fünften, Kingsbridge-Roman, der in den Jahren von 1792 bis 1824 angesiedelt ist, wird er Beginn der Industrialisierung und ihre Auswüchse, nicht nur um Kingsbridge herum, thematisiert, auch der Krieg gegen Frankreich und später gegen Napoleon mit der Schlacht von Waterloo als ihren Höhepunkt hat großen Einfluss, im Bösen wie im Guten, auf die Bewohner von Kingsbridge. Die Geschichte beginnt im Jahre 1792 als Sal, eine junge Frau, durch einen, durch ihren Gutsherrn verursachten, Unfall ihren Mann verliert, sie muss sich danach allein um den gemeinsamen Sohn kümmern. Ihr Sohn Kit muss im Herrenhaus arbeiten, um den fehlenden Unterhalt des Vaters, zum Überleben zu erwirtschaften. more
Years ago, I was entranced by Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth, the first in the”Knightsbridge trilogy,” but for some reason I didn’t read the entire series. TBH, I still haven’t completed it, but I was happy to receive a copy of The Armor of Light, the latest in the series, from Penguin Group Viking and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. True confession time: my husband grabbed it first, and I haven’t finished it, so this review is based mostly on his opinion…but he’s incredibly smart, so we are all in good hands. The story is set in the late 1700s, just as the industrial revolution is getting rolling. Massive changes are taking place, involving class struggles, tradition vs progress, and oh by the way there is a war in Europe, with Napoleon involved. more
DNF in chapter 2. I only got 2 chapters in and this already had so many of the issues that I have with Follett's writing with cookie-cutter characters who lack any nuance. I might come back to this in the future, but I just can't put myself through 750+ pages of annoyance right now. Pre-release comments:The Evening and the Morning was such a big disappointment I thought I had sworn off Follett, but apparently I am still chasing the high from reading The Pillars of the Earth because I am pretty excited to see that there is another book in the series coming out this fall. no question about it, I am ready to get hurt again. more