The Templar Knight

Crusades Trilogy Series, Book 2

By: Jan Guillou

Narrated by: Gildart Jackson

Length: 17 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

Swedish author Jan Guillou follows up the highly acclaimed The Road to Jerusalem with the second book in his Knights Templar trilogy.

The Knight Templar follows Arn's adventures in the Holy Land, where he discovers that the infidel Saracens aren't as brutish and uncivilized as he had been led to believe, and that in fact there is another, darker side to the teaching of the Cistercians.

©1999 Jan Guillou; English translation copyright 2010 by Steven T. Murray (P)2020 Tantor

Wonderful story

I loved the story and learned a lot about the Knight templars.The performance was outstanding looking forward to book 3.

Excited History Excellent insight

The narrator is captivating and the story is well written. I looked up the background information and it’s accurate with embellishments.

Excellent

Thanks for this great series. I have enjoyed the first two books and can’t wait for the next.

Mighty journey

The narrative is beautiful and it takes you to the heart of the story of Arn and Cecilia

Worth it!!

this is an author I will keep coming back to. a book set that you will never get tired of.

Amazing plot/stories... dry writing style.

I really love this story. I highly recommend it to anyone into the topics (medieval period, Templars, Scandinavia, Holy Land, etc).

But as an honest review, it seems the author saves all his juice for dialogue until the very last chapter, while the majority of the book is borderline info-dumping, with nearly all of the interactions between characters being summarized in 3rd person. It is a strange way to present such a long story and one with so many interesting characters, and it is a bit of a slog at times, since it is hard to get "lost in a story" when you're zoning out from listening so long to what feels like wiki-history being dictated to you. I often have to take a break from the book and go to something else for a few days. So it took me a while to finish, but I will definitely be moving onto the 3rd book soon.

Random and Lazy

I truly was hoping that after the back story of the character was completed in the grueling non stop filler unnecessary information of first book was done the series would finally pick up. It wasn’t unfortunately. Call me a glutton for punishment but I never quit on a series whether it’s bad or good. Let me tell you this series has been one of the hardest bad series I’ve done to date. There was so much potential for an amazing tale of a heroic Templar that was simply squandered.
We constantly hear about all of his feats and how notorious he is to the Saracens but we never get to hear about it. The action segments we get are short lived disappointing. This title just felt rushed and confused the whole time.

The adventures of a Mary Sue in the Holy Land

"The Templar Knight" has one unescapable problem: it's main character. Arn the templar has never encountered a problem that he couldn't solve without breaking a sweat. Here is a condensed list of all the things in this series that Arn is unrivaled at: He is the smarted man alive. He is the best archer who has ever handled the bow. He is the cleverest tactician alive. He is the best horse rider ever, with the best horses that have ever been bred. Arn is the best swordsman, and has never been on the losing end of a fight. In face, Arn is so good at sword play that throughout his adventures, the biggest obstacle that an armed opponent ever offers him is when Arn has to worry about being *too* much out of his opponent's league and accidentally killing him. Arn has the most modern sensibilities, including religious tolerance. Arn knows just about every language spoken. Every character in the book loves and adores Arn, and when they don't you can bet on it that they are going to be the bad guys of the story.

In short, Arn Magnusson, the book's main character, is nothing short of the textbook definition of Mary Sue. And he is intolerable.

In this book in the series, a second co-main character appears in Arn's fiancée. Her story line is more grounded and interesting, at least at first, but unfortunately the author can't help himself and eventually she becomes a Mary Sue herself. By the end of the book she is wiser than her peers, more tempered in her religious conviction (which in this series, the less Christian you are, the smarter that makes you), and generally beloved by all good people.

It simply becomes a chore to hear about these characters being presented with a problem, and then swatting away the problem within five minutes because they are just so damn above it all.

As a historical fiction dealing with real events in the Crusades, this book also falls flat on its face. The author takes a very 21st centure pop-view on the events of the Crusades. For him, everything boils down to this calculation: Medieval Muslims are incredibly tolerant, wise, and brave, while medieval Christians are some combination of dumb, crazy, and evil. The only Christians in the Holy Land who are portrayed in a positive light are those who, like Arn, are kind of above their own religion and don't seem to take it all that seriously like the rest of their loser peers. This book particularly speaks of Saladin in glowing terms that almost rival the love it has for its own main character. It all just gets tedious, and where the first book had the feeling of offering authentic medieval Scandinavian court politics, this book feels oddly rooted in modern sensibilities about the events in the Holy Lands.

In short: Yuck.