I've Gone Viking Mad

MelissaLee1 I would love to do one of those DNA things that trace your heritage. I would love to be a Viking descendant. Mind you, I said I wanted to be of Egyptian heritage when I was in to Egyptian History lol.

telmel very funny, must admit I was never in to Monty Python nor have I watched the films, however, I do know most of the words to I'm a Lumberjack!

Lynibis One of my favourites L , Python was ahead of its' time as far as that type of comedy went, but it has a hit with most school kids, i always thought John Cleese was a genius

loooo666 yes, I am watching series 1 of VV again so I can move on to series 2 seamlessly. Trouble is I can't help binge watching, it's like a box of chocolates....just one more!

Xenophon hi, have you watched any of the more modern historical dramas? I bet you would love stuff like Vikings, The Last Kingdom, Black Sails etc. You don't need to be interested in history to enjoy them any more than you need to have an interest in the subject of more contemporary dramas. They have all the human drama man has experienced throughout the millennia.

I too enjoy the documentaries and won't delete them from my recordings. There was a great one about Alfred the Great who features in The Last Kingdom. It is documented that he had a health complaint they now think was Crohns disease and they show it in the series with his wife dictating his diet, much to his annoyance!

Lynibis Thanks for the recommendations but when I said I don't like historical dramas it isn't the historical bit it is the drama part! I love history, just I prefer documentaries to anything dramatised really, can just about do docu-dramas.

Xenophon oh I see, that explains it. Well, you know what they say......different strokes for different folks!

I will be sure to come back here and let you know of any documentaries you may have missed.

Lynibis Okey dokey.

Also something I don't like is the trend these days to distort the past for politically correct reasons, falsify bits of history to make it more "inclusive". I have found historical dramas and films like to do that especially today and even documentaries these days aren't afraid to do it sometimes!

Xenophon omg I totally agree with you. It is so wrong to pretend Anne Boleyn was black just as it would be to portray Barak Obama as white. All that statue destruction because someone did something we now deem unacceptable but at the time was perfectly ok. Madness. In the future today's well known figures will be criticised for things we fully accept in the present.

sunny101 hiya, long time no talk. Well, here is my opinion of the Peter Gibbons Viking series:

They are certainly not a great example of the English language/literature, but they are not badly written. They are a good, easy read but I often found myself distracted by sentence structure or a word where another would have sounded better. He often repeats things from a page or two back and I find myself muttering; yes you have already told us that. Also he keeps going over what happened in previous books as if you haven't read them. I guess some people might start in the middle of a series, but why would you? There are a few editing errors but I put that down to the printing process and kindle.

Having said all that the story is great and gallops along, no really long descriptive or boring bits. I found myself extremely irritated by the hero Hundr in the first book but he was young and immature. I am now on the 3rd book and he is better at decision making.

All in all I would recommend to those who like Vikings sagas, but he ain't no Wilbur Smith or Conn Iggledun!

I think the first one is either 99p or 1.99 on kindle, the rest are £2.99.

Hope that helps you decide.

Lynibis Thank you, I really appreciate your opinion. That repetition would drive me insane! To be fair, Bernard Cornwell is a very hard act to follow. There's never any 'I'd better read a couple of chapters to see if I like it' issue - you just become immersed by the second page. (I can't stand any froth or unnecessary padding ) Thanks again.

sunny101 you're very welcome

Bossclaz I agree entirely, just finished series 2 and it literally took my breath away in places and I actually felt fearful at one stage, but won't give away any spoilers.

MrsCraig well, I will give my opinion on it knowing of course that others will not necessarily agree and I hope I might sway you to give series 2 another chance.

I have watched the whole series in last two days, if I was in, it was on

I am trying to decide if it ended up being better than Vikings, but a bit like a second child, you don't stop loving the first when second comes along. However, I found series one of VV hard to get into, new characters and so on, even first epi of series 2 didnt overly thrill me but held my interest. But then the game changed and I was riveted. Not so many long drawn out battle scenes, or weeks at sea but a real human drama. Harald and Leif going one way and Freydis another, Queen Emma and Godwin playing mind games and an assortment of great characters taking a perilous river journey led by Leif and Harald, lost love, traitors and heroics, so so so good, I wanted it to go on and on and gutted I will have to wait forever for next series.

Lynibis I am going to persevere with it. I like VV but it didn't thrill me as much as Vikings did, which is probably why I didn't enjoy it as much.

My husband finished the 1st episode and said it does get better, so I will stick with it.

jdgirl I wonder who your favourite was. I like Rollo until he deserted them for titles and land in France. But it would be a tough choice between Bjorn and Ragnar. Don't know what SAF means so can't comment on that

Ragnor all the way … and strong as *** SAF the women …

kate1310 Have you watched The Last Kingdom (it's on Netflix)? If not you will enjoy it just as much, if not more, than Vikings. Watch a trailer and see what you think.

Lynibis yes I have watched some of it not finished it all it's absolutely brilliant