The Saracen Blade [Import] [Paperback]

Frank Yerby (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Mayflower; n.e. edition (September 9, 1971)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0583119379
• ISBN-13: 978-0583119375
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Love, lust and adventure during the Crusades, September 11, 2008

By 

Paul Magnussen (Campbell, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Saracen Blade (Paperback)

I first read this when I was in my early teens, and loved it. I mentioned the author to my mother. She said, "I think he's black."

I replied "No way!". In my experience, black authors did not write novels about 13th-century Sicily.

But she was right -- or half-right, anyway: he was the child of a black father and a white mother. But he left the United States in 1955 in protest against racial discrimination, moving to Spain where he remained for the rest of his life. He wrote many historical novels, extensively researched and often endnoted (as here).

Taken together, there is a certain repetitiveness in them. The protagonist always rises from poverty to great eminence and wealth; and there are always two women in his life: the true love who is good for him, and the beautiful enchantress who is bad for him. The present work certainly follow this formula.

But for my money, "The Saracen Blade" is easily the best of the bunch. Mr. Yerby may not be the world's greatest stylist, but he's a first-rate story-teller; and it's this that leads me to give the book five stars instead of four, despite one or two passages of rather purple prose. I don't agree at all with the reviewer who thought the historical detail got in the way: I thought it added wonderful colour. The characters, too, are brought vividly to life -- particular the enigmatic emperor Frederick II (the grandson of Barbarossa), who was in so many ways ahead of his time, yet almost comically superstitious.

I thoroughly recommend this book to all lovers of historical adventure.