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The Executioner's Apprentice
“The job of an executioner is never an easy one, but it is not hard in the ways you might expect it to be. The key to success is for you to put aside the fact of you being a man. Consider yourself a cog, a part of the gallows or the mechanism of the chopping block. You are helping to make the job happen but you yourself, as a person, are not there. You so not feel. You do not think. You are a tool.”Set in 1141 AD, during the chaotic period of English history known as 'the anarchy,' The Executioner's Apprentice introduces Ulfric of Bayne, a sixteen year old sneak thief who is saved from prison by a mysterious stranger on the condition Ulfric agrees to assist him in his career as official hangman to a powerful baron. But when the two travel to Lincoln in order to dispatch a popular and charismatic rebel, Ulfric's fragile loyalties are tested to the limit and he is soon faced with a split second decision that will have lasting consequences not just for himself but for the entire nation.
25 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 26, 2013
7 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 11, 2017
Yesterday I read the second installment of The Executioner Apprentice series and today I recently finished the first book. Follow Ulric's footsteps, an orphan 16 year old man that was liberated from the gaol for a petty crime by a mysterious man named Eric. Ulric is hotheaded but he has sufficient street smarts to know that the man was neither a nobleman nor a common peasant. Why would he help a complete stranger?
As they leave his birth city to begin on a voyage together, Eric confesses he works for the tyrant Baron that rules those lands named De Lune whose job is to execute political prisoners and chose Ulric to become his apprentice. The teenager was sufficiently hardened by his brief stint in crime and immaturity to wholeheartedly agree to learn the delicate art of slowly killing high profile convicts on purpose to stirr fear into the populace and stop uprisings. However Eric has a lot to learn in the art of discretion which can cause problems in his new line of work.
The book is very short and can be read in less than 40 minutes. The story is definitely good and there are few typos. The main problem is that all narrative verb tenses are in the present tense and commas are placed in odd places. This could be fixed with an editor's help. However otherwise I am indeed enjoying this series and will read the other books.
As they leave his birth city to begin on a voyage together, Eric confesses he works for the tyrant Baron that rules those lands named De Lune whose job is to execute political prisoners and chose Ulric to become his apprentice. The teenager was sufficiently hardened by his brief stint in crime and immaturity to wholeheartedly agree to learn the delicate art of slowly killing high profile convicts on purpose to stirr fear into the populace and stop uprisings. However Eric has a lot to learn in the art of discretion which can cause problems in his new line of work.
The book is very short and can be read in less than 40 minutes. The story is definitely good and there are few typos. The main problem is that all narrative verb tenses are in the present tense and commas are placed in odd places. This could be fixed with an editor's help. However otherwise I am indeed enjoying this series and will read the other books.
January 3, 2014
Short & sweet but very well written and well thought out.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews