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World Without End takes place in the same town of Kingsbridge, two centuries after the townspeople finished building the exquisite Gothic cathedral that was at the heart of The Pillars of the Earth. The cathedral and the priory are again at the center of a web of love and hate, greed and pride, ambition and revenge, but this sequel stands on its own. This time the men and women of an extraordinary cast of characters find themselves at a crossroad of new ideas - about medicine, commerce, architecture, and justice. In a world where proponents of the old ways fiercely battle those with progressive minds, the intrigue and tension quickly reach a boiling point against the devastating backdrop of the greatest natural disaster ever to strike the human race - the Black Death.
"While the novel lacks the thematic unity of Pillars, readers will be captivated by the four well-drawn central characters as they prove heroic, depraved, resourceful or mean." - PW.
"Starred Review. A lively entertainment for fans of The Once and Future King, The Lord of the Rings and other multilayered epics." - Kirkus Reviews.
"Follett's no-frills prose does its job, getting smoothly through more than 1,000 pages of outlaws, war, death, sex and politics to end with an edifice that is as well constructed and solid as Merthin's bridge." - Washington Post.
"Preferring Follett's spy thrillers, I would never have read this genre for pleasure. But, to my surprise, I came away from the book with admiration for a work that stands as something of a triumph of industry and professionalism. Trees and readers would require considerable notice before Follett extended this sequence into a trilogy, but in a culture which is time-poor and media-rich, there is a certain comfort in the fact that a book as long and dense as this is still regarded as a populist, commercial project." - The Guardian (UK)
"Perhaps the build 'n' bash theme of the previous novel was deemed by the suits at Macmillan to have been a bit masculine, for in this tale Follett has discovered a commercially advantageous feminine side ... Sadly, what we have as a result is an 'accessible' novel full of characters with 21st-century sensibilities and speech but plonked in a medieval setting. Tirant lo Blanc it ain't. The contrast jars from beginning to end." - The Telegraph (UK).
This information about World Without End was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo by Barbara Follett
Ken Follett is one of the world's best-loved authors, selling more than 188 million copies of his thirty-six books. Follett's first bestseller was Eye of the Needle, a spy story set in the Second World War. In 1989, The Pillars of the Earth was published and has since become Follett's most popular novel. It reached number one on bestseller lists around the world and was an Oprah's Book Club pick. Its sequels, World Without End and A Column of Fire, and prequel The Evening and the Morning, proved equally popular, and the Kingsbridge series has sold more than fifty million copies worldwide. Follett lives in Hertfordshire, England, with his wife, Barbara. Between them they have five children, six grandchildren, and three Labradors.
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