Research - 5 stars (at least as far as blacksmithing goes)Execution - 1 starWriting ability - 2 starsOriginally published in Germany in 2006, The Copper Sign was picked up and translated by Amazon.com's AmazonCrossing publishing imprint. Now, I don't know if it's the fault of the translator or if it's the fault of the original prose, but despite the book's history, it still reads as a self-published work. There's a good book in here and a competent editor would've brought it out. As it stands, though, one has to wade through a lot of chaff to get to the few kernels of a good story.First off, there's the length: over 600 pages. And this is just the first novel of a trilogy. This book could've been cut down into a trilogy all by itself. That said, most of those 600 pages are devoted to a whole lotta nothing. I give credit to the author: It's obvious she loves the art of blacksmithing and it's just as obvious she's studied it in a great deal of depth. However, like many authors, it's just as obvious she had a hard time deciding what research to cut from her story and so decided just to put all of it in. As a result, we get many passages detailing (and I do mean detailing) the work put into creating a medieval sword and other ironworking skills. After a while, the book begins to read as a treatise on medieval metallurgy, which, in context, would be fascinating, I'm sure. But not in the middle of a fiction novel. A few brief passages here and there, highlighting specific points of the process would've given the reader plenty of insight into how medieval craftspeople worked without bogging the narrative down.Speaking of the narrative, to be honest, there really wasn't one. There was no over-arching plot, just a series of vignettes in which the main character, Ellen, moves from one location to another. Ellen would change location, there would be a small conflict, she'd move and the cycle would begin again. There was no great growth of character and no building of the story towards a great conflict to be resolved in the final act. Speaking of those multiple small conflicts, after a while they became tiresome and quite ridiculous. Though news didn't travel as far or as quickly in that time period, stories of criminals and people wanted for crimes would've been grist for the gossip mill and would've nearly flown through the network of merchants, tinkers/peddlers, jongleurs/minstrels and others who traveled between towns and villages. Ellen, who during the tale is accused of murder and a few other crimes, simply moves to the next town when, pardon my language, the shit hit the fan, and manages to set up shop as a blacksmith, a female blacksmith, mind you, which was no ordinary thing. Every time she moves, she manages to avoid ever being recognized or charged for the crimes--for which she's innocent, but that's beside the point--with nary a bailiff or magistrate sniffing around her shop to harass or arrest her. I'm sorry, but that stretches the limits of reality. No one is that lucky, especially when Ellen is equally unlucky in having all these tragedies occur in her life, tragedies which spur her nomadic movements and fuel each vignette. The whole novel just didn't flow properly, never mind the fact that it was just so one-dimensional. However, what really struck me about the plot was just how little the characters interacted with the times in which they lived. As the reader, you never got a sense of the history, of what was going on with the politics of the time. Sure, kings were mentioned and war campaigns were talked about, but it was in a secondary, off-hand way. Even though Ellen met with Henry, the Young King (son and crowned heir of Henry II), the whole scene felt as though she was simply meeting with another character and not an actual historical personage. There was no sense of place to the entire novel. It could've been set in any time, in any country. About the only details of life in that particular time period which permeated the story were details concerning the middle/lower classes and even those details were limited to narrow section of the population, that of the craftspeople which populated the towns and countryside. Then we come to the characters, none of which I ever identified with or sympathized with or even particularly liked. Ellen herself was bipolar: One moment she would be stubborn and proud and so very, very prickly; the next she would be meek and pious. Most of the time, though, she's either mean or disparaging to those around her, which means she spends the rest of the time wondering why they're angry with her or sad because of something she said. And, of course, every man who met her fell in love with her in some way, even when she was disguised as a boy. Puh-lease! That particular angle drove one of the characters, Thibault, the villain of the piece. Thibault first meets Ellen when she's disguised as Alan and apprenticed to the local blacksmith. Thibault finds himself attracted to this "boy" and flagellates himself for his dirty desires. When he eventually finds out Alan is Ellen, he loathes her with a dark rage even as he still desires her, which drives his actions throughout the book. His rage/passion drives him to perpetrate dark deeds, including murder, all to clear the way for him to make Ellen his woman. (view spoiler)[And this, despite the fact that Ellen is his half-sister, which she tells him a couple of times and which he refuses to believe. (hide spoiler)]
There was something about Fox's writing that I just didn't like, a certain lack of emotional depth and an overuse of exclamation points in the dialogue. When I read the author bio at the end, I realized that it had been translated from German, which made the strangeness of the text make a little more sense. But despite the writing style, this was a book that I had trouble putting down. The Copper Sign tells the story of Eleanweore, the daughter of a common blacksmith, who is drawn to the art from a young age. Being a girl, there is little hope that she'll be able to follow her dream until she discovers the local lord having a liaison with her mother. With little explanation as to why this is such a tremendous problem, Ellen is forced to flee for her life. She is disguised as a boy for her safety and then takes to the road, where she quickly finds work as a blacksmith's apprentice. It becomes quickly evident that she's a natural, with the potential to become a swordsmith, the highest art of smithing. Being uniquely gifted, she quickly masters what he can teach her and moves on to a bigger town and a her master's master, a legendary swordsmith. When her new master is forced by the king to move to Normandy, she goes with him and quickly becomes involved with the life of the squires who are training to be knights in Toqueville. Among the squires in Toqueville she meets William Marshall, the real life Mohammed Ali of the Norman England jousting circuit. (For a great read about William Marshall, read The Greatest Knight, by Elizabeth Chadwick). From the beginning, William is making enemies with his success and as he befriends the little blacksmith and teaches her how to fight, his enemies become hers. The plot is often driven by a rather shallow enemy who is obsessed with Ellen and driven by jealousy of William to be a bad guy. He is, of course, her secret half-brother, but she cannot prove it. He has no qualities other than being the weak-willed menace to Ellen and nearly destroys the novel. His characterization is the weakest part of the novel, but it's a very weak part.The Copper Sign is a typical journey novel, with one adventure following another with somewhat loose couplings, but atypically has a female lead. While she is, of course, beautiful and her sexual appeal is the primary source of her problems, but she also struggles with being taken seriously as a swordsmith. This struggle with balancing her work with her family and dealing with the responsibility of being the primary breadwinner in a man's world is a modern problem, which is a big strength of the novel. And for all of the flaws of the shallow plot line and lack of any deep introspection from any of the characters, the characters are unusual and you do want to know where Ellen is going to go next. One of the big strengths of the novel is that the secondary characters are really interesting; the world is deep and detailed and in her travels, the reader experiences peasant life, an apprenticeship, the noble tournament circuit and a brief brush with the rising middle class. You walk into their homes and experience the problems of a whole cast of characters that would make for a great movie, but are somewhat disappointing in a book, because you want to know them better than you get to.All the same, this is the first book of a trilogy that I suspect I will have to finish reading. The history may be better than the characters or the plot, but the history is very good.
Do You like book The Copper Sign (2011)?
So excited, thanks Good Reads Giveaways! Made my day, winning a book is the best!Received my copy today, thanks for the giveaway! Can't wait to start into this book.I read this book and really enjoyed it. The story starts off with Ellen helping her father in the forge and he was saying how it was a shame she wasn't a boy who could work there for a living. The book follows Ellen through her life into her later years as an adult with a new life ahead of her. There are twists and turns in every chapter that keep the reader wanting more. Truly hard to set this one down. The Copper Sign has the token bad guys and some characters that keep you guessing. Thank you First Reads Giveaways for the great book. I look forward to book two, The Silver Falcon.
—Amy
I enjoyed this book, but there were times where I was skimming through some of the descriptions of the process of sword making. It was extremely detailed - which is great if you are interested in learning about the subject. Not so great of you are not, and it also helped to make the book over 600 pages. It dragged. It also felt as though it were written by a teenager at points. I think this is bc it's a translated book, but it definitely took away from some of the enjoyment of the story. I'm intrigued though, and will most likely read the next book in the series.
—Lisa
3.5 stars. I'm glad I stuck with it. Our heroine goes through many great struggles and some of them really are accurate portrayals of some of the things in the 11th century life. But I learned a lot about the making of swords, scabbard's, hilts, etc. and this book certainly brings you in touch with struggles that a woman would go through if she had wanted to be a swordsmith in those days. The plot contains many interesting shifts and tight spots. Lots of diabolical intrigue. It was refreshing, though, that the book was not overly dark but had places of good friendship and contentment.Our heroine is not an island unto herself but is someone who draws people of integrity together. and I really like the way she learns what kind of man she wants to be with. There is forgiveness and redemption for many characters. There are also some fairly good action sequences.The book contains adult sexual scenes and situations.I listened to the book with someone that could do a fairly good Norman accent which helped.
—Michael Jones
