Another sweeping epic involving the village of Kingsbridge!

Can't wait for the third in this trilogy to arrive (out some time this year!). For anyone interested in starting this trilogy, I would say that you are not required to read The Pillars of the Earth before reading this. Although they centre around the fictional town of Kingsbridge, they take place centuries apart, and very little knowledge from Pillars is needed for World Without End.

I drew my own parallels while reading. Here's what I saw:

Fourteenth century life resembles twenty-first century life in many ways. Mainly, social hierarchy is structured in a similar manner. Usually men hold positions of power; poor people often remain poor and subservient to the ruling class, and the powerful often earn more wealth at the expense of the poor.

I couldn't help but view Ralph to be very similar to Donald Trump in terms of his personality, his intelligence (or lack-thereof), and his style of rule. Throughout the tale, Ralph holds decade-long grudges against old rivals (Wulfric, namely) and even goes out of his way to ensure laws are created simply to punish this one man, with complete disregard of how it effects the rest of the people in the land. Sound familiar? He lacks emotional intelligence and is often outwitted by the people around him (Caris - a woman, which makes it even better - comes to mind) which he is too proud to admit, and which he covers up with an aggressive and tantrum-like attitude. I sometimes felt the only things that set Ralph and Trump apart were a few hundred years and a Twitter account. Of course, Follett wrote this novel well before Trump, but that's why good storytelling is so powerful - if done well, it has relevance for generations.

One thing I found interesting was the eventual rise and success of Caris. Initially, it seems as though nothing good can come of her life. Then, because of her own hard work, natural intelligence, and good nature, she rises to the top and becomes Prioress of Kingsbridge. However, even then, there are some powers that she is not allowed to wield simply because she is a woman. She holds a seat of power, but is still looked down upon by some (men, mostly) and it is always more challenging for her to hold the clout that is rightfully hers. I think this is interesting because it bears resemblance to life today. Woman often need to work twice as hard to reach a male-dominated position of power, and when they do, are often underappreciated.

George R.R. Martin is notorious for killing his characters, but Ken Follett also deserves such notoriety. In this novel, it was common for the first page of a chapter to announce the deaths of characters who were substantial at some point in the plot.

Something also of note, which also occurred in The Pillars of the Earth, is that Follett tends to leave some characters entirely forgotten. Certain men or women that appear early on and play significant roles end up disappearing for either a long period and show up later briefly alive or dead, or they are never spoken about again. I'm not sure why this is...perhaps Follett himself creates stories so long he forgets to bring them back into the story later on for continuity's sake?

One thing to gripe about: Ken Follett has a fascination with calling a man's penis his 'prick.' It's so annoying to me for some reason. It's a penis. A dick. A c*ck. Even a member. It should never be a 'prick,' in my mind. I feel that the word 'prick' is used often as a derivative to not sound so repetitive. But it should be omitted no less, it's just a terribly used synonym. Also the romantic scenes are sub par.

I would rate this somewhere between 4 and 5 stars (Goodreads, give us more star rating options!). On the whole, an immersive experience and enjoyable read.