How many times have you REALLY wondered, "What did a fighter jock look like a thousand years ago?"

How about a main battle tank or infantry fighting vehicle commander? A thousand years ago?

No, seriously, what did he look like?

He wore chainmail armour and carried a lance and broadsword. His mount had only one horsepower, but what a horsepower! A snorting, stamping, full-blooded thousand-pound stallion warhorse

And he began constant, daily training at eleven years of age, and it lasted ten or more years!

If you ever use the words "knight" or "chivalry" to describe fighter pilots, ships' captains or tank commanders...or used or heard the words, "earned his spurs"...take time to read this book. Osprey's Norman Knight 950-1204 AD will provide the curious with a primary education on what 'real knights' were all about.

And not to denigrate the modern 'knights of the air" (or sea or land)...

...for these folks a thousand years ago, knighthood was THEIR LIFE, not something one did for a year or two or three, as a "Hostilities Only."

In true British fashion of often honouring their enemies higher than their own, Osprey chose as the Number 1 title for their Warrior Series, personification of the men who toppled the English throne in 1066, the Norman Knight 950-1204 AD.

The author packed SO MUCH into this book, it's all but amazing. For those who have endlessly heard of knights and used the word...here's a good intro to the real thing, not the simile or metaphor, thereof. Who were candidates for knighthood, what training did they undergo, what were their duties, how did they live?

It's in this book, which could have been titled a concise, "Intro to Knighthood, 101."

Osprey put their Olympic Sand Volleyball team on this one, Christopher Gravett, General Editor, and Christa Hook, one of the best military artists in this and contiguous arms of the galactic spiral. Your 64 pages are a bargain at the price paid. For $15.95, one receives an excellent basic education on the subject.

One cannot go wrong buying an Osprey illustrated by Christa Hook, even if the subject is not your all time fave. Her command of artistic medium, level of detail, eye for perspective...all combine to make the eight (8) full-colour pages extraordinary, in the true dictionary sense. Ms. Hook's talented brush blows the smoke away from details of ring mail, the inside of shields, helm construction, broadsword, horse furniture...and a couple of well-composed and portrayed action scenes. You want quality colour, you get it, in Norman Knight 950-1204 AD.

Figures of 10th-13th Century knights are prolific, mostly in 54mm (1/32), but many larger ones are also around. Dig in, paint a few. Andrea Miniatures in particular makes some especially tasty ones. What the heck, doing chainmail and hammered iron is the earliest form of "a natural metal finish." Copy extant coats of arms and emblazons from shields, or invent your own. Get a figure wearing a great helm and you do not even have to paint any flesh! Try a medieval as a break from the humdrum of 20th century subjects.

Say a firm and decisive "NO!" to the modeling-self-enslavement of, "...but I only do 1/48 models of FW 190A-8s from the Western Front between August 1943 and June 1944, flown by blue-eyed, left-handed Prussian-born pilots 5'5 to 5'11 inches tall with no more than 2 vowels in their surname and hat sizes not exceeding 7 1/2...."

Go ahead, be bold, buy this book, let your mind drift back a thousand years...read this tome slowly, letting the spirit of the time, the Zeitgeist, in. Let your mind wander back, back to pre-satellite TV days...and do a real knight.

Purchased at Timeless Hobbies (R.I.P.), Wheaton, Illinois

Reviewed by James Hood

Review copy courtesy of the reviewer's chequebook.

For Scott Van Aken's Modeling Madness review of James Hood's novel,
 Adventure--Into The Neverland, go to:  http://users3.ev1.net/~bjmonkeyandcj/James_Hood.htm

April 2005

If you would like your product reviewed fairly and quickly by a site that has 300,000 visitors a month, please contact me or see other details in the Note to Contributors.