Book 1: 3*
Book 2: 3.5*

I had heard the rest of the series wasn't as good as book one so I was pleasantly surprised. The book started out much like a carbon copy of its predecessor. It is era two and there are a lot of parallels between many of the characters and the plot. However this one was much darker and the author put more empathy into his character.

There were still some head scratching actions of different characters that seems completely out of character for this time period. There were also some reactions I couldn't buy into or responses where I thought nobody says that there.

Overall though a very good second effort and I'll finish the series off.

A great story. So long it should be called "Book without End" but by the time you reach the end, you don't want to finish.

The characters, both the good guys and the bad guys, are well developed; none is perfectly good or bad. One calamity after another, some of nature (the plague) but most of human cause, beset the capable few who struggle to get things done.

NOTE: You can read this either before or after "Pillars of the Earth." Both books take place in the same locale, but two hundred years apart; there is no plot overlap.

3.5 Continuarea seriei are loc la două secole de la construirea uimitoare catedrale din Kingsbridge. Ca și în primul volum avem parte de crime rămase nepedepsite, de interpretări ale legii după bunul plac, de preoți uneltitori și vicleni care-și văd de propriile interese, dar și personaje care pun binele comun mai presus de ei înșiși încercând să impune metode inovatoare.

Un avvincente romanzo storico ambientato nel XIV secolo nella città immaginaria di Kingsbridge. Il libro segue le vite intrecciate di quattro personaggi principali: Merthin, un talentuoso costruttore; Caris, una donna determinata che sogna di diventare medico; Gwenda, una contadina che lotta per sopravvivere; e Ralph, un nobile ambizioso e spietato. La trama si dipana attraverso decenni di eventi drammatici, tra cui la devastazione della peste nera, la Guerra dei Cent'anni, oltre che conflitti sociali e religiosi, e ovviamente intrighi politici. Attraverso le loro storie, Follett esplora svariati temi come l'amore, la lotta per il potere, la resilienza umana e il progresso scientifico.

Rispetto a "I pilastri della Terra", "Mondo senza fine" si distingue per la sua ambientazione successiva di circa due secoli e per l'evoluzione delle tematiche trattate. Mentre "I pilastri della Terra" ruotava intorno alla costruzione della cattedrale di Kingsbridge nel XII secolo e sull'architettura gotica, "Mondo senza fine" espande il focus alle sfide sociali e mediche del Medioevo, in particolare la risposta alla peste nera, oltre che trattare il completamento della famosa cattedrale iniziata nel primo volume e la costruzione di un ponte, fondamentale per i fiorenti commerci della città di Kingsbridge. Entrambi i libri sono profondamente radicati nel contesto storico e mostrano l'abilità di Follett nel creare personaggi complessi e realistici che devono navigare un mondo in costante cambiamento.

Personalmente, ho trovato "Mondo senza fine" leggermente meno avvincente de "I pilastri della terra", ma comunque molto piacevole. Nonostante la lunghezza di oltre 1300 pagine, questo romanzo mantiene l'intensità narrativa e l'attenzione ai dettagli del suo predecessore. La forza dei personaggi e la loro capacità di adattarsi e innovare in un'epoca di grande incertezza e trasformazione sono particolarmente affascinanti. Tra tutti risalta indubbiamente il personaggio di Caris, Caris è la figlia di Edmund Wooler, un mercante di lana, e cresce con una mente curiosa e un forte desiderio di conoscenza. Sin da giovane mostra interesse per la medicina, una disciplina dominata dagli uomini e spesso associata a pratiche superstiziose. Questo interesse la porta a scontrarsi frequentemente con le autorità religiose e sociali, poiché la sua visione progressista e il suo desiderio di migliorare le condizioni di vita della comunità sono visti come minacce all'ordine costituito. Estremamente determinata, nonostante le numerose difficoltà, tra cui la peste nera, le accuse di stregoneria e le rivalità politiche, Caris continua a perseguire i suoi sogni. La sua relazione con Merthin, il brillante costruttore, è centrale nella sua vita, ma Caris lotta costantemente tra il suo amore per lui e il desiderio di indipendenza e realizzazione personale.

Ancora una volta Follett si dimostra un grande scrittore nella sua capacità di creare antagonisti a dir poco perfetti: Godwyn, Philemon e Ralph sono così malvagi e odiosi da suscitare nel lettore forti sensazioni di disprezzo oltre che una violenta sete di giustizia.

While I still am a very BIG fan of Follett -this books dragged for me and I am puzzled why as it has a long list of interesting characters but was too long. The bad guy, Ralph took 1000 pages to meet his well deserved demise.
I might been unfavorably comparing this book to the prequel, Pillars of the Earth which I found very fascinating.

Still, overall a very good read with dialogue that makes you feel that you know the characters and can have empathy for them.

Follett finally completed the sequel to his evergreen historical novel, The Pillars of the Earth, and although I was compelled by the story enough to read all 1024 pages in a week, I was saddened at how poorly the book compares with its predecessor.

It is interesting to consider the nearly 20 years between the first book and this sequel. Many things have changed in our culture since then, leading Follett to inject even more egregious anachronisms into this book than the first. For example, the characters at one point fret over the self-esteem of a teenage girl. There are many further examples but I will spare you.

More telling is the apparent shift Follett has undergone in what he believes we want to read about. For example, the first book avoided homosexuality, despite the many opportunities to explore it in a monastery. The second, now twenty years deeper into the gay rights movement, explores gay relationships with a frank openness more consistent with San Francisco circa 2000 than the Britain of the 1300s.

I am most personally disappointed that the author did not again craft a thoughtful and multi-dimensional portrayal of a man of faith. The character of Prior Philip stands as the hallmark achievement of the first novel. Prior Philip was a man filled with the desire to do what is right by God and by his fellowmen but sometimes unable to know what would be right and what cost was worth bearing to do it. This is my personal experience of what most spiritual leaders are like.

In contrast, the religious figures in the sequel are all one-dimensional sycophants or toadies, ingratiating themselves with higher ups for their own personal gratification, betraying their own principles regularly, and considering faith a stepping stone rather than an end in itself.

The one sympathetic, intelligent, and thoughtful religious character is a woman who is technically an athiest, and only joined a convent to avoid being tried as a witch. She is consistently smarter and more capable than all other religious figures and her athiesm is continually cited as the engine behind her industriousness and her unique interpersonal gifts.

I've met athiests like that, but I've also met religious people like that and you'd think that a novel that spans fifty years of religious life in a town where all activity centers on a cathedral might include even one intelligent, sincere devout person? Just one?

The differences between these two books tells us much about ourselves and the kinds of things authors and editors believe we want to read. I wonder what a third book, written 20 years from now, would say about us?

World Without End is definitely not perfect-- it has a little too much in common with its predecessor, Pillars of the Earth, and its characters are too often painted only in black-and-white. Regardless of those flaws, I would probably give the book three stars if it weren't for one short plotline early in the book. Prior Phillip was one of my very favorite characters in Pillars of the Earth and his rise to the priorship was particularly enjoyable to read. Despite my trepidation over familiar plots, I was happy to see this one repeated as Godwyn sought be elected as prior. The whole plotline was great- even as Godwyn was quickly shown to be no Philip 2.0. The election and the plot culminated in one great scene that is one of my very favorites from the two books. While World Without End is not as consistent as Pillars, there are a few other complete gems that more than make it more than worthwhile.

When I had in my hands “World without end” I had a mixture of excitement and fear, I will explain it. For me the Pillars of the Earth was and is one of my favourite books, I could say that is within my Top 5 favourite books, so when I first took “World without end” I had a great desire to know what Ken Follett wrote but also I was afraid that comparing to its precursor novel could disappoint me. I was wrong. “World without end” is an extraordinary book, and now I have to say that it competes with the position of the Pillars. In this second book, Follet makes a big temporary jump and presents a more evolved society with a fascinating female as its main character. I think the female character gives to the story a new point of view, a richness and completely new way of facing the problems of that time. I obviously recommend this novel to all readers of The Pillars of the Earth and I encourage to read these two epic stories to the rest who haven’t done it yet because it’s a story that you will remember for the rest of your life.

Spanish version:
Cuando tuve en mis manos "Un mundo sin Fin" senti una mezcla de emoción y de miedo, me explicaré. Para mí los Pilares de la Tierra es uno de mis libros favoritos, podría decir que está dentro de mis Top 5 libros favoritos, así que al coger el libro tenía unas ganas enormes por saber en qué historia me sumergiría Ken Follet como continuación pero a la vez tenía miedo que comparándolo con su precursora me decepcionara. Pero mis dudas fueron infundadas. Un mundo sin fin es un libro extraordinario, y ahora tengo que decir que compite con el puesto de Los Pilares. En este segundo libro Follet nos hace da un salto temporal y nos presenta una sociedad más evolucionada y con un interesante personaje protagonista femenino. Y es aquí donde creo que Follet dio en el clavo, creo que el cambio de sexo en su protagonista es lo que le da una riqueza y una manera de enfrentarse a los problemas totalmente nueva que sus personajes masculinos. Evidentemente recomiendo esta fantástica novela a todos los lectores de Los Pilares de la Tierra y de Ken Follet y animo a quién no lo haya hecho aún a leer estas dos épicas historias que de bien seguro os dejarán marcados para siempre.

World Without End, a follow-up to Ken Follett’s surprise bestseller Pillars of the Earth, steals a page from the Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure playbook. A motley collection of insipid characters – if possible, even stupider and less realistic than Bill & Ted – get into a time machine and travel back to year 1327 and the village of Kingsbridge…

Wait. Oh, wait.

There are no time machines? The characters in World Without End are supposed to represent actual people from the 14th century?

Well.

I read Pillars of the Earth as something of a lark. For one, I enjoy grandly ambitious, watermelon-sized novels, packed with blood and strife and minutely-detailed, anatomically precise sex scenes. I love excess – all the better to feel lost in a different world. I was also a fan of Follett’s earlier thrillers, which relied on precision plots, tissue thin characters, and yes, lots of sex, to tell crackerjack stories. Eye of the Needle and The Key to Rebecca are marvelously quick reads; meanwhile, the explicit hand-jobs detailed in Night Over Water turned me into a man almost overnight.

In that mindset, I was able to enjoy Follett’s foray into the realm of historical fiction, a tenuous place where copious research often rests uneasily with under-drawn characters. I felt that Pillars of the Earth had many problems. It was poorly paced, the dialogue was robotic, the characters were plot-pawns, and anyone paying the least bit of attention knew exactly how every minor and major mystery was going to be resolved. Still, there was enjoyment to be had in the research that Follett crammed into every page, from the composition of the bread, to the building of a cathedral. There was also a great deal of unintentional hilarity, much of it spawning from Follett’s obsession with his characters’ pubic hair.

World Without End is a sequel in spirit to that earlier novel. It shares the same town – Kingsbridge – but none of the same characters. Reading one book is not required to understand the other. World Without End also shares many of the faults of Pillars of the Earth. It is, in other words, just as horrible. But for whatever reason – bad mood, fit of pique, utter irrationality – I have decided that I hate World Without End. Oh, it still gave me some laughs, just like the first one; this time, though, I’m not giving it the stars.

And yes, I realize that any criticism of World Without End or Ken Follett is like whizzing into the ocean. The man is Teflon-coated and critic-proof; if he ever feels bad about the criticism leveled against him, he has millions of dollars with which to dry his leaking eyes.

I certainly don’t bear him any malice. I will continue to read his books. Indeed, I have already started the next book in a proposed trilogy, Fall of Giants.

It just needs to be said that this book is awful, in every way a book can be awful.

I should say something about the plot: there is no plot.

Well, that’s not quite accurate. To be more precise, this book has an Alphabet Plot. This is a phrase I invented to describe a book that resembles – more than anything else – the 300 meter hurdles. It starts with the “A” story, resolves that, moves on to the “B” story, resolves that, moves onto the “C” story, resolves that, and etc, etc. Right up until the last page, Follett sticks to this simple formula: (1) introduce a difficulty for his characters to overcome; (2) have them despair; (3) have them come up with a plan; (4) the plan works!; (5) the characters believe (stupidly, it turns out) that all is right with the world; and (6) a new difficulty arises for the characters to overcome…

This pattern is so distinct, so telegraphed, that it doesn’t take you long before you can foresee the problem and the solution before either are introduced by the author.

Follett tries to give this shaggy storyline some coherence by creating a bookend mystery to overlay all the other happenings. The novel actually begins with the main characters as children, out playing in the woods. On All Hallows Day, these kids witness a brutal fight that leaves two men dead and one man wounded. The cause and the consequences of this moment “lingers” over all the events of the next 900 pages. And by lingers, I mean that Follett sometimes refers to it. The problem with this framing device is that the initial mystery is not mystifying; that you forget about it almost as soon as it happens; that the payoff comes too late; and that the payoff is underwhelming. Actually, underwhelming is not the right word. The word I’m looking for is nonexistent. Yes, that’s better. The payoff is nonexistent.

Thus, you have an essentially plot-less book, with no real through-line, that follows a collection of cardboard cutouts characters from 1327 to 1361.

If I were being charitable, I could almost dub this a multi-faceted bildungsroman that follows Follett’s creations from childhood to adulthood. Of course, in the typical bildungsroman, the characters change and grow in some way. In this book, however, the characters are not even human: they are medieval robots who lack personality, charisma, charm, and anything resembling the human spark.

The center of Follett’s novel is a young woman named Caris. She is your typical 21st century girl. She is smart, outspoken, ambitious, and wants to become a doctor. In other words, the exact opposite of what she is supposed to be: an English peasant girl.

In all seriousness, though, I give Follett a lot of credit in his intent. He isn’t an author to create token female characters. Quite often, he puts women front-and-center in his novels. And these are the type of women we – in the 21st century – want our daughters to be: competent and take-charge; independent; smart; willful; and driven. Far be it for me to mock Follett for this, when so many authors and film directors treat women as adornments.

Still, Follett has a serious subtlety problem that undermines everything that Caris is supposed to be. I will take it as a given that Caris, as the heroine of a 1,000 page novel, might be an outlier; that is, atypical from the other Middle Aged peasant stock. But if you are going to get me to accept that conceit, you have to show me that it is deserved. Here, Caris is just a transplant from a different millennium. She defies religious authority, she doesn’t want to get married, she runs her own business, she dabbles in situational-homosexuality, and she discovers the germ theory of medicine (!). It all becomes a bit much, especially since Follett isn’t able to make me believe a single thing. He tells us that Caris is smart, all right, but he isn’t able to show it. For instance, here is a typical bit of dialogue:

SILLY PEASANT: I don’t know how to solve this problem.
CARIS: It’s simple. You just need to do this obvious thing, this obvious thing, and this obvious thing.
SILLY PEASANT: You might be a woman…but you are a genius!
ME: No! You’re both idiots! Good luck with the bubonic plague, jackasses.

Okay, so I made that up. But you get the point.

As you might have guessed, Caris is a Good Guy, as opposed to a Bad Guy. For those of you who appreciate streamlined storytelling, there is no Ambiguous Guy.

Caris is in love with Merthin. Merthin is a builder-savant. Even though he has never had any formal training, he knows everything there ever was about architecture. He loves Caris, but is upset because she doesn’t want to get married (“marriage is so 12th century”). The biggest problem with this, the central romantic relationship of the novel, is that Caris and Merthin actually seem to hate each other most of the time. They are just like the couple in NBC’s execrable sitcom Whitney. Despite the fact that they are always fighting, and despite the fact that their worldviews are completely inapposite, we are asked demanded to accept their fairy tale romance.

There are several bad guys in this book. Some of them are dispatched quite early; others have to wait for their comeuppance. Spoiler alert: all the bad guys eventually get their comeuppance. If this surprises you, please contact me for some investment opportunities that I am making up as we speak.

The chief Black Hat of Ye Old Novel is Ralph.

Now, there will certainly be times in World Without End when you will get characters confused. This is because they are all the same; which is to say, they’re all one-dimensional wisps of smoke with names and occupations. To this day, I cannot tell you the difference between Elfric and Wulfric.

Ralph is different, though. You will remember Ralph because of this mnemonic device I am giving you now: Rapey Ralph.

Ralph, you see, likes to rape. And when he is not raping, he is thinking about rape. Every time Ralph meets another female, Follett digs deep into his psychology to describe precisely the dirty thoughts that Ralph is having. And Ralph is not discerning. When he sees a chubby girl, it turns him on, and when he sees a skinny girl, it turns him on, and when he sees an older woman, it turns him on…and you get the point. In short, the character of Ralph was written by a 13 year-old boy who is approximately fifteen years away from ever talking to a woman.

I refuse to call Ralph an avatar of anything, yet he is emblematic of a strong rape fetish that courses through World Without End like poison in the bloodstream.

Fetishes turn up a lot in Follett novels. As I mentioned above, Pillars of the Earth was marked by its detailed descriptions of pubic hair, and the way Follett’s characters obsessed over their hirsuteness. This was hilarious for many reasons, but mainly because people in the Middle Ages were engaged in a minute-to-minute struggle not to scratch themselves on the arm and die of a raging infection. I’m guessing that bikini waxing and body-scaping were low on their list of concerns.

Here, the fetish is rape, and this is less funny. Rather, it’s not funny at all, except in the way that you laugh when something utterly ridiculous appears before your eyes. Rapey Ralph and his rape-dreams are pretty low. Things get even worse when Gwendolyn, who has “the look of a determined rodent,” is raped by Ralph and begins to enjoy it. Also, this is the second time that Gwendolyn is raped. She also started to enjoy it the first time, before she stabbed the eyeballs out of her attacker. I wish I was making this up.

Even if you can ignore the anachronisms, the lack of forward momentum, the rape fantasies, you cannot ignore the dialogue. The hardest part of writing a novel is dialogue; Follett seems to have recognized this, and decided not to try. His characters utter things that an American teenager would loathe to text. Most exchanges are purely expository, and almost all of them include idioms and phrasings that belong solely to our time, and not theirs. Follett couldn’t have better undercut his own research and attempts at verisimilitude if he’d tried. (And maybe he did try. Maybe this awful dialogue was part of a bet with his publisher. “Hey, I bet you that even if I write this s—t, I’ll still sell millions of books.” If so, he won that bet).

So yes, the dialogue sucks. Like I said, though, dialogue is hard. What about the prose? Well, the prose is… Let’s just say that if you played a drinking game in which you took a shot every time you read a cliché – “she burst into tears,” for instance – you should definitely expect to vomit the next day.

During the course of this disaster, Follett attempts to weave a couple big historical events into the mix. He has to, because this time around, there is no cathedral to build. The two marquee happenings are the Hundred Years’ War and the Black Death.

Of the two, neither are effectively utilized. The scenes of the Hundred Years’ War, set in France and featuring Rapey Ralph and the battle of Crecy, are historically accurate but hopelessly dull. I’m not sure why, but Follett seems incapable of epic-style storytelling. He does (relatively) well when he sticks to his central location of Kingsbridge. When he starts expanding the scope of his tale, however, he loses his sure-handed grasp of the material. The scenes set in France are inert and stage-bound. Even though he is an author, with no limits save his imagination, he writes his battle scenes as though he was on a budget.

Follett is only marginally more successful with his usage of the Black Death. Admittedly, when the Plague first appears, it does so effectively, driving the plot in the required direction. After awhile, though, it becomes a deus ex machina: whenever Follett needs someone killed off, the Plague returns. Around page 800, I was actively hoping for the Black Death to finish off every last person, just so I could toss this book off a moving train and start fresh.

I want to be clear that I do not hate this book. Hate is a strong word, and World Without End does not have the requisite content to create any real emotion.

I bought this copy used for 1 cent, plus 4 dollars shipping. No one forced me to read it. I put it on my exercise bike and read 50 to 70 pages every time I worked out. It cost me $4.01 and helped me lose a couple pounds. Still, it’s a piece of crap.

The true and actual reason I started reading Pillars of the Earth and World Without End is simple: I had just finished George R.R. Martin’s A Dance With Dragons and I needed a swords-and-sex fix to tide me over for the next decade, when Martin’s next novel may (or may not) be released.

In comparing Martin to Follett, I discovered a certain irony. Follett has devoted an enormous amount of time and effort into making his novels historically accurate. He has strived (and succeeded, largely) in getting all the small details right. You can read his novels and learn a lot about the Middle Ages – the feudal system, the way clothing was dyed, the way a bridge was constructed.

Martin’s books, on the other hand, exist in a land of his own creation. There are fire-breathing dragons, the Red God, decades-long winters, and White Walkers who implacably roam the Earth. Martin’s novels are fantasies; they take place in a land that never existed.

Yet, everything about Martin’s Westeros feels real. And everything about Follett’s England feels artificial.

5 EPIC STARS
I didn't believe I would like this book as much as the first one, The Pillars of the Earth. But Mr Follett has created the most vivid characters that I laughed with, cried for and rejoiced in. Another amazing book!

World Without End is a captivating epic saga that brings us back to Kingsbridge and immerses us in the brutal world of 14th-century Europe. The story spans decades, and I love how it feels like we witness the entire lives of these characters. This sweeping timeline makes the triumphs and heartbreaks hit even harder, as we become deeply invested in their journeys.

The characters are unforgettable, each leaving a lasting impression. Just like with The Pillars of the Earth, we’re given a diverse cast spanning the distance from good-natured, bold heroes like Caris to vile embodiments of evil depravity like Ralph. Follett’s ability to create such vivid and flawed characters—some to root for, others to despise—is one of the highlights of the book. Every character is expertly written to express both light and dark sides of human nature.

The plot is relentless, packed with tension, conflict, and deeply emotional moments. Every victory feels hard-won, and every setback cuts deeply. The historical backdrop—war, famine, plague, and the Church’s dominance—shapes and tests the characters at every turn. The struggles of the time are ever-present, and Follett doesn’t shy away from their harsh realities. Like The Pillars of the Earth, this book comes with a trigger warning for sexual violence, which is difficult to read but rooted in the grim truths of the era.

That said, the book is in many ways eerily similar to Pillars. The echoes are undeniable, from familiar character archetypes to overarching themes, and while I don’t mind, I can see how some readers might find it formulaic. Still, the richness of the storytelling and the unique challenges of the 14th century give it its own identity.

While it doesn’t surpass Pillars, it comes close. The decades-long journey, vivid historical backdrop, and unforgettable characters make this a story I’ll cherish and likely revisit one day. If you enjoy epic, character-driven fiction, especially epic fantasy and historical fiction, I highly recommend this one. Follett crafts another captivating tale that we won’t soon forget.

Kingsbridge
Book 1: The Pillars of the Earth 5/5
Book 2: World Without End 5/5

Holy moly, this was fantastic! I think I liked this one better than the first. It got to the action faster and the characters were just so good! Loved it and I will definitely be finishing the trilogy this year.