Tagged: king arthur

I, Morgana by Felicity Pulman

I, Morgana by Felicity Pulman(Cover picture courtesy of Momentum Books.)

You know my name, but you don’t know my story …

After being schooled in magic by Merlin and promised a kingdom, Morgana is robbed of her birthright and betrayed by everyone she has ever trusted. Risking everything for revenge, Morgana uses her magical arts to trap Merlin, threaten her half-brother King Arthur, and turn away the only man she will ever love. In destroying King Arthur and Camelot, Morgana sets into motion a catastrophe that can only be reversed if she can learn from the past in time to protect our future … and so fulfill an ancient prophecy.

In the tradition of The Mists of Avalon comes a new story of Morgan le Fay, one of the most enigmatic and reviled characters in Arthurian legend.

[Full disclosure: I requested and received a free ebook copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]

I requested I, Morgana on a whim one day while browsing through NetGalley.  The blurb sounded interesting enough but when I began the novel I was under the impression it would be all about Morgana railing against her wrongfully deserved evil reputation.  Fortunately, it was nothing like that.

Morgana is an interesting narrator because she’s not very self-pitying.  She accepts that she really did deserve a lot of her reputation and you can really feel her deep regret at all that she did in the name of trying to seize her kingdom back.  Maybe her reputation as evil incarnate is not deserved but she was far from a good person in her younger years.  Still, even though I didn’t like her as a person her introspective voice as she writes looking back on the events is enough to make me keep reading.  Morgana is a complex person whose ultimate downfall was her pride so you really can’t help but empathize with her.

I liked how Felicity Pulman stuck to the traditional Arthurian legends most of us are familiar with but also put her own flair on them.  Morgana can travel into the Otherworlds, which was never really mentioned in the traditional legends.  She was also taught by Merlin himself and that makes for some very interesting confrontations later in the novel as both of them regret their shared past.  Felicity Pulman decided to set her novel much, much later than most authors choose to set King Arthur’s time (she set it around the 1100s) but it works pretty well.

The only thing that disappointed me was that Felicity Pulman’s writing lacks description.  Morgana is always telling us what is going on rather than describing the scene as she saw it at the time.  It makes her a more sympathetic character in general but I would have loved a little more description of the various scenes throughout the novel.  Telling is okay for some purposes but reading a whole novel of it isn’t necessarily the most exciting.

Still, I really did enjoy I, Morgana.  It’s a very interesting take on a complicated woman who has become one of the great villains of legend.

I give this book 4/5 stars.

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*Not available yet but will be published on June 26.

Red Dragon – White Dragon by Gary Dolman

Red Dragon White Dragon by Gary Dolman(Cover picture courtesy of Gary Dolman’s website.)

Commissioned Investigators Atticus and Lucie Fox are summoned by the bombastic Sir Hugh Lowther to his estate in remote Northumberland to investigate a series of bizarre, grisly deaths. These appear to centre on the delusions of a madman who lives alone at the edge of the moors. Close-by is the long-vanished castle of Sewingshields where local legends say King Arthur still lies in an enchanted sleep, waiting to be awoken at a time of great need.

The killings have all been committed using the Hallows of Arthur, artefacts thought to have been lost in history, and the locals swear that they have seen a ghostly knight in armour roaming the moors for months. But how can that be? This is 1890 and King Arthur died over thirteen-hundred years before.

There are seven artefacts in total, and Atticus and Lucie must find the killer before each is used in turn. To do so, they must journey through the very darkest places of the mind of a madman.

[Full disclosure: The publisher of this book, Thames River Press, contacted me and provided me with a free print book in exchange for an honest review.]

When I first started Red Dragon – White Dragon I was a little skeptical.  I mean, gothic mysteries are not and weren’t really ever my thing.  They all seemed so predictable that there was no point in reading them anyway.  Heck, I’ve never even read a Sherlock Holmes book from cover to cover.  You could say I’m not a mystery person in general.  But wow, I was impressed with Red Dragon – White Dragon.

Gary Dolman’s novel had just the right mixture of realism and Arthurian legend to keep me guessing at every turn.  And the ending—amazing!  Just when you think you know what’s going to happen, even if you’ve guessed the villain already, there is a huge twist that completely blindsides you.  That twist is what makes me classify this as a gothic mystery because it was so dark and disturbing.  In truth, it really goes along with the whole dark, dreary setting as well.

Lucie and Atticus Fox weren’t your typical detectives, believe me.  Although they seem like stereotypical gothic investigators at the beginning of the novel, you realize they do have a lot more depth as their characters are allowed to develop a little more.  Lucie in particular really shone through when at the beginning I had completely discounted her.  She has some very modern sensibilities when it comes to mental illnesses and homosexuality, but they’re actually explained sufficiently by her experiences as a nurse.  Atticus does not share some of her sensibilities and Sir Hugh is pretty much the exact opposite.

Red Dragon – White Dragon is one of my favourite mysteries right now not only because of the plot, but because of Gary Dolman’s writing.  He has a way of describing things that makes you feel like you’re really there in the dreary English countryside with Lucie and Atticus.  The castle, the landscape, everything is described vividly without being too boring.  I can’t comment on the historical accuracy of this novel, but it does seem like Gary Dolman did his research for this.

I would definitely recommend this book to both old mystery lovers and people who don’t read many mysteries like myself.

I give this book 5/5 stars.

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The Singing Sword by Jack Whyte

The Singing Sword by Jack Whyte

(Cover picture courtesy of The Templar Trilogy by Jack Whyte.)

Born of the chaos of the Dark Ages, the dream of eagles produced a king, a country and an everlasting legend—Camelot.

It is 395 A. D., and as the Roman armies withdraw from Britain, anarchy threatens the colony that will one day be known as Camelot.  Creating their own army and joining with the Celtic people of King Ullic Pendragon, the colonists emerge as a new breed of Britons, ready to forge the government that will be the Round Table and its Knights and to prepare the groundwork for the future coronation of Arthur, first High King of Britain.

I’m the sort of person that loves doing jigsaw puzzles, which is part of the reason why I loved The Singing Sword.  It’s a lot like a jigsaw puzzle, what with tiny, barley recognizable pieces of the Arthurian legends slowly being dropped into place.  We got the outline or the edge pieces in the first book in A Dream of Eagles (formerly known as The Camulod Chronicles), The Skystone, and now we’re starting to fill in the easy parts.

Publius is obviously more mature than he was in the first book and it’s almost more interesting to see this more mature, worldly point of view as he and Caius struggle to build up the Colony.  Their alliance with King Ullic, the growing threat of foreign invaders reaching Roman territory and an old villain reappearing made The Singing Sword very exciting and an entertaining read.  Of course, there are the bad parts of the novel as well and I would definitely not recommend it for people who are sensitive to gore.  Jack Whyte writes as Publius would have in the times and is less sensitive to the violence all around him.  Therefore, it’s difficult for someone with modern views on violence to accept the ancient world for what it was, but The Singing Sword feels all the more authentic for that.

Not only is Publius more mature than when we left him at the end of The Skystone, all of the other characters are more mature.  Their newly acquired maturity does not mean that they’re boring or that they don’t have character arcs.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  Fans of the first book will love to see their favourite characters change even more and will learn to love the new generation that helps bring the legend of Camelot closer to reality.

I give this book 5/5 stars.

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The Skystone by Jack Whyte

The Skystone by Jack Whyte(Cover picture courtesy of Jack Whyte’s website.)

Born of the chaos of the dark ages, the dream of eagles produced a king, a country and an everlasting legend—Camelot.

Publius Varrus is a veteran Roman officer and a maker of swords.  In the early fifth century, amid the violent struggles between the people of Britain and the invading Saxonx, Picts and Scots, he and his former general, Caius Britannicus, forge the government and military system that will become known as the Round Table, and initiate a chain of events that will lead to the coronation of the High King we know today as Arthur.

A Dream of Eagles is yet another series that I didn’t start at the beginning.  Instead, I received one of the spin-off books, Uther, for my birthday.  I loved Uther, which made me track down The Skystone, the first book in the series.  But in the back of my mind I was wondering if I would like Jack Whyte’s earlier writing just as much as I liked his later writing.

The answer?  Absolutely!  Jack Whyte’s A Dream of Eagles (or The Camulod Chronicles, depending on when it was published) is a series that documents how the Arthurian legends could have really happened.  That means there’s no magic and a bit of historical speculation, but otherwise the series is accurate.  Rome really did withdraw from Britain in the late 300s AD when the Motherland was being threatened (hint: it didn’t help).  Before the chaos of Roman withdrawal, we meet Publius Varrus, our narrator, and his best friend, Caius Britannicus.

Publius is an amazing man, but is also a flawed character.  He can be incredibly wise and Jack Whyte has given him an unique voice, but he does things that will make you want to reach in and slap him.  Publius is far from perfect, but I guarantee you’ll love him anyway.  Caius doesn’t feature nearly as prominently as I would have liked, but he undergoes an amazing transformation in the last hundred pages or so.  And the ending was fabulous, tying together the mystery of the skystone and one of the very, very important parts of the Arthurian legends.  I can’t wait to read the next book, The Singing Sword.

I give this book 5/5 stars.

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The Squire’s Tale by Gerald Morris

(Cover picture courtesy of Tower.)

“What is your name?”  Morgause whispered fiercely, almost desperately.  “You are no ordinary magician.”

“I am a squire,” Terence said.

But he is no ordinary squire, either.  Abandoned as a baby at the door of Trevisant the Hermit, young Terence never expects he will be more than the hermit’s servant.  Until one day when a stranger shows up—Gawain, a young man destined to become of the most famous knights of King Arthur’s Round Table.  As Gawain’s squire, Terence journeys with him to Camelot and what begins as an adventure soon turns into nothing less than a quest to uncover the secrets of his past.

I have loved the legend of King Arthur ever since my English teacher introduced it to me in grade 5.  Everyone has heard different versions of the same story, but that’s the beauty of the Arthurian legends: they grow and change with time, as they were meant to.  In The Squire’s Tale Gerald Morris takes an interesting approach, as he states in his author’s note.  He is “trying to restore the reputation of this most honored of all knights on earth.”  It’s not Lancelot, but Gawain, The Maiden’s Knight.

It is not Gawain, but Terence, his squire who tells his story.  Terence himself is a great character: the son of unknown parents with the ability to see faeries.  He doesn’t seem all that remarkable in the beginning, but Terence goes through a wonderful character arc as he embarks with Gawain upon his quests.  To me it is Gawain who steals the show because Gerald Morris’ version of him is similar to that of Rosemary Sutcliff’s (an author I have always admired).  However, Terence is the one that readers will most likely sympathize with because this book is aimed at younger teens and tweens and he is very much the voice of adolescent uncertainty.

The plot of The Squire’s Tale moves along quite a bit faster than I’m used to in books incorporating the Arthurian legends, but it suits Gerald Morris’ writing style.  There are really no places where the plot sags, not even in the beginning when we are introduced to Terence.  The characters are quirky and memorable and there’s plenty of humour to offset some of the serious elements.  Overall, a fitting retelling of the Arthurian legends, except for the ending.  Gerald Morris kind of stuck Morgause in there at the last minute and I felt that the ending scene was rushed, but it does at least make sense.  This is one series I will be continuing.

I give this book 4/5 stars.

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