Volume VI of the Arthurian saga The Camulod Chronicles follows hard upon the previous installment, The Fort at River’s Bend (p. 256). The series focuses at first on the discovery of the ore from which Excalibur is forged, the twilight of the Roman occupation of Britain, and the formation of the Camulod colony by Merlyn Britannicus and Arthur’s father, Uther Pendragon. In the fourth volume, orphaned Arthur was still a child; in the fifth, as a result of a failed assassination, he was taken to an abandoned Roman fort, where Merlyn prepared him as a warrior to receive Excalibur at last. In that episode, young Arthur showed a commanding ability, wisdom, and common sense, but Merlyn’s old enemy back in Cornwall, Peter Ironhair, posed a formidable threat. Now, in Volume VI, the long-awaited metamorphosis takes place, with Arthur assuming his role as a Christian king ready to fight off all invaders. Merlyn’s beloved Tressa dies, and the magician himself comes so close to death that he must go in to a two-year retreat to recover his health. During that period, Arthur grows from youth to man while leading his troops against Carthac, wielding a sword he does not know is a stand-in for Excalibur. When he draws the true Sword from an altar stone at novel’s end and girds Camulod to fight a massive fleet of new invaders, the metamorphosis is complete. The slow pace is necessary in creating the dense experience Whyte intends. Jump in here, now that Arthur’s in motion, and you can always go back to earlier volumes if this look at the legend’s subtext grabs you.
Pub Date: July 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-312-86598-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1999
Anna may learn to laugh with, instead of at, Grey, but the constant lampooning leaves the reader numb.
Can a young, preternaturally successful corporate executive overcome his 50 shameful secrets to find true love?
Andrew Shaffer (Great Philosophers who Failed at Love, 2011), writing as Merkin, skewers both E. L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey and Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight in his debut novel. Both series are certainly ripe for parody, yet Shaffer misses a real opportunity by indulging in easy, crude jokes, rather than incisive satire. Shaffer’s Anna Steal, like James’ Anastasia Steele and Meyer’s Bella Swan, suffers from a relentless interior monologue. Unfortunately, she offers little in the way of thought or advice, but instead wonders how elevators work and gulps in awe of Mr. Grey. Anna meets Grey while interviewing him for Boardroom Hotties, the magazine her too-often-hung-over roommate writes for, and the attraction is instantaneous. Grey quickly seeks to acquire Anna, dazzling her with his wealth by purchasing Wal-Mart just to give her the afternoon off for a date, buying Washington State University just to relieve her of taking tests, flying her about in his fighter jets and helicopters, ordering two of everything on the room-service menu, and whisking her away to a private island. Yet Grey has “dangerous” secrets. Unlike Edward Cullen, who was a lethal vampire, or Christian Grey, who sought the perfect submissive for his domination, Earl Grey indulges in rather tame danger. His secrets include a fondness for spanking, swimming in silver thongs, dressing up as an elf, and decorating with black velvet paintings. Warning Anna about his kinky sexuality, he introduces her to his Room of Doom, where they play Bards, Dragons, Sorcery and Magick. More a Master of Dungeons and Dragons than BDSM, Grey shocks Anna not with his deviance but his self-delusions.
Anna may learn to laugh with, instead of at, Grey, but the constant lampooning leaves the reader numb.Pub Date: July 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-306-82199-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Da Capo
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
Top-flight fantasy collection based on Gaiman's character The Sandman, developed in a series of graphic novels for DC Comics, as reimagined by a strong group of fantasists. Long-lived comics readers will remember fondly the original "Sandman" from the 1930s and '40s, with his fedora, googly-eyed gas mask and gas gun; Frank McConnell discusses this precursor in his preface while hauling in Joyce, Nietzsche, Ibsen, Jung, and Wallace Stevens to dress up Gaiman's stow-parentage. Inventing his own lore for the character, Gaiman (1990's hilariously naughty Good Omens, with Terry Pratchett) wrote 75 installments of The Sandman before closing shop. Awash with watercolors and supersaturated with acid, The Sandman stories are stories about storytelling, celebrations of the outr‚ imagination. The central character of Gaiman's work evolved into a figure variously known as Dream, or Morpheus, or the Shaper, or the Lord of Dreams and Prince of Stories, and his surreal family is called the Endless, composed of seven siblings named Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delirium. Drawing on Gaiman's inkwell are Clive Barker (frontispiece but no story), Gene Wolfe and Nancy A. Collins, and a number of lesser lights, all in top form. George Alec Effinger invents a long tale inspired by Winsor McCay's classic comic strip "Little Nemo" ("Seven Nights in Slumberland"), while Colin Greenland ("Masquerade and High Water"), Mark Kreighbaum ("The Gate of Gold"), Susanna Clarke ("Stopt-Clock Yard"), and Karen Haber (in the outstanding "A Bone Dry Place," about a suicide crisis center) mainline directly from the ranks of the Endless. Rosettes to all, but especially to John M. Ford's "Chain Home, Low," which ties an onslaught of sleeping sickness to the fate of WW II fighter pilots, and to Will Shetterly's "Splatter," about a fan-convention of serial killers who lead their favorite novelist (famous for his depictions of psychopathic murderers) into the real world of serial-killing. Fancy unleashed on rags of moonlight.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-06-100833-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1996
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