Customer Reviews

The Pagan King

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This was a good book. I had to debate long and hard over that statement. It's great adventure and intrigue, quite realistic for the most part, I was impressed with the fact that this in not Fantasy. The problem with it is how much licence the author took with Arthur's rise to power and his reign, as compared to most other versions. Of course that's good and bad. If you like Jack Whyte, you'll like this book, if Marion Bradley wrote your favorite version, you probably won't.

...while the info on this book seemed interesting, it was, unfortunately not. The premise for the book is Arthur, or Artyr, is a Welsh rustic, who with Merlin's, or Merdin's help struggles to attain the throne of his father, King Vortigern. It had a very good plot and surprising twists to the story, with occasionally some good dialogue between the major characters. In this rendition, Mordred, or Modred is not Arthur's bastard son born of incest with his sister, instead Modred is Arthur's half brother and not at all a bad sort of guy.

However, the text tended to run on and quickly became tedious. Some sentences comprised entire paragraphs and frequently made the storyline hard to follow. The action scenes were few but those were the best parts of the book, numbering about three to four in total. I wanted to give the book a fair chance and stuck with it till the end. I would not advise it for those who like an interesting and fast paced King Arthur novel.

To quote the author, Edison Marshall, at the end of the book, "I write precisely what I want to write with no thought of the audience." Perhaps he should of thought of the audience and gave us something more palatable...

I'm rather enamored of adventures and historicals and, among my favorites, are tales of the Dark and Middle Ages. So when I noticed this one, a re-print of a book by Edison Marshall, who wrote many tales in this vein back in the fifties, I rushed to order it. Unfortunately it did not live up to my expectations. It's a decent enough interpretation of the Arthurian legend, offering a realistic reconstruction of how the tale might have originally arose, based on the older Welsh elements. And the prose, especially at the beginning, really wowed me as it seemed rolling and poetic and fresh. But the tale, itself, finally bogged down, being laden with flat and lifeless characters and a predictability which, combined with the dull players, caused me to want to give up on the book half way through. But I didn't surrender to that impulse, primarily because I wanted to do this review (not a great reason to finish a book, I'll grant you). In the end this tale did not soar as I'd hoped it would and the lively, fresh writing with which it began became staler, along with the tale it was telling. Even the Arthur character never fully became clear, remaining a somewhat unsympathetic bumbler to the end, not at all convincing as king or hero. If you like adventure or Arthurian material you might find that this one suits you. But clearly it didn't work for me though I must admit, I'm a harder sell these days than I used to be. Three stars for the workman-like quality of the prose. Othwerwise I'd have rated it lower.

SWM

The King of Vinland's Saga