The bright sword A novel of King Arthur

Lev Grossman

Book - 2024

"Collum, a brilliantly gifted young knight from the provinces, arrives at Camelot two weeks after the Battle of Camlann, hoping to compete for a spot on the Round Table. But he finds the city empty, King Arthur dead, and the Table destroyed. The remaining six knights aren't the mighty heroes, the legends, like Lancelot and Gawain and Tristram and Galahad. These are the survivors, a grab-bag of minor oddball knights from the margins--Sir Palomides, the Saracen Knight; Sir Bedivere, Arthur's one-handed longtime companion; Sir Dagonet, Arthur's fool, knighted as a joke; Sir Dinadan, a cutting wit who's hiding a deep secret. Arthur's death has exposed the splinters of his kingdom, and a void has opened in the heart... of Britain. As power-hungry lords from the north descend on Camelot to seize control of the land, Collum is thrust into the front lines. Here lies the battlefield between pagans and Christians, fantasy and empire, power and destiny. Monsters and fairies are reawakening, the moral center is gone, and the fragile alliances that held Britain together are breaking. It is up to the surviving knights, the rebellious sorceress Nimue, and young Collum to avenge Arthur's murder and save Camelot. Can they re-build the Table and bring back the glory that was Camelot? Should they even try? The first major Arthurian epic of the new millennium, full of duels and quests, battles and tournaments, magic swords and Fisher Kings, The Bright Sword is a story about power and hope, and the struggle for the soul of England between the new Christian God and the old gods of fairy. But most of all it's a story about flawed men and women full of strength and pain who are looking for a way to reforge a broken land, in spite of being broken themselves"--

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Subjects
Genres
Fantasy fiction
Historical fiction
Novels
Published
[New York] : Viking 2024.
Language
English
Main Author
Lev Grossman (author)
Physical Description
673 pages ; 25 cm
ISBN
9780735224049
9780593833568
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Collum is a common bastard from Mull who wants to be a knight of the round table more than anything. But when he arrives in Camelot, he's just a few weeks too late. King Arthur is dead, Excalibur is gone, and the last few (oft-forgotten) knights--loyal Bedivere, the "Saracen" Palomides, mysterious Dinadan, coquettish Constantine, and rough Villiars--have no idea what to do next. Arthur's death surely means the end of the age of heroes, and the question of who should be king next is near impossible to solve. But they'll have to figure it out somehow, because a reckoning is fast-coming on the horizon, Morgan Le Fey is looming, and Britain will need to find solid ground if it's to survive a new clash between old-world faerie and new-world Christians. Grossman's first adult fantasy novel since the completion of The Magicians series is packed with magic, quickly beloved characters, punishing twists, and exciting, bold action scenes. Satisfyingly epic but also fast-paced, this novel captures everything that's grand and magnificent about the age of King Arthur while picking at its edges and delving into its darker depths. All fantasy and mythology fans will want to make time for this moving, entertaining epic. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The convergent popularity of Grossman and Arthurian legend means this epic fantasy is sure to be a hit.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Bestseller Grossman (the Magicians trilogy) turns his hand to Arthurian legends, delivering a breathtaking tale that honors past iterations while producing something entirely unexpected. Young Collum escapes the lordly household where he's been raised, liberating a suit of armor and a steed in the process, and travels to Camelot, where he hopes to serve King Arthur. He arrives too late--Arthur has already fallen at the Battle of Camlann. The few knights left at Camelot know that others will come seeking the throne but aren't sure what to do. Grossman interweaves stories of each knight's past with the ongoing quest to find a worthy heir to Arthur's crown, which takes them and Collum into the Otherworld in search of a holy lance. In his historical note, Grossman acknowledges that he is among the camp of Arthurian writers "who pick and choose what they like," producing a work "full of a lot of authentic historical detail but also a lot of anachronisms and contradictions." Indeed, Grossman has his own take on beloved characters: Sir Bedivere is in unrequited love with Arthur, witty Sir Dinadan is trans and learned swordcraft from a fairy, and Sir Palomides is secretly a prince of Baghdad. There's even a hint that Collum may be something more than he first appears. Grossman does a remarkable job of pulling together these disparate strands while providing enough combat and magic to keep the pages turning. Epic fantasy fans will hang on every word. (July)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Young Collum of Mull, with his pilfered armor and his dreams of knighthood, has journeyed from the Outer Hebrides to Camelot, hoping to join King Arthur's famous Round Table in any capacity in which they will have him. On arriving, he discovers that the king is dead, along with most of his knights. The few remaining knights, led by Bedivere, try to convince Collum that the glorious era of the Round Table is over, but he persuades them that they have one more task to complete--finding a new king. Following in the footsteps of the classic stage play Camelot and T.H. White's The Once and Future King, Grossman ("The Magicians") sets his version of King Arthur in that same land of not-quite-history, mixing Saracens, plate armor, and Roman occupation. The novel puts Arthur into a mythical framework that lets the legends blend into an anachronistic but harmonious whole, while giving Camelot one last quest and one last hurrah that sets England on the path of its mythical history. VERDICT Highly recommended for readers who can't resist a story featuring brave knights, stalwart queens, and magic.--Marlene Harris

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

King Arthur is dead--what happens now? Collum of the Out Isles has stolen armor and a horse from his local lord, hoping to be accepted as a knight of the Round Table. But when he arrives at Camelot, the place is nearly deserted; King Arthur and a majority of his knights have died in the battle at Camlann, leaving no clear heir. With the few remaining knights and the sorceress Nimue, Collum travels across the disintegrating nation and even into the fairy Otherworld, searching for a successor to the dead Arthur and marshaling forces against the rivals who seek Britain's throne for themselves--including Morgan le Fay, Arthur's enchantress half-sister, who claims that she is the rightful heir, but mostly acts as a chaos agent throughout, helping or harming the questers as seems best to her in the moment. As the book progresses, we learn the secret backstory of each of the surviving knights as well as the nature of the relationship between Lancelot and Guinevere, the apparent spark for the civil conflict (the truth, intriguingly, is not what you think). The story of King Arthur has been told and substantially altered many times over the centuries, and explored by a multitude of contemporary novelists, but the author of the Magicians trilogy makes room for himself here. The purposeful inclusion of anachronisms recalls T.H. White's The Once and Future King, and the conflict between Christianity and pagan traditions is strongly reminiscent of Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon. However, very few writers have explored post-Arthurian Britain or focused quite so much on developing the stories of the minor characters in the saga--the transgender man Sir Dinadan; Arthur's bodyguard, Sir Bedivere, secretly in love with his liege; Sir Dagonet the Fool, suffering from severe bipolar disorder; Sir Palomides, a highly educated prince of Baghdad whose not-so-secret passion for the lady Isolde keeps him in a primitive land that looks down on him for the color of his skin; and so on. This is not a realistic conjecture of how Britain would continue after the death of a charismatic leader who tried to institute new policies of standard law and justice. It's a metafiction in which the survivors of a myth attempt to extend that myth as they contend with the inner demons of their pasts. Astoundingly, a fresh take on an extremely well-trodden legend. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

One Azure, Three Scepters, a Chevron Or Collum punched the other knight in the face with the pommel of his sword gripped in his gauntleted fist, so hard the dark inlaid metal dimpled under his knuckles, but his opponent showed absolutely no sign of falling over or sur­rendering to him. He swore under his breath and followed it up with a kick to the ankle but missed and almost fell down, and the other knight spun gracefully and clouted him smartly in the head so his ears rang. He would've given a thousand pounds to be able to wipe the sweat out of his eyes, not that he had a thousand pounds. He had exactly three shillings and two silver pennies to his name. The two men backed off and circled each other, big swords held up at stiff angles, shifting from guard to guard, heavy shards of bright sunlight glancing and glaring off the blades. They'd dropped their shields after the tilt to have both hands free. No mistakes now, Collum thought. Circles not lines , Marshal Aucassin whis­pered in his mind. Watch the body not the blade. He threw a diag­onal cut that glanced harmlessly off the other knight's shoulder. The inside of his helmet was a furnace, sharp smells of hay and sweat and raw leather. He'd come here to test himself against the flower of British chivalry, the greatest knights in the world, and by God he was getting what he came for. He was getting the stuffing beaten out of him. They stepped lightly, testing, offering, up on the balls of their feet. Every tiny movement made their armor squeak and clank and jingle in the quiet of the meadow; even the tips of their swords made tiny whips in the stifling air. Why--why had he thought this was a good idea? Why hadn't he stayed back on Mull? Heatstroke prickled at the back of Collum's neck. They weren't fighting to the death, but if he lost he'd lose his horse, and his armor, which he hadn't gone through all the trouble of stealing it from Lord Alasdair just so he could hand it over to some nameless knight who proba­bly had half a dozen spares waiting for him back at his cozy castle. And without his horse and armor Collum was nobody and noth­ing. An orphan and a bastard, poor as a church mouse and very far from home. And he could never go back. He'd made damn sure of that, hadn't he? He didn't even know who he was fighting; he'd stumbled on this man purely by chance, or possibly by God's will--thanks a bunch, as always--sitting under a crooked ash in a meadow, head in his hands, as if the weight of the sunlight itself were too much for him. He'd looked up and shouted a challenge at Collum, and who did that anymore? It was like something out of the stories. Whoever this was, he was a knight of the old school. His armor was old-fashioned, too, the breastplate black steel dam­ascened with a pattern of fine silver whorls and a rose at the center. A rich man's armor. A nobleman's. His helmet had a pointy snout like a beak, and like Collum he bore the vergescu , the plain white shield of an unfledged knight. Collum bore it because he was not technically--as he'd tried to explain--a knight at all, not yet, he hadn't sworn the vows, but there were other reasons to bear the vergescu, like to hide your identity if you were in disgrace. Or Sir Lancelot bore it sometimes because otherwise no one would fight him. This man was no Lancelot, but he was pretty damn good. Thor­oughly fledged. Collum was taller but the mystery knight was faster--he barely saw him move when bang! his wrist went numb and ping! a tiny fastening pin sprang off his gauntlet and disap­peared forever into the grass. He stepped neatly inside Collum's reach and grabbed for his wrist with his off hand, and Collum skipped back, panting like a bellows, but he stumbled and the man jammed his blade in the gap where his gardbrace didn't fit right, shaving off a sharp curl of bright steel. He pressed his advantage, whipping a backhand strike at Col­lum's head that just missed-- There it was. The knight let his follow-through pull him round just a little too far. He was tired, or he'd overcommitted, either way he couldn't quite stop the stroke and it left him off-balance. Collum's blood broke out in a martial chorus and with the last of his strength he barged ahead behind his gauntleted fist MANG! to the side of the knight's helm, and twice more, MANG! MANG! Just like that he was through and into that other place, the one where he felt like a solid shining steel godling and nothing could stand against him, certainly not this soft, staggering wretch he saw before him! Collum regripped and delivered a clean, high, two-handed horizontal cut and the knight's head snapped round and he sat down backward on the grass. Sir Vergescu tried to raise his blade but only dropped it again, as though fairies had cursed it so it weighed a thousand pounds. Col­lum let himself bend over panting, hands on hips. Sweat stung his eyes and gathered and dripped under his chin. Had he won? Really won? The man just sat there. He'd won. He dropped to one knee and pressed the top of his helm against the cross of his sword. Thanks be to almighty God in Heaven! Thank you God for giving me--your unworthy servant--this magnificent fucking victory! He'd fought a British knight in a British hayfield and he had won. He could keep his precious ar­mor, for now at least. In the darkness of his helmet un‑knightly tears prickled in his eyes. Somewhere inside him there was strength, the strength he'd always longed for but never quite believed in. Not really. Not truly. Or was there? Was there not something about this victory that was just a little bit too easy? Collum pushed that unappealing idea away, sniffed, and hauled himself to his feet again. "Well fought, sir," he said. "Do you yield?" Collum thought in Gaelic, the language of the north, but for the occasion he used the courtliest, most correct, most Roman Latin he could muster. The man didn't answer. That beaky bird-helmet just gazed up at him, expressionless. It looked quizzical and a bit funny. In fact, now that Collum had a second to take it in, the man's ap­pearance was stranger than he'd realized. Armor hid his face but in other ways it spoke volumes. That pretty silver rose on his chest had been scratched and scribbled over; somebody had taken a nail or a sharp rock to it. On top of the knight's helm, where a lady's favor might have been, a knotted hank of dry grass was tied instead. There were streaks of rust on his mail undercoat where the ar­mor plates overlapped and trapped the wet. Sir Vergescu's cozy castle was far away, if he even had one. He must've been out on the road a long time. Maybe not so different from Collum after all. He shook off his gauntlets and fumbled with his bare fingers at the buckles and catches at the back of his head and tore his helmet off and dropped it on the grass. The bright world blasted in on him from all sides, loud and acid-green. He rubbed his face vigorously with both hands. The hot summer air felt marvelously cool. The rush of victory was fading now, and the heat and hunger and thirst were coming back. His knees felt weak. He hadn't eaten in two days. He hoped the man wasn't hurt. He'd actually been looking forward to having a chat with him. Breaking down the combat, talking some shop. Maybe he knew how things stood at Camelot. Maybe he even knew Sir Bleoberys of the Round Table. "Well fought, sir," Collum said. "Do you yield to me now?" "Fuck your mother." The man's voice was hoarse and weary. Somewhere a woodlark sang: loo-loo-loo-loo-loo tlooeet tlooeet tlooeet . "Beg pardon?" "Your mother." His Latin was surprisingly refined. A lot better than Collum's. "Fuck. Her." Maybe they weren't going to be having that chat after all. "That is ill said of you, sir." Collum cleared his throat. "I ask again: Do you yield to me now?" "Well, that all depends," the man replied, "on whether or not you've fucked your mother yet." He was angry, obviously. It was embarrassing, losing to an un­fledged knightling. God knows he, Collum, wouldn't have wanted to lose to himself. But it wasn't his idea to fight, was it? Maybe he was hurt after all. Maybe he was in pain. Collum put out his hand to help him up, and the mystery knight held out his own--but then quick as a lizard he grabbed Collum's wrist in­stead, and with his other hand he whipped something thin and dark out of a sheath at his waist--a misericord, a long, thin knife made for slipping between armor plates--and thrust it up at Collum's groin. Purely on instinct Collum twisted his hips and took the blow smartly on his steel skirt. He caught the man's knife hand and for a heartbeat they strained against each other, trembling. The knight kicked Collum's ankles out and rolled on top of him with all his weight, and Collum lost the knife hand--God's blood!--and pan­icked and scrabbled and caught it again just in time to keep his throat from getting laid open. He threw his other arm around the man's shoulders, heaved with his hips, and rolled them back over. "God's nails, stop!" His voice cracked hysterically. "Just yield!" Collum fumbled for his own knife and forced it through the slit in the knight's helm. The knight trembled like a rabbit in a snare and clawed at Collum's face and thrust wildly with his pelvis. Then he coughed once and went still. The sound of insects was loud, like dry seeds rattling in a dry pod. Silent pillars of golden country sunlight were slowly burning the green timothy grass into hay. The knight lay flat on the ground as if he'd fallen there from a great height. Jesus. Collum scrambled to his feet, breathing hard. Shitting Je­sus. Thou recreant knight. He'd never killed a man before. God have mercy on us both. The man kicked once and then stopped moving forever. The only part of him that was exposed was that one fish-pale hand, the one he'd bared to go for his misericord. There were brown speck­les on the back of it, some ropy blue veins. Sir Misericord had not been in his first youth. And now he was dead. And for what? Nothing. A game, played for no one, in an empty field. And to think that they were barely a day's ride from Camelot, the sun that bathed all of Britain in the golden light of chivalry. "God have mercy," Collum whispered. An hour ago he'd been no one, then he was a hero, and now he was a murderer. He stood there for a long time, he didn't know how long. A cloud passed in front of the sun. The two horses, his and the dead knight's, watched him with long-lashed disinterest. Then Collum knelt and with a shudder drew his knife out of the man's eye socket. He walked over to where the fallen knight's shield lay face down on the matted grass and turned it over with his toe. You could still make out the arms under a hasty coat of white paint: Azure, Three Scepters, a Chevron Or. Excerpted from The Bright Sword: A Novel of King Arthur by Lev Grossman All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.