Rating: Summary: Excellent , is a most to read! Review: This book is excellent! My 13 years old daughter definetely enjoy reading this book and she said that this book transported her to that era. Also the service here throught amazon.com is excellent. It took only three days to arrive from Delaware to Puerto Rico, great packaging and tracking using the U.S.P.S.
Rating: Summary: A Great Book!! Review: This is the only book by Marion Zimmer Bradley I have read so far. I truly enjoyed it. The book holds a special place on my shelf, as will the others that I have begun. Ms. Bradley spun a realistic and believable world of sorcery, with characters that are very lifelike. I was entranced by the words, and would read for hours on end! I recommend this book to all fantasy fans, whether your also a fan of Authurian legend or not, if only for the wonderful storytelling.
Rating: Summary: The Mists of Avalon Review: Do not let 876 pages scare you away from reading one of the most interesting accounts of the tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The most intriguing aspect of this book is that this era is depicted through the eyes of the women who lived it. I loved this book. A friend loaned me a copy to read and I have just finished purchasing my own copy. Usually I need instant gratification by reading shorter novels, but I received gratification every time I picked up The Mists of Avalon.
Rating: Summary: If there was ever a book worth readeing, this is it. Review: While most modern retellings of Arthurian legend focus on the better known aspects of the tale (ie: the battles or the later search for the holy grail), Marian Zimmer Bradley had done something very different, she had created motivation behind the traditional characters that we know and love so well. And anybody that reads extended amounts of fictions will realize, motivation is often times the most important aspect of any given story!The characters in "The Mists of Avalon" are in no way the cardboard half-lives that too often happen when somebody is trying to retell a myth as complicated as Arthurs, but the characters that personally interest me the most are those of Lancelot, Arthus's bestfriend and the man who eventually steals his wife away from him, and Morgaine, Arthur's "evil" sister that is always plotting his downfall. For the woman who have always said, this does seem right, Morgan le Fay is evil without reason, this is the story for you; for those of you that have always wondered why a man that obviously loves Arthur as much as Lancelot does could steal his wife, you will also finally get your answers. At times Marion Zimmer Bradley's characters are so mulit-dimensional that they are too good to be true; in fact they are REAL! As human beings, nobody is all good or all evil, and this is the thing that has been captured the best in the novel. All in all, a must read, number one on a very long list for me. And this book only gets better the more times that you read it, I have read it at least ten times and each time I walk away from the reading with a completely different message...there is that much to look for and understand within the novel. In a way it is a mirror, reflected the infinite aspects of human experience: love, hatred, envy, revenge, peace, war, religion, atheism...it is all there, if you wish to see it.
Rating: Summary: I loved it! Review: I've now read two of Bradley's books, and both I've loved and adored. This one was filled with mystery and the familiar legends of "A Once and Future King"....from a different perspective. I caught myself looking ahead, trying to find when Morgana came back into the picture, and I hated it if she was gone for more then a chapter. You end up not caring for Gwyne and wishing the ending was different, even though you know how it'll end. I prayed it wouldn't end up the way it did, but that's the way the legend goes. It made me laugh, cry, excited, awed, and all around....this was an awe-inspiring book.
Rating: Summary: Believe me, it wasn't boring! Review: I first heard about The Mists of Avalon from my mom, because she and all of her women friends were reading it at the same time. I was curious to know what the book was about, but I was far too young at the time to have understood it. But just recently, I was searching the library for books on Arthur and Camelot and all of that sort of thing. Then I remembered The Mists of Avalon, and decided to give it a try. I must admit I am not completely finished reading it yet, but I have to say that I have never read a book like it. It tells the story of King Arthur, but from the women's point of view. I had always thought of Morgan as the evil sorceress, but now I see her only as a woman fighting to protect her religion, and way of life. However, even though this is a wonderful book, I find it hard to sympathize with any of the characters except for Arthur. Morgaine is certainly my favorite character, but even she seems somewhat cold and harsh. Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere) is a pathetic, whiny girl; Viviane is a heartless woman thinking only of herself and of Avalon; Lancelet is just plain icky; and none of the other characters were that great. But even so, the story is enthralling, and each day I look forward to reading it in the evening. So if you like Arthurian legend, I would recommend you read this straight away. It is definitely worth reading, and I can't see why anybody would want to give it less than 5 stars.
Rating: Summary: Wonderful Review: This is a modern day classic. Don't miss it.
Rating: Summary: Excellent but Boring Review: I have read both Mists of Avalon and Forest House. Both have excellent character portrayal. You really feel you are living in the time with all the conflicts between ancient and "modern" British civilization. The viewpoint from the women's perspective is very good. I particularly liked the portrayal of the mysticism surrounding the ancietn Celt Goddess. However, the book was tedious and very slow moving. I had to work up a mindset to read it. It was not one I longed to get back to and couldn't wait to start up after laying it down.
Rating: Summary: A glimpse into Druidic Britain and the Arthurian Legend Review: I must have read three or four novel series based on the Arthurian legend (Mallory of course, T.H. White's Once and Future King, Bernard Cornwell's series and of course seen films like Excalibur and First Knight.) Do I love Arthurian legends or what? So I couldn't put Bradley's The Mists of Avalon down for a moment. It was riveting. Marion Zimmer Bradley is a respected fantasy writer and highly skilled. Her version of Arthur's birth and reign are from the Druidic or Pagan viewpoint. So we get a glimpse of Arthur's birth and his relationship to his sister Morgaine through pagan rituals. The "fairy" side of the story (Morgan le Fay or Morgan the Fairy, The Lady of the Lake, Avalon) are developed beyond what anyone else has done in other versions of Arthur and Camelot. I enjoyed Mists of Avalon and thought the characters are well-drawn. The mysteries of Britain in post-Roman times before the first crusades are intriguing. My only criticism is that the Pagan religion as Bradley writes it is imbued with modern Wiccan beliefs, which archaeology and history tell us are rather different than how the ancients worshipped. Still, this is fiction, and so it's good to remember that how Arthur originated, and how the Pagans revered him is still shrouded in the mists of time.
Rating: Summary: An Epic Review: I read this book a couple of years ago and I loved it. I felt every emotion that the characters went through. It seems really long when you first pick it up, but once I started reading it I didn't want it to ever end!
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