Up the Wall: And Other Stories

Rating:
Summary: Serious Arthurian Entertainment
Review: Yes, that's both Serious and Entertainment. This books meets the humor quotient you'd expect from Friesner, but it's not all fun and games. There is a depth to both the characters and to the stories themselves that I hadn't expected to find. She starts off with frumpy queens in housedresses reminiscent of Tanya Huff's dysfunctional Olympians and a goofy drinking song from Queen Gwen's Bar & Grail; she moves on to the more serious matters of Nimue waking Merlin and Mordred's version of Camelot's endgame. Throughout, these stories give us a revisionist history of the periphery of the Arthurian legends. Seek no Grails here -- this is the marginalia in a provocative new light. The Mists of Avalon becomes the canonical history from which some of these retellings deviate! Touching and thoughtful, witty and wry, this collection is probably the best Arthuriana I've read since Marion Zimmer Bradley. One note: the title, "... & other tales of King Arthur and his knights" is a bit misleading. These tales are barely about King Arthur and almost entirely not about his knights. Main characters include Nimue, Guinhwyfar, Morgan, Vivian, Mordred, Cai and several characters you never knew were involved at all. We've had enough knights anyway.