Mordred's Curse

Rating:
Summary: A great new twist on the Arthurian legend!
Review: I've read many Arthurian novels, and quite a few of them were abymsal. That's not the case here: Ian McDowell's novel is excellent! Told from the point of view of Mordred, Arthur's bastard son by his sister Morgawse, this is an inetersting twist on an oft-told tale. The characters really come alive, and Mordred (often relegated to second rate villain status) is fully fleshed out here.The novel is full of emotion, and the characters REALLY come alive. Telling the story from Mordred's point of view makes for some interesting viewpoints (Merlin a pervert?) but it's all smashingly done! I can't wait for the sequel!

Rating:
Summary: A refreshing take on an old legend
Review: I've read many retellings of the Arthur legend, and I'd started to think that authors were running out of fresh ways to tackle the subject matter. Then I read Mordred's Curse. This book is a look at the life of Mordred, a character who in most Arthurian tales appears suddenly at the end, just in time to spoil the party and bring Camelot to its ruin. In this book, we get the full story. McDowell's Mordred idolizes Arthur as a boy, but his admiration turns sour when Arthur, unable to accept the truth of Mordred's parentage, rejects him. The two develop an uneasy relationship, as Arthur increasingly relies on Mordred, even as he disapproves of him in many ways.

Mordred makes a wonderful narrator. He is perceptive, brutally honest about his own faults as well as those of others, and wickedly funny. The other characters are also well drawn. Arthur is portrayed particularly well as a man struggling with the problems of kingship - he comes across as a flawed but admirable man. And Guinevere, who is all too often a rather lifeless character in the Arthurian retellings, comes across as a woman of real intelligence and spirit.

In short, Mordred's Curse is well-written, has great-characterization, and will turn your picture of King Arthur on its head. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: A refreshing take on an old legend
Review: I've read many retellings of the Arthur legend, and I'd started to think that authors were running out of fresh ways to tackle the subject matter. Then I read Mordred's Curse. This book is a look at the life of Mordred, a character who in most Arthurian tales appears suddenly at the end, just in time to spoil the party and bring Camelot to its ruin. In this book, we get the full story. McDowell's Mordred idolizes Arthur as a boy, but his admiration turns sour when Arthur, unable to accept the truth of Mordred's parentage, rejects him. The two develop an uneasy relationship, as Arthur increasingly relies on Mordred, even as he disapproves of him in many ways.

Mordred makes a wonderful narrator. He is perceptive, brutally honest about his own faults as well as those of others, and wickedly funny. The other characters are also well drawn. Arthur is portrayed particularly well as a man struggling with the problems of kingship - he comes across as a flawed but admirable man. And Guinevere, who is all too often a rather lifeless character in the Arthurian retellings, comes across as a woman of real intelligence and spirit.

In short, Mordred's Curse is well-written, has great-characterization, and will turn your picture of King Arthur on its head. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Deceitfully delightful!
Review: Mr. McDowell has a way of catching you with the first sentence of his stories like no one else. And he doesn't let go. I bought a copy for myself, and made everyone read it. This variation makes much more sense than the romanticized writings of the Arthur legends one usually finds. Too bad it's out of print, or I'd start buying copies for friends again! Now I just need to finish reading the sequel.

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Summary: My darkly earthy take on the Matter of Britain
Review: Myth. Magic. Romance. Heard all that before? Okay, how about this? Sabre-toothed tigers. Living disembodied heads. A mother who tries to manage her son's affairs from beyond the grave. More bad weather than is typical of fantasy novels set in Britain. More bad behavior, too. Bodily functions. Love, not the mushily idealized kind, but the complicated, painful and borderline-obsessive near-psychosis that's both The Only Good Reason For Getting Out of Bed in the Morning and The Knife that Wounds the World. Strong female characters. Sex as it is (sometimes clumsily) performed by actual people (his maleness never finds her warmth, and nobody is impaled on the savage lance of anyone else's manhood). Faith, and the consequences of its loss (with no simplistic good Pagan/bad Christian dichotomy). The extremely dirty poetry of Catullus, as translated by an author who has never studied Latin. Buy my book. Buy a second copy for your best friend, your cat, your cat's best friend, that sweet little old lady down the hall who loves Mary Stewart (and whose soft tissues may be devoured by her starving dachsund after she expires from a coronary upon reading my take on the same material)

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Summary: So who cares if they left out Lancelot?
Review: OK, so I admit it. Writers have messed around before with the "sacred" legend of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. I've even been known to yell about it myself. But, the thing is, this time it's so much fun! I've got to tell you, I really like this Mordred. He's got a sense of humor, he's smart, he's certainly not too holy (Arthur's got that market cornered), and he's pretty darned heroic. OK, so the language is a bit much and I don't like Merlin as a prissy pervert and where the heck is Lancelot any way? (McDowell does answer that one at the end of the book.) In spite of all these things, it's so entertaining that I just plain didn't care. If you're into legends about Camelot, you'll love this one!