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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
So, overall I did end up enjoying the read. Really struggled at points because it felt like there was a lot of history I was supposed to have known and be impressed by referencing it in the story. I didn't, so I just ended up feeling lost a lot of the time. Also there were definitely plot points that were shoe horned in for sure, and WAY to many people named Gwen. Can't say I was happy with the ending but it was understandable. Still glad I got to read it.
I really really liked this book. It was a different twist to the story of King Arthur with a very power female main character.
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I was disappointed with the ending. it felt rushed or something.
You know the story: Guinevere, Arthur, Lancelot. Except... maybe not. In Mercedes Lackey's take on the Guinevere story, she gives readers a different sort of Guinevere: a Gwenhwyfar.
Gwenhwyfar is the third daughter of King Lleudd and Queen Eleri of Pwyll. Her mother is skilled in the magics of the Old Ways, trained by the Ladies of the Cauldron Well. Gwenhwyfar is Powerful too, but her Power lies in a different direction. Unlike her eldest sister Cataruna, who goes to the Ladies herself to be trained, Gwenhwyfar wishes to follow the Path of the Warrior. This she does, and she is happy. But then she meets Lancelin, one of the High King's Companions, and she wishes that he would see the woman in the warrior.
But of course Gwenhwyfar must meet her destiny in Arthur. And you know this story...
Lackey takes the unusual path of following the Triads of Great Britain, the Welsh poems, in which Arthur is given three queens named Gwenhwyfar. I was intrigued by this, since I have some familiarity with the Triads. The Gwenhwyfar whose tale the reader follows is the final queen, a great deal younger than Arthur, who has become a person in her own right: a warrior, the strong right hand of her father King Lleudd, protector of her sisters and their children. When she is, in the last third of the book, wed to Arthur, it is a pact between kings, not a love-match.
All the usual characters are here, though perhaps not by the names we generally know them. Lackey took the unusual step of keeping the names as close to the original British Celtic as possible, likely lifting them from the Welsh Triads. Mind you, the Knights of the Round Table are painted in broad strokes, not in any depth. Even Arthur is barely there, heard of more than seen. And that's as it should be, since Gwenhwyfar, as the point-of-view character, hardly sees him. She and her sisters and family are much more fleshed out. Gwen herself comes across as a strong, intelligent person.
Which is why I found it hard to swallow the last third of the book, in which she is taken captive by Medraut, Arthur's bastard son got on his half-sister Anna Morgause. The fact that she accepts the drugged drink from Medraut simply rang utterly false for me. I couldn't believe that, even in a fit of anger, Gwen would accept anything from a man she didn't trust, let alone food or drink. If you'd asked me before I read that to rate the book, I'd have given it four stars. But forcing a character to do something for the sake of the plot dropped my review by a star. It's still a good read, and a different perspective on the Arthur/Guinevere story. It's just not as good as it should have been.
Gwenhwyfar is the third daughter of King Lleudd and Queen Eleri of Pwyll. Her mother is skilled in the magics of the Old Ways, trained by the Ladies of the Cauldron Well. Gwenhwyfar is Powerful too, but her Power lies in a different direction. Unlike her eldest sister Cataruna, who goes to the Ladies herself to be trained, Gwenhwyfar wishes to follow the Path of the Warrior. This she does, and she is happy. But then she meets Lancelin, one of the High King's Companions, and she wishes that he would see the woman in the warrior.
But of course Gwenhwyfar must meet her destiny in Arthur. And you know this story...
Lackey takes the unusual path of following the Triads of Great Britain, the Welsh poems, in which Arthur is given three queens named Gwenhwyfar. I was intrigued by this, since I have some familiarity with the Triads. The Gwenhwyfar whose tale the reader follows is the final queen, a great deal younger than Arthur, who has become a person in her own right: a warrior, the strong right hand of her father King Lleudd, protector of her sisters and their children. When she is, in the last third of the book, wed to Arthur, it is a pact between kings, not a love-match.
All the usual characters are here, though perhaps not by the names we generally know them. Lackey took the unusual step of keeping the names as close to the original British Celtic as possible, likely lifting them from the Welsh Triads. Mind you, the Knights of the Round Table are painted in broad strokes, not in any depth. Even Arthur is barely there, heard of more than seen. And that's as it should be, since Gwenhwyfar, as the point-of-view character, hardly sees him. She and her sisters and family are much more fleshed out. Gwen herself comes across as a strong, intelligent person.
Which is why I found it hard to swallow the last third of the book, in which she is taken captive by Medraut, Arthur's bastard son got on his half-sister Anna Morgause. The fact that she accepts the drugged drink from Medraut simply rang utterly false for me. I couldn't believe that, even in a fit of anger, Gwen would accept anything from a man she didn't trust, let alone food or drink. If you'd asked me before I read that to rate the book, I'd have given it four stars. But forcing a character to do something for the sake of the plot dropped my review by a star. It's still a good read, and a different perspective on the Arthur/Guinevere story. It's just not as good as it should have been.
Once again, Mercedes Lackey has delivered a spectacular fantasy novel. It contains everything I enjoy about the genre: fighting, magic, King Arthur, and a somewhat Dark Ages Wales.
Whenever I decide to go through the box of books we’re getting rid of at work, I tend to pick up certain titles on two main criteria: 1. The cover copy sounds interesting or 2. Hey, I really need to read author/book because reasons. I’ve always heard great things about Mercedes Lackey; if I was a fantasy fan, I really ought to be reading her. And after reading this, I will say that I am interested in checking out some of her other works (particularly the Elementals series, because I am a sucker for fairy tale retellings). However, I would not really recommend using Gwenhwyfar as a good introduction to Lackey in general.
Not to say that this is a bad book—it’s a very well-written character study. It’s just nothing happens. If, like me, you were expecting a deep introspection and reimagining of the Arthurian mythos, it’s really not there. There’s reimagining to be sure, but how Lackey structures it makes the plot suffer. The first two sections are a really fantastic (albeit a bit boring) insight to Gwenhwyfar’s training and life as a war chief; once she gets married to Arthur, everything interesting happens off-screen. The whole final third is what nearly killed the book for me, as it takes a massive derailment to shoehorn this Gwenhwyfar into the standard Arthurian mythos.
The big problem here is also the reason why I did like a lot of this book: Lackey decides that the conflicting narratives of Guinevere is that there were really three brides with the same name. (Which is even lampshaded in the book when the titular Gwen is approached about marrying Arthur for political reasons.) I do like the concept; I just think the final execution just does not work. We never see Gwen and Arthur interact outside of a handful of scenes, and I never really get that their personalities and expectations truly clash with one another. We only get one scene of this, where Arthur confronts Gwen about fletching arrows while in the company of her ladies. I wanted this to be a massive conflict—I get that their marriage is purely political in nature, but given what happens in the climax, I felt like we needed more of a glimpse into their relationship. There needs to be more reason as to why Gwen goes to Lancelin aside from that she’s been in love with him and they finally have a chance to be alone together. To be honest, I think that Lackey expected that she needed to stick to the accepted mythology, instead of finding a way to make her retelling fit without compromising her characters.
Going in hand with Arthur’s expectations of Gwen, I did have an issue that the message of the book largely seemed to be, “You can either be a woman or warrior, not both; once you choose one, you can never be the other.” Gwen spends a lot of time wangsting over the fact that she doesn’t feel worthy of Lancelin because she’s a warrior (although he reveals that’s why he likes her.) While she doesn’t outright scold her sisters for using feminine wiles to get men, Gwen feels like using such methods are beneath her. The moment Gwen is married off and stuck in a dress, it feels like she’s neutered, seeing as how easily Medraut is able to abduct her. The tell that her sister Gwenhwyfach has replaced Gwen is that she acts like a woman is expected to be. I have a major problem that the main conflict is the result of the Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry (especially since we only see Gwenhwyfach once between her leaving and Gwen’s abduction; also there’s a lot of accusation towards Gwenhwyfach of being a changeling, and seeing has how fae do play a role in the narrative, I was disappointed that this never played out.)
As a character study though, I do really like Gwenhwyfar, and especially for the majority of the book. I like reading about her training as a young girl and growing into a celebrated war chief. I loved her exploits in the charge against the Saxons and her playing up her aptly-named title of “White Phantom.” The scene where Gwen helps her sister Cataruna call up the fae was fantastic, and I liked how it plays out larger into the plot. I even really liked her relationship with Lancelin—despite Gwen’s angsting—and how the two of them truly respect one another. Again, it’s only when we get to the final third and ship Gwen off to Celliwig that I feel like the plot suffers. We never see her get to interact with anyone beyond Lancelin and Medraut at that point, and I really felt like Lackey could have built up the climax.
Again, it’s really not a bad book, but the final third feels so lacking and underdeveloped that I didn’t outright love as much as I had for the earlier two sections. I really wish that Lackey had done more of reworking of Arthurian myth to better fit in the climax she wanted, instead of the boring ending that in here.
Not to say that this is a bad book—it’s a very well-written character study. It’s just nothing happens. If, like me, you were expecting a deep introspection and reimagining of the Arthurian mythos, it’s really not there. There’s reimagining to be sure, but how Lackey structures it makes the plot suffer. The first two sections are a really fantastic (albeit a bit boring) insight to Gwenhwyfar’s training and life as a war chief; once she gets married to Arthur, everything interesting happens off-screen. The whole final third is what nearly killed the book for me, as it takes a massive derailment to shoehorn this Gwenhwyfar into the standard Arthurian mythos.
The big problem here is also the reason why I did like a lot of this book: Lackey decides that the conflicting narratives of Guinevere is that there were really three brides with the same name. (Which is even lampshaded in the book when the titular Gwen is approached about marrying Arthur for political reasons.) I do like the concept; I just think the final execution just does not work. We never see Gwen and Arthur interact outside of a handful of scenes, and I never really get that their personalities and expectations truly clash with one another. We only get one scene of this, where Arthur confronts Gwen about fletching arrows while in the company of her ladies. I wanted this to be a massive conflict—I get that their marriage is purely political in nature, but given what happens in the climax, I felt like we needed more of a glimpse into their relationship. There needs to be more reason as to why Gwen goes to Lancelin aside from that she’s been in love with him and they finally have a chance to be alone together. To be honest, I think that Lackey expected that she needed to stick to the accepted mythology, instead of finding a way to make her retelling fit without compromising her characters.
Going in hand with Arthur’s expectations of Gwen, I did have an issue that the message of the book largely seemed to be, “You can either be a woman or warrior, not both; once you choose one, you can never be the other.” Gwen spends a lot of time wangsting over the fact that she doesn’t feel worthy of Lancelin because she’s a warrior (although he reveals that’s why he likes her.) While she doesn’t outright scold her sisters for using feminine wiles to get men, Gwen feels like using such methods are beneath her. The moment Gwen is married off and stuck in a dress, it feels like she’s neutered, seeing as how easily Medraut is able to abduct her. The tell that her sister Gwenhwyfach has replaced Gwen is that she acts like a woman is expected to be. I have a major problem that the main conflict is the result of the Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry (especially since we only see Gwenhwyfach once between her leaving and Gwen’s abduction; also there’s a lot of accusation towards Gwenhwyfach of being a changeling, and seeing has how fae do play a role in the narrative, I was disappointed that this never played out.)
As a character study though, I do really like Gwenhwyfar, and especially for the majority of the book. I like reading about her training as a young girl and growing into a celebrated war chief. I loved her exploits in the charge against the Saxons and her playing up her aptly-named title of “White Phantom.” The scene where Gwen helps her sister Cataruna call up the fae was fantastic, and I liked how it plays out larger into the plot. I even really liked her relationship with Lancelin—despite Gwen’s angsting—and how the two of them truly respect one another. Again, it’s only when we get to the final third and ship Gwen off to Celliwig that I feel like the plot suffers. We never see her get to interact with anyone beyond Lancelin and Medraut at that point, and I really felt like Lackey could have built up the climax.
Again, it’s really not a bad book, but the final third feels so lacking and underdeveloped that I didn’t outright love as much as I had for the earlier two sections. I really wish that Lackey had done more of reworking of Arthurian myth to better fit in the climax she wanted, instead of the boring ending that in here.
Quick read with some interesting alternatives to the usual Arthurian rewrites.