#Blogtour #Review - Perilous Times by Thomas D Lee

Perilous Times
Thomas D Lee
Orbit, 23 May 2023
Available as: HB, 534pp, audio, e
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(HB): 9780356518527

I'm grateful to Tracy at Compulsive Readers for inviting me to join the Perilous Times blogtour and to Nazia at Orbit for sending me a copy of the book to consider for review.

Drake is in his hammock an' a thousand miles away, sleeping until his country needs him... but Arthur sleeps in England, resting with his knights in a cave beneath Alderney Edge - a farmer once saw him when the wizard who wove the magic needed a last white horse. Or perhaps elsewhere, in Scotland where his seat overlooks the Parliament building, or Wales - or on the Island of Avalon, where the sweet apples grow, or before the High Altar at Glastonbury Abbey (but they dug him up!) There are hills, stones and barrows across this land associated with the sleeping king and while the stories about his life are confused and contradictory, all agree that he saved Britain - or tried to.

So go the legends, telling us that we are special, that Britan is guarded, protected. Whether Arthur is the exemplar of a mythical code of chivalry, or the leader of a post-Roman* warband, hardly matters. What he means changes from age to age as we change, and he can equally be a New Age archetype, the defender of the Greenwood and a spirit of of the ancient land...

...Or we can look closer, as Thomas D Lee does in this story of a gathering apocalypse, environmental, yes, but also hastened by the grey-faced oilmen and warmongers. In such times, do we need a war leader? Does Pendragon's record actually stand much scrutiny? Perilous Times is one of several books I've read lately that take a sceptical look. Here, things are narrated by Kay, Arthur's stepbrother, but we also meet Mariam, a young women of the early 21st century who's definitely not waiting for a white knight to gallop up to her on his horse.

Just as well because Kay isn't white and he doesn't have a horse (for most of the book). Kay has been bound by Merlin's magic to rise from the earth when summoned, or when England is in danger, and over the centuries he's become accustomed to clawing his way up from the mud to face slaughter, often at the command of those same grey faced men, one of whom also features in the story. Others of Arthur's court have the same ability - suffer the same fate - and a theme here that Lee explores intelligently is the limit of loyalty, and the habit we have of surrendering choice for the comfort of a strong leader who thinks they have the answers.

In a world going all to pieces that's a comforting thing to be able to do, but is it actually helpful - for Kay or for the bemused band of women she is part of, women who seek both to ameliorate the conditions of those suffering from climate collapse, war, and persecution and to put an end to the evils that cause them. As in Arthur's day, many factions jostle for power in the land, not least mercenaries and fanatics. 

Lee navigates this complicated moral landscape with considerable skill, deftly blending the personal and the political and rooting them in a landscape - whether an apocalyptic Manchester or a hellish metal Avalon - that has heft and depth, not least when Kay or Lancelot are seeing it through fifteen hundred year old memories of Mamucium or Londinium.

There is though more to these fascinating characters than their status as legends walking the modern world. We come to learn how both have devoted their lives - many lifetimes - to the grubby business of Empire, to the belief that they had a purpose, that they mattered and could make a difference. There are centuries of horror locked in Kay's head, so much so that at time he welcomes another death and his return to the mud, but also centuries of experience. It's patchy, iffy experience and he doesn't always understand the modern world (who does?) but he can also bring some perspective and he can spot a bad idea when he sees one.

So - let's get the (war)band together for one last time, sharpen the sword edges and form up the shieldwall because, yes, these are Perilous Times indeed.

I just loved this book - it's a truly modern take on Arthur and the Matter of Britain, a long-needed updating to counteract the seizing of our national myths by those with dubious purposes, but more than that, just a brilliant, involving read (and great fun to see some hints and allusions to other books I've read and loved - not least the tarnished iron gates below Alderney Edge). Strongly recommended (though there is one death in this book that I'm not sure I'll forgive Lee for...)

For more information about Perilous Times, see the other stops on the blogtour - or you can go to the publisher's website here.

You can buy Perilous Times from your local high street bookshop, or online from Bookshop UK, Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyles, WH Smith, Waterstones or Amazon.

*We don't use the "D**k A**s" term on this blog.

#Review - The Cleaving by Juliet E. McKenna

The Cleaving  
Juliet E. McKenna
Angry Robot, 11 April 2023 
Available as: PB, 400pp, e  
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9781915202222

I'm grateful to Angry Robot for sending me a copy of The Cleaving via NetGalley to consider for review.

Arthurian retellings broadly seem to adopt one of two approaches. The first is to ditch the fantastical elements and look for a foothold in history, however tenuous, typically casting Arthur as the military leader of the native Britons against the invading Saxons. This is the approach I remember from innumerable documentaries when I was growing up in the 70s and the 80s.

McKenna's reimagining follows other approach - taking the familiar medieval sources but adapting their framework. She makes a nod towards the historical approach by drawing a linguistic distinction between the Cornish language and the "English" spoken in Winchester. But when "Saxons" come raiding the "English" she doesn't worry too much about trying to explain the distinction. Similarly, this story accepts noblemen with elaborate plate armour, all called Sir Somebody, riding the countryside of Southern Britain and retiring periodically to the court at Camelot. They are often about business driven by magical interference, although (not least, I'd imagine, to keep the book to manageable proportions) many of the incidents are left out.

That all works very well with what we expect of an Arthurian tale ("Arthurian" isn't quite the right term here, but I'll come back to that) from Mallory himself to TH White. But don't be deceived by the surface impression, this retelling is actually very different.

To begin with, I felt that here there is a much clearer overall narrative, rather than a procession of wonders. And that isn't a narrative about Arthur, indeed in some ways he's almost incidental, or the Holy Grail. Yes, Arthur desires to be High King of Britain, and strives to achieve that, but behind him, there is a desperate - and actually more interesting - conflict over the role of magic. Nimue, one of the Hidden People, from whose viewpoint the story is told, sees magic as dangerous to mortals and seeks to limit its role (in line with the principles of the Hidden People). Merlin, and some others of the People, want to use it to establish Arthur's throne, allegedly so he can be a bulwark against magic running wild although sheer desire for power may also figure here.

The various eruptions of magic into the courtly business of Camelot then feature as overspills from this contest, with the balance of advantage swaying to and fro throughout the book, rather than a series of discrete, if dramatic, incidents. That gives the book a coherence, a drive, which keeps the reader turning the pages - and worrying about what will come next.

And there's a lot to worry about. The other difference here is the telling of the story from the point of view of Nimue, a character who does feature in the canonical stories, as the enchantress who seduces and imprisons Merlin. Here though we see Nimue's perspective throughout, from the early sections set at Tintagel Castle, dealing with Uther's rape of Ygraine, to her struggles with Merlin, to an endgame in which Nimue together with other powers is forced to take responsibility for the future of Britain rather than allowing warfare and anarchy to continue. 

It's a very anti-heroic book - in the sense both that it explicitly disavows the simplistic "Arthur is the foretold King so anyone standing against him is evil" but also in the way that it acknowledges, indeed celebrates, the complexity of life: all those feats of arms, for example, don't just happen, the provisioning and cooking must be organised. Camelot - and the other fortresses - need to be managed and operated, a task falling on the women here, not helped by the tendency of Arthur and his ilk to announce tournaments or depart on quixotic quests at the drop of a gauntlet. Or by their proclivity for decreeing the marrying-off of the chatelaine on a whim. Napoleon Bonaparte may have understood that an army marches on its stomach, but is twelve hundred years earlier and the men haven't yet learned that lesson.

Possibly I was a bit quick earlier to place this book in the "non historical" group of retellings. Amidst all the controversy about British history in the late-antique period and about "Saxon" invasions and the evolution of "England" one point that is easily missed is the daily routine that must have continued - growing food, mending fences, preparing food, spinning and weaving, caring for children and the old - things without which the land would have soon been a desert. That activity finds its place in The Cleaving where its importance is fully acknowledged, making this book - for all its magic and wonders and mounted knights - historical at a much more fundamental level. Instead of working to find a slot for an Arthur in British history, McKenna is I think restoring a place for women and women's activity. This book is perhaps not Arthurian so much as Nimuean - celebrating the making of an ointment, the planning of a feast or care for an orphaned child, all things that belong in history as much as swordplay and marching.

So I think this is something rather different - as well, of course, as being a thoroughly good read, the pared-back story keeping up a good pace and relying on excellent characterisation and a real sense of moral ambiguity (the mess of prophecy and manipulation that Merlin has created being deeply inimical to any clear sense of right and wrong). Rather than the triumph of good, in The Cleaving the reader is just left hoping that the women we meet will avoid their possible awful fates, come through and win some peace for themselves and their country.

All in all, a masterpiece.

For more information about The Cleaving, see the publisher's website here. 

#NetGalley #Review - By Force Alone by Lavie Tidhar

By Force Alone

Cover design by David Wardle

Lavie Tidhar
Head of Zeus, 5 March 2020
HB, 505pp


I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance e-copy of By Force Alone via NetGalley.

'If you expect Enlightenment to occur centuries hence you are sure to be disappointed'

Well.

Where can I even start with Tidhar's latest? There is so much to this book, it's hard to know where to begin. I'm tempted just to say you should buy it, and then sign off, but I need to do better than that.

By Force Alone takes as its theme the life of King Arthur, previously invented, narrated, embroidered, reinvented, retold over hundreds of years and also subject to numerous quests for the "real" Arthur, the "real" truth. What we have is, then, another retelling, but a retelling shaped for the times, reflecting our early 21st century, late capitalist, preoccupations...

...as is every retelling of these stories.

Tidhar summarises this process in an Afterword, which also puts the subject in its historical context, sketching what is known of the corresponding actual history of Britain in a period when it had broken from being part of a pan-European polity and had to make its own way in the world. That situation is, as best anyone can tell, the "real" background to Arthur, if there is such a thing - the post Roman period, from which few written records survive but which seems to have been foundational in producing what would later be called England. (One little quibble is the phrase 'The Dark Ages': just no!)

In the course of this book Tidhar actually sketches a very convincing picture of this period, one in which Roman towns, infrastructure (roads, mines, aquaducts) and - though sketchily - political structures still survive, albeit decaying, and in which various local "bosses" survive, claiming various forms of legitimacy but all holding power, in the end, by force alone - a repeated mantra in this book. The former Roman provinces are divided into tenuous "kingdoms", based on geography, tribal allegiance and opportunity - both credible historically and reflecting the nature of the Arthurian tales which abound in petty kings.

As the story proceeds, locations, which initially correspond to real places (Google some and you'll see) become vaguer, introducing legendary and possibly mythical places such as Camelot and Camlann. We are, then, moving from what is known, what can be inferred, into the mists of history. In keeping with that, we repeatedly see the impatience of rulers with mere practical questions such as how to keep the aqueducts working or supply food to the miners toiling in the - still just working - Roman gold-mines, and their immediate interest when it comes to hunting down groups of bandits or challenging each other for the top table. As we move into those mists, the sword's the thing, the trappings of civilisation fall away (though, how Merlin yearns for a decent library!)

Entertainingly, Tidhar sets up a comparison between these rulers and organised crime syndicates: mafia language proliferates with knights being "made" men, the objectives of the bosses being trafficking, protectionism and prostitution, there is mention of the omnium ducibus dux, the bosses of all the bosses, 'the sort of offer you couldn't refuse' refuse, and so on. There is one scene where the mobsters, sitting in the street and eating olives as though on the Aventine, reflect on how things were done in the Old Country, from which their parents and grandparents came.

The message is that this isn't the age of chivalry, Arthur's band of soldiers are not good Christian knights despite the many Sir thises and Sir that's (indeed, Christianity is a shadowy, somewhat marginal faith here). Nobody here is following a cause: Arthur's actions in seeking to unite Britannia (England isn't a thing yet) are all about getting, and enjoying power. 'He cares only that it is his commands that are obeyed, that on his word men live or die'. Merlin's, too, in supporting him - as a Fan, Merlin feeds on power.  And Arthur's prepared to deploy populist rhetoric to achieve that ('They want our land. They want our wealth. They want our women', 'Like the Roman, I seem to see the Tiber foaming with much blood'). He's just like a - well, insert the name of your favourite lying populist demagogue, there are plenty to choose from. There are no principles here. 'It occurs to [Merlin] that this sort of patter will never quite fail. Perhaps in centuries hence this sort of crap would still light up people's hearts.'

And if you recognised one of those quotes, it's because it comes from a 20th century English politician, not from Thomas Mallory or Geoffrey of Monmouth. Tidhar uses such anachronisms ruthlessly [more examples] and quite fittingly, given that the whole setup of knights in armour, castles, squires, chivalry and jousting which we associate with Arthur is itself totally anachronistic, dating from nearly a thousand years after the time of Arthur (if there ever was such a time).

Equally fitting is the exploration here of the place of the Arthur myth in the national psyche - a myth which sits uneasily with the long accepted narrative of a state founded by Angle and Saxon invaders, given that Arthur is cast as one of the natives. (The dirty secrets of England's foundation is a subject ripe for fiction, that narrative of the triumphant incoming Germanic tribes long suited a culture seeking justification for an imperial destiny but doesn't sit so well in post-colonial times).

Tidhar is absolutely the right person, I think, to carry out this exploration. Many of his recent books (for example, A Man Lies Dreaming and Unholy Land) reveal a fascination with pulp literature and its myth-making, whether that is intended or not. In a sense, the whole Arthurian cycle and the way it has developed, with its origin myths, reboots and team-ups - is the ultimate body of pulp literature, made up as it is of tales of heroes performing wildly improbably feats, created to satisfy the demand for brightly coloured exploits and coming to fruition when printing allowed mass distribution. I've no doubt there were worthies in 15th century England denouncing the influence of  this trashy stuff on the young.

In Tidhar's hands the latest rewrite of The Matter of Britain hits all the right notes and as ever with this writer, the breadth of cultural references is impressive and, again, impressively anachronistic. Tidhar evokes Shakespeare (often, but especially through the witches from Macbeth), Trainspotting ('Choose life. Choose a home. Choose a great big fat palace to stuff all your money in...'), Blade Runner ('attack ships on fire off the coast of Smyrna'), Gangs of New York ('Everybody owes and everybody pays, as the poet said' - appropriate, given how he sketches London), TS Eliot, 20th century myths such as the speculation of Erich von Daniken and much, much more.

At the same time, all the familiar figures ands tropes are here: not only Merlin and Arthur, but the Round Table, Sir Pellinore and the Questing Beast (possibly the only two genuinely good and pure characters here), Kay and Hector as Arthur's foster family, the Nine Sisters (though here the 'ladies of the lakes and streams', still dispensers of swords, have become enthusiastic arms traders).  Lancelot and Guinevere are here (though given exciting backstories: both are now kick-ass assassins, but while Guinevere is an ex-highwaywoman with her own girl gang, Lancelot - a Nubian - is a member of a mystic sect form Judea, trained in the ancient art of gongfu and ready to deliver such moves as 'the Monkey's Paw and the King in Yellow and the Turn of the Screw'.

There is the Dolorous Stroke that wounds the King and inflicts sickness on the land. Tidhar puts his own emphasis on things - the Lancelot/ Guinevere thing is passed over in a few pages, the whole Grail Quest gets a completely different twist on it which I'm saying nothing about because it would spoil things

The book also looks forward ('Perhaps... one day all of this land will speak in Anglisc, and they'll re-surface the old Roman roads and ride down them in horseless chariots, like dragons belching smoke...') ('As though swiping through images only she can see') and Tidhar's use of language sometimes shows the same place across time (for example 'The Romans' once-new castle on the Tyne' or the scenes in which Guinevere and her companions, travelling in the North East, seem to encounter coal smoke, the incessant din of industry and the flames of furnaces and forges.

Overall, it is I think a dark take on the Arthurian material. A very dark take. I'm reminded of Michael Hughes' Country, which uses the Homeric narrative of the Trojan War to frame the story of the Troubles in Ireland. Both retellings use a familiar narrative to illuminate the present and both are stories of bloodshed and loss, with many dodgy protagonists. Both end in bloodshed and loss. But while Country manages to achieve some closure, the ending of By Force Alone is a devastating assassination of any cosy, nation-building mythicness that one might look for in the Arthurian cycle. Not only has Tidhar exploded the internal content of the cycle, substituting amorality and power lust for the chilly literary chivalry of the late Middle Ages but he's shown how that cycle will be appropriated by the victors from the losers (' The Angles and the Saxons are here to stay, dear Merlin... They'll tell this story and think it is about themselves it's told...') Another point of reference might be a story that ends with these words, from an earlier retelling: 'For Drake is no longer in his hammock... nor is Arthur somewhere sleeping, and you may not lie idly expecting the second coming of anybody now, because the world is yours and its is up to you. Now especially since man has the strength to destroy this world, it is the responsibility of man to keep it alive...'

Another complicated, thought provoking and many-layered novel from Tidhar whose books are definitely a must-read for me, taking in a dazzling range of themes and perspectives.

For more information about By Force Alone, see the Head of Zeus website here.