The Bright Sword: A Novel of King Arthur

“This could have been yet another Arthurian tale told ad nauseum over the decades, but here Lev Grossman stakes out a different kind of story that’s all his own.”

Lev Grossman is well known for his The Magicians trilogy which has been turned into a much-acclaimed television series on Syfy. Grossman makes his return to fantasy fiction with The Bright Sword, a novel of King Arthur . . . minus King Arthur himself.

A young man, Collum of the Out Isles, travels to Camelot in an effort to join the Knights of the Round Table. The problem is that King Arthur and most of his knights have died at the battle of Camlann, which leaves a power vacuum because there is no clear-cut heir to the throne of Britain.

What’s left are the little-knows of the Court, such as the former Royal Jester Dagonet, now a knight and the sorceress Nimue who buried Merlin under a hill. With this motley crew, Collum travels across a crumbling Britain to find the true heir to the throne.

In their way are the gods and monsters of the old world returning to claim what was once theirs and Morgan le Fey, Arthur’s sorceress half-sister.

This could have been yet another Arthurian tale told ad nauseum over the decades, but here Lev Grossman stakes out a different kind of story that’s all his own. We learn the stories of the minor characters in Arthur’s Britain like Sir Palomides, the Saracen prince and the king’s former bodyguard Sir Dinadan. Each have a rich history all their own, and Grossman has the reader caring for them as if they were integral parts in the myth of Camelot.

For sure the reader encounters the stories of Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere, but they seem to pale in comparison to the histories of the rag-tag group and Collum.

Grossman has shown here his growth as a writer, the comparison to The Magicians and his latest work is a stark one. With a flair that travels far beyond his previous work, Grossman creates a world both bittersweet and beautiful, horrible and grand. Britain is portrayed as a delicate, complex nation teetering on the brink of ruin, but one that is worth saving.

The best thing about The Bright Sword is doesn’t become bogged down with minutiae, the narrative hums along grandly without stumbling over itself with florid verbiage. Grossman keeps the story humming at a pace with which the reader is comfortable. It’s a fresh perspective on a time-honored tale that brings an energizing twist that avoids the pitfalls of lesser works. Without a doubt this is Grossman’s best work to date.