{"id":11603,"date":"2012-02-09T06:30:12","date_gmt":"2012-02-08T17:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=11603"},"modified":"2012-02-09T08:03:35","modified_gmt":"2012-02-08T19:03:35","slug":"my-favourite-arthurian-influenced-fantasy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2012\/02\/09\/my-favourite-arthurian-influenced-fantasy\/","title":{"rendered":"My Favourite Arthurian-Influenced Fantasy-Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Sunday 5 I highlighted some of my favourite Fantasy retellings of the Arthurian cycle, here<\/a>. And commenters mentioned a few more too, which was great—so do check those comments, too!<\/p>\n

But once I started thinking about it, I realised that there are actually a whole lot of Fantasy tales out there that are influenced by the Arthurian cycle, and draw on its mythology, without being actual retellings. So I thought I’d share a few of my favourites today.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>First up, I just have to start with The Dark is Rising<\/em><\/strong> quintology by Susan Cooper<\/strong>, simply because it’s such an outstanding series. Although the eponymous The Dark is Rising<\/em> is probably the best known of the series, the first book is Over Sea, Under Stone,<\/em> where the character of Merriman Lyon (Merlin) is first introduced.\u00a0 The strongest Arthurian influences don’t really come in until the 4th and 5th books, The Grey King<\/em> and The Silver on the Tree<\/em>, but it’s a classic series and undoubtedly strongly embedded in the Arthurian legends. And as for my first reading of The Dark is Rising<\/em>–may I say that as I kid I found it really scary, but in the best possible, shivery kind of way!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>And then there’s The Drawing of the Dark<\/em><\/strong> (hmm, noticing a certain theme with titles here) by Tim Powers<\/strong>, which is another longstanding favourite. The debt to the Arthurian cycle is that as the story unfolds we learn that the main character, a freebooting, Renaissance-era sword-for-hire, is actually infused by the spirit of Arthur, and through Arthur,\u00a0 the older hero archetype of Sigurd\/Sigismund (may I say, really loved<\/em> that aspect to the story) and gets caught up in the Ottoman seige of Vienna, which was indeed an epic battle of its day. So another nice mix of myth and history, which as you will already know from Sunday, I really like. (Oh, the Dark—well it may not be exactly what you think, but you’ll have to read the book yourself to find out!)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Fionavar Trilogy<\/em><\/strong> by Guy Gavriel Kay<\/strong>, comprising The Summer Tree, The Wandering Fire<\/em> and The Darkest Road<\/em> (yup, there’s that word again, only as an adjective this time, not a noun!) is another series where the Arthurian cycle is integral to the story, not just in terms of avatars or archetypes, but with the actual characters of Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot, and yes, Arthur’s hound, Cabal—love the part played by Cabal—being drawn into the epic battle between light and dark in another world. I don’t want to give too much away, but I know when I first started reading this series my first thought was that it was going to be very much in the mould of The Lord of the Rings<\/em>. And to a certain extent it is—but the story does very quickly find its own voice, and a big part of that is the way the Arthurian cycle is drawn into the tale, but not quite as we know it! Needless to say, I enjoyed its use\u00a0 in the series, almost in a blending of Tolkienesque—with a side nod to Joy Chant’s Red Moon & Black Mountain<\/em> re the Dalrei of the Plains—and Celtic\/Arthurian mythologies, very much.<\/p>\n

These are just a few of my favourites, but I know there are many more. So how about you, do you have a favourite Arthurian influenced<\/em> Fantasy novel or series to share?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Sunday 5 I highlighted some of my favourite Fantasy retellings of the Arthurian cycle, here. And commenters mentioned a few more too, which was great—so do check those comments, too! But once I started thinking about it, I realised that there are actually a whole lot of Fantasy tales out there that are influenced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-other-writers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11603"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11632,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11603\/revisions\/11632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}