The Winter King - The Return of Merlin

[gwalchmai2007.livejournal.com]

I've forged forward through most of Part III of The Winter King. I know my pace is slow (I believe it was about a month ago that I finished Part II), but that is because I have a number of game design projects going and am reading only a couple of pages at a time during, uh, breaks.

Part III, subtitled "The Return of Merlin," is shaping up to very dramatic narrative. The "Christians suck" theme was totally dropped in favor of "Lancelot's an ass." Derfel is a pretty convincing hero, and I like this character a lot. He is not quite the humble, understated hero I tend to gravitate toward in my fictional tastes, but he has many fine qualities that make him an admirable hero, and Cornwell's boastful, grandstanding, and cowardly Lancelot is a perfect foil for him.

I am beginning to see this novel now as a fine script for a motion picture. Where Hollywood just can't seem to get King Arthur right, perhaps if they were to take a stab at Cornwell's version of Arthur, maybe they'll at least come close to something workable.

Merlin is a very interesting character, and in many ways very true to the depiction of him in tradition. He is a clever leader of men and a master of disguise, in addition to being a determined scholar. I look forward to reading more of this novel and hope that the "Christians suck" motif can be toned down as I draw toward the conclusion of the novel now that Derfel has returned home from Ynys Trebes to Dumnonia.