Dispatches from Terabithia

High King Uther has died, leaving his infant grandson as heir and his bastard son and gifted warlord Arthur as his protector in a country that has fallen into chaos, with threats from both within and without. Told in the first person from the flawed perspective of one of Arthur’s sworn soldiers, Derfel, in his old age, The Winter King humanizes many of the characters from the legendary tale of Arthur, bringing both perspective and realism to the story.

I picked this up on the recommendation of some of the readers of /r/Fantasy, who suggested it as an Arthurian tale that might not drive me nuts. Unfortunately, I really just do not click with ye olde Arthur of the Britons, and I was honestly glad to be finished with this story, even though it was really written very well.

I did kind of get a kick out of some of the locales of this book, though, as on one of my trips to England I went to Glastonbury and got to see the holy thorn and the tor, and see some of the locales legend has associated with the story, and this is the first Arthurian tale I’ve picked up since that visit.

Either way, very good historical fiction; I’d have loved it more if they’d changed all the names to protect the guilty.