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    Cover of Bright Sword

    Bright Sword

    Lev Grossman · 2024

    A gifted young knight named Collum arrives at Camelot to compete for a spot on the Round Table, only to find he’s too late. The king died two weeks ago at the Battle of Camlann, leaving no heir, and only a handful of the knights of the Round Table survive.They aren’t the heroes of legend, like Lancelot or Gawain. They’re the oddballs of the Round Tables, from the edges of the stories, like Sir Palomides, the Saracen Knight and Sir Dagonet, Arthur’s fool, who was knighted as a joke. They’re joined by Nimue, who was Merlin’s apprentice until she turned on him and buried him under a hill. Together this ragtag fellowship will set out to rebuild Camelot in a world that has lost its balance.But Arthur’s death has revealed Britain’s fault lines. God has abandoned it, and the fairies and monsters and old gods are returning, led by Arthur’s half-sister Morgan le Fay. Kingdoms are turning on each other, warlords are laying siege to Camelot, and rival factions are forming around the disgraced Lancelot and the fallen Queen Guinevere. It is up to Collum and his companions to reclaim Excalibur, solve the mysteries of this ruined world and make it whole again. But before they can restore Camelot they’ll have to learn the truth of why the lonely, brilliant King Arthur fell and lay to rest the ghosts of his troubled family and of Britain’s dark past.

    Other
    Open LibraryAmazon
    Stats for nerds
    3recommend
    3mentions
    3people
    2024–2025years
    100% recommend

    Mentions per year

    20242025

    What Hacker News says

    1. wxwDec 2025
      This year I quite enjoyed:

      - The Bright Sword, Lev Grossman Modern take on King Arthur, very fun, wild ride.

      - The Courage to Be Disliked, Ichiro Kishimi Philosophy as a dialogue between teacher and student, lots to think about.

      thread
    2. godzillafartsDec 2025
      My favorites this year, be genre:

      Sci-fi: Exiles by Mason Coile.

      Fiction (Fantasy): The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman.

      Fiction (post-apocalyptic / zombie): One Yellow Eye by Leigh Radford.

      Non fiction: The Wager by David Grann.

      thread
    3. giaourNov 2024
      Highlights so far this year are:

      - Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesch -- really phenomenal pacing and psychological terror in a sci-fi action novel.

      - The Golem of Brooklyn by Adam Mansbach -- good portrait of different strains of American Judaism in a book structured around a quest

      - Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters -- great characters and structured revelation. This was sitting unread on my shelf for years because I thought it would be preachy, but it wasn't.

      - The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman -- tales from Camelot in the aftermath of Arthur's defeat at Camlann. Excellent mixing of round table legends from different points in history.

      thread

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