Warlord Chronicles : An Arthurian Myth Re-Telling by Bernard Cornwell

    I have decided to spend the last half of 2025 to do a read of all the latest takes of the King Arthur myth. First up is the always reliable Bernard Cornwell, someone who I spend last year reading his Last Kingdom, figuring it would take 4 months to get thru. It took me 2 months to read the  13 books in the series, Mr. Cornwell write in a very readable way, I want to say literary popcorn. 

     So I headed out to Big Bad Wolf  Book Fair here in Bangkok, Thailand,  My main goal was to find some Graphic Novels in the Thai language, I was successful in that, but they also had table upon tables of books in the English language,  And they had all 3 books in Bernard Cornwell Arthurian tale. I took that as a sign. 

     The tale is told thru the eyes of Derfel, In the series Derfel goes from an orphan taken in by Merlin to a Lord in the service of King Arthur. Hey, I am a sucker for the orphan does good trope, Defer is the POV that is used to spend the tale. Mr. Cornwell write in his afterword that he sought out the earliest tales of Arthur to find characters who have drop out of the story with the passage of time. One such character is Nimue, who play a major role in the life of Derfel. More than Merlin.   If your a fan of Lancelot, be forewarned, Lancelot is portrayed as the greatest traitor in English history. 

     Next up in the reading list will be Giles Kristain's take of the Arthurian tale. 

The Devils by Joe Abercrombie

    I will put it out there that I am one of Joe Abercrombie's biggest fans, I have read every book published by Joe and have been pre-ordering his books since Half a King, the YAD Viking inspired Shattering Seas series. I have met Joe at a signing and he was a nice as could be, so nice I thought He was going to pitch me a timeshare. 

     The Devils has a simple plot, one of the oldest literary tropes there is, The Quest. Now, the quest plot combined with the collection of a rag tag group of heroes are right in my reading wheelhouse.  Joe turns the trope upside down by inserting a highly unlikely group of questers. This is kind of a hallmark of Joe's books, he take previous character types and turns them on their heads.  

     The Devils  worldbuilding is fairly simple. Troy did not fall, and Rome did not ascend. Hector beat Achilles  and Troy did not fall for the wooden horse trick. And the Messiah was a woman killed on a wheel. The story takes place after a split in the church and the heroes are enlisted to install a Princess on the breakaway empire in a bid to unite. 

    As the series continues you will get more backstory on the the devils. Joe has brought us character most readers are familiar with, a Vampire, Cursed Knight, a mercenary Pirate and friend to the knight, an Elf, Werewolf. Necromancer aka magician and a bookish monk. Each charged with the duty of getting a street urchin to  Troy and install her as princess. Joe writes in his fabulous humorous style, bringing life to the characters.

     If you liked The Devils and wish to find similar authors who write with a humorous style, I recommend Davis Wragg and  J. .Zachary Pike.