This book is the second in what was meant to be a trilogy on the Arthurian legends involving the back stories of Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot. The book alternates between the pov of all 3, as they are rarely together in the book but separately go through various trials. Even though the legends and I suppose this book take place in our world long ago, the book is deeply fantastical and involves lots of magic, alternate realities and worlds, magical creatures, etc. The trilogy hasn't been finished as the author unfortunately passed away. The first book was Dragon Queen.I liked this book, a lot. I get what other people are saying, that there are disjointed sections of the book, and there are. But it didn't really bother me. Sometimes a character ends up somewhere without a real explanation as to why or how they got there, but I was able to figure out what had happened. I feel that the author might have been intending further edits to this book,and perhaps didn't have time to do that as she got sick?. I thought this open ended-ness in fact added to the whole dreamscape feeling of the book. It gets very metaphysical at times, deeply fantastic, but I enjoyed that. I also loved Guinevere's trip to the " City of Fire" as Merlin called it. It was so vivid, sort of like a fever dream. For me, that whole alternate world was the highlight of the book. That world in itself would make an awesome movie, what with the Tree of Life, The nightgangs, The mariglobes and the travelling women, the flying cape thing, the fighting families, etc. Much more original than the recycled stuff Hollywood has been putting out.As to the other things people didn't like, the Lady of the Lake's direct banter with Lancelot I found sort of amusing, not offensive anyway. I guess after thousands of years of life one becomes a straight shooter. Tuau I also found humorous. I guess you have to know cats to get him. And finally...so many people commented on the sex. I thought most of it was implied, and not described in detail. It didn't bother me. My feeling is these characters were much more elemental than modern people in many ways, and the sex is just part of that.I am really sad not to get to read book 3. I wish someone would finish this for Alice Borchardt. I thought the re-imagining of the Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot triangle was so interesting, and I want to see how it ends. One thing I noticed in these books is that in most of Arthur's story he is alone, while Guinevere is always surrounded by supporters. Even though I had a soft spot for Lancelot,and his compassion for others, I really felt fascinated by Arthur's struggle and at the same time sad for him because his strength in some ways keeps him separate. It was an interesting twist to the Arthurian legend.
After reading Dragon Queen, I was disappointed by this book. There's some awesome parts, but like in her other books, I notice that she has the tendency to sometimes focus and expand unimportant scenes (or scenes which don't really have anything to do with the main plot) while briefly describing more important and relevant ones.I found Guinevere's journey to the other world to be boring and unneccessary. Sure, she's supposed to gain allies and stuff, but this part of the book would have been more enjoyable if Ms. Borchardt spent as much time fleshing out her relevant scenes as she did the filler scenes. I mean, this book honestly was more filler than plot, so by the end of the book I felt terribly let down and disappointed, since it didn't really feel as if anything was resolved. Yeah, the scenes were beautifully described and it was easy to imagine the surroundings, but at times, I found myself growing very impatient with the plodding and disorganized plot.Sadly, we will never know what happens, because Ms. Borchardt died before she could finish the third book. Given the disjointed quality of the first two books of this Guinevere trilogy, perhaps we're better off drawing our own conclusions as to what happens to Arthur and Guinevere.
Do You like book The Raven Warrior (2004)?
To be honest I had a hard time trying to finish this book. I loathe to leave any book unread in its entirety so I did get to the end eventually. The language, especially the dialogue was inconsistent and distracted me from the story. Also there were too many POVs which for me was in parts boring and inconsequential. And the way they were all written in 3rd person with the exception of Guinevere's POV - I didn't quite get that? I really wanted the main characters to have some interaction and contact throughout the book, as it was each POV was so isolated from the other that I could not connect with the characters or the book.
—Kate
