The King Awakes, Janice Elliott

[shanaqui]

I go to booksales often, and went to one semi-recently where I simply picked up a book called The King Awakes, by Janice Elliott, which looked like YA, mostly on the theory that it would probably be about King Arthur and while it probably wasn't anything amazing, it'd fill a warm summer afternoon, and I do like King Arthur...

Turns out, it is about King Arthur, and it's really quite interesting. There's actually two books in the series, as far as I can tell, but I haven't got hold of the second one yet. It isn't your typical Arthurian story because it's post-apocalyptic and dystopic, which got my attention the minute I realised.

Arthur isn't actually the central character, really, but that's no surprise with Arthurian fiction... He's an important supporting character. I didn't know at first there was a sequel, so at first it seemed a little disappointing, but the idea of a post-apocalyptic dystopic King Arthur story fascinated me. Worth a read, if it fascinates you too. I did a brief review of it here.

(I totally want to write a post-apocalyptic King Arthur story now.)

Comments

[marny_h96]

Sounds interesting. Thanks for posting :-)

[merlinpendragon]

+1

[tanaqui]

Oooh, a post-apocalyptic, dystopian Arthurian retelling does sound fascinating. Thanks for posting about this - I'm going to look into tracking down a copy. ;-)

[holyschist]

I didn't love it, but the Camelot 3000 graphic novel was kind of dystopian, and possibly post-apocalyptic. And in space. It's been a long time since I read it.

[merlinpendragon]

I did a search for this book, and came up with some interesting results. There was one perfect hit that was a hardback. Then there was a paperback that had this title: The King Awakes - The Sword And The Dream. Both by Janice Elliott.

Is that possibly a sequel?

[shanaqui]

Yes, it is. If you look at what I said in the post, I didn't originally know there was a sequel, but there is one.

[merlinpendragon]

Sorry, I was just trying to find out if THAT was the sequel you were talking about. The other possibility that came to mind was that the author added to the title when the book went to paperback. It's been done before.

[shanaqui]

As far as I can gather, yes, it is.