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The Winter Prince.
Wein, Elizabeth E. The Winter Prince. New York: Baen Books, 1993.
I am one of those people who likes to begin at the beginning (I am also one of those people who, nine times out of 10, will flip to the end of the book within the first 20 pages, read the end, and then go back and read the book straight through). I am also one of those people who does not automatically love one of the standard tropes of fantasy, namely Arthuriana. I've never read T.H. White or Malory, and I have no intention of doing so at this point; ironically, however, I've read Stephen R. Lawhead and T.A. Barron and Susan Cooper, and I'm quite happy to read Arthuriana if it comes recommended or is by an author I've already read and enjoyed. All of which is a way of saying, I read this book primarily because I'm heard awesome things about its sequelae/companions, in which the action shifts from Britain in early late antiquity to 6thC Ethiopia. But this book turned out to be excellent in and of itself.
The Winter Prince is narrated by Medraut, the eldest and illegitimate son of Artos, high king of Britain, in the form of a letter to his mother, Artos' sister Morgause, the Queen of the Orcades. The book describes the events of the approximately 2.5 years after Medraut's return to his father's court, in which he saves the life of Artos' legitimate son and heir Lleu and develops an uneasy friendship with Lleu and his twin sister Goewin and struggles to decide who he is and will be, and how and whether to free himself from the bonds his mother has laid on his soul.
Medraut is a calm narrator, but the dark waters of the book run deep, and after a while I realized that my heart was quietly breaking for him. It would be spoilery if I were to articulate why, but I have to say, this was an excellent book. Wein's late antique setting is believable, and her characters finely etched; there's no Lancelot analogue in this story, for instance, and Ginevra is a calm, competent cartographer, while Goewin is probably a better candidate for the throne than Lleu, and she knows it, and fears her aunt's fate, but is loyal all the same. Indeed, the tragedy of Camelot--Camlan, in this version--seems all the greater for the fact that, could the family but trust each other, they have a surfeit of able rulers (with the possible exception of Lleu, who actually now that I think about it reminds me very slightly of Bran Davies, though it's Medraut who has Bran's coloring). Are all tragedies familial, or only the great ones? In any event, I'm looking forward to the next book, A Coalition of Lions, very much.
I am one of those people who likes to begin at the beginning (I am also one of those people who, nine times out of 10, will flip to the end of the book within the first 20 pages, read the end, and then go back and read the book straight through). I am also one of those people who does not automatically love one of the standard tropes of fantasy, namely Arthuriana. I've never read T.H. White or Malory, and I have no intention of doing so at this point; ironically, however, I've read Stephen R. Lawhead and T.A. Barron and Susan Cooper, and I'm quite happy to read Arthuriana if it comes recommended or is by an author I've already read and enjoyed. All of which is a way of saying, I read this book primarily because I'm heard awesome things about its sequelae/companions, in which the action shifts from Britain in early late antiquity to 6thC Ethiopia. But this book turned out to be excellent in and of itself.
The Winter Prince is narrated by Medraut, the eldest and illegitimate son of Artos, high king of Britain, in the form of a letter to his mother, Artos' sister Morgause, the Queen of the Orcades. The book describes the events of the approximately 2.5 years after Medraut's return to his father's court, in which he saves the life of Artos' legitimate son and heir Lleu and develops an uneasy friendship with Lleu and his twin sister Goewin and struggles to decide who he is and will be, and how and whether to free himself from the bonds his mother has laid on his soul.
Medraut is a calm narrator, but the dark waters of the book run deep, and after a while I realized that my heart was quietly breaking for him. It would be spoilery if I were to articulate why, but I have to say, this was an excellent book. Wein's late antique setting is believable, and her characters finely etched; there's no Lancelot analogue in this story, for instance, and Ginevra is a calm, competent cartographer, while Goewin is probably a better candidate for the throne than Lleu, and she knows it, and fears her aunt's fate, but is loyal all the same. Indeed, the tragedy of Camelot--Camlan, in this version--seems all the greater for the fact that, could the family but trust each other, they have a surfeit of able rulers (with the possible exception of Lleu, who actually now that I think about it reminds me very slightly of Bran Davies, though it's Medraut who has Bran's coloring). Are all tragedies familial, or only the great ones? In any event, I'm looking forward to the next book, A Coalition of Lions, very much.
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I am a great fan of the Arthurian legends and have willingly read a great deal of shlock therein, but I've always held this to be one of the best; it's good to hear someone with very different biases confirm it. I find Wein a marvelous writer and particularly excellent, as you note, in evoking her post-Roman setting, but I also enjoy watching her work with the legend of Arthur's son Lleu, who gets so much less play in contemporary retellings than in the early and mid-medieval ones.
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And yeah, I really liked this one. I just got the next one out of the library, too.
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Sometimes Llacheu/Loholt is the son of Arthur and his mistress Lionors, and sometimes he's the son of Arthur and Guinevere and has a very close bond with his mom. (There's actually one medieval romance in which Guinevere dies of grief after her son is murdered, which changes the end of the story for Lancelot and Arthur quite a bit.) Basically, this character shows up a lot in medieval literature, though rarely as a main character.
I'm not sure Cooper was drawing directly on Llacheu, but I'm sure she was drawing on the general Welsh traditions that Arthur had sons (the other son in Welsh tradition is called Amr), which English versions tended to strongly suppress for obvious political reasons. (If Arthur had sons, he might still have heirs who could provide a convenient rallying point against English rule.) But most contemporary authors have tended to follow the English line, and often make a big deal out of Guinevere's "barrenness."
I'm almost through with my re-read and am looking forward to picking up the rest of the series. Though I understand that there's actually a short story (called "Fire") about Medraut and Lleu that takes place between The Winter Prince and A Coalition of Lions which was published in a couple anthologies; I haven't been able to get my hands on it yet.
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Oo, thanks for the tip about that story. I'll have to keep an eye out for it.