It is a strange combination of Pratchett and Monty Python, ranging from philosophical life lessons to slapstick comedy worthy of Monty Python. The first part of the book, The Sword in the Stone, chronicles Arthur’s childhood and education. His version is greatly inspired by Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur White even wrote Malory into the book (he has a small cameo towards the end of the novel). White barely touches upon the quest for the Holy Grail and tends to skip over anything Galahad does out of sheer dislike for the character instead, he mostly focuses on Arthur’s coming of age, the Orkney clan, and Lancelot’s affair with Guenever. If you’re looking for a comprehensive collection of Arthurian tales, this is not that book. I figured that it would be an epic fantasy story with lots of drama and violence – which it is. Martin, and Terry Goodkind, had been begging me to read it for years. I knew that it told the story of King Arthur, that it was on every single list of best fantasy books, and that my sister-in-law, who is an avid fan of Robert Jordan, George R.R. White’s The Once and Future King (and a beautiful hardcover edition of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca). Since I love to buy books in the place where they are set or were written, I decided to buy a copy of T.H. It’s a popular tourist attraction, surrounded by gift shops where you can buy your kids a toy Excalibur or Merlin’s pointy hat. This summer, my parents and I went on holiday to Cornwall and visited Tintagel Castle, which was supposedly the place where King Arthur was conceived.
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