Review - Pendragon by James Wilde

Quick info

Title: Pendragon

Series: The Dark Age

Author: James Wilde

Format: Audiobook

Bought/borrowed: Borrowed

Rating: 5/5

Thoughts: A visceral exploration of how myth is born. It made me wonder: if enough people told me that they smelled fire, or at least dry wood, would I start to see smoke at every turn?

From the blurb...

Here is the beginning of a legend. Long before Camelot rose, a hundred years before the myth of King Arthur was half-formed, at the start of the Red Century, the world was slipping into a Dark Age… A soldier and a thief, a cut-throat, courtesan and a druid, even the Emperor Valentinian himself - each of these has a part to play in the beginnings of this legend… the rise of the House of Pendragon.

I found this book by accident, scrolling through my library's audiobook app one night, and was pulled in by the title alone. I'm a serial audiobook listener, raised on storytapes to lull me to sleep as a childhood worrier and now they keep me company as an adult who doesn't like to be left alone with her thoughts whilst trying to calm a fretful toddler back to sleep. Although, to be honest, Pendragon was not the most relaxing bedtime listen!

We start in a secluded (but seemingly almost-boringly safe) place but it's not long before hints of cannibals outside the walls solidify into terrifying ritualistic warriors who are impossible to ignore. Essentially, if it had been a BBC documentary about mysterious happenings on Hadrian's Wall, I would have probably had as much luck guessing what was coming next as I did whilst listening to this. Which is to say, my tired brain was led in spirals around whispers and murmurings of hopes that might one day become truths and I loved every second of it.

As much as this is a story, it is a story about a story: an ode to formation. It's the first in a series and, whilst it is strong enough to stand alone, I am so glad that the lives of characters I've come to care about will continue. By care, I don't mean that I'm a fan of all of them, but I did not want to miss a second even when it got violent, graphic, or just plain less than savoury. Corvus and Pavo, though, I was hoping you were what you were for the whole book so however creepy your lives get (and I do think you're on a trajectory for that), I think I will love you forever.

The research that must have gone into writing this deserves applause. The world is so real, so solid. I keep typing the word solid and that's because so much of this book, for me, relies on the opposing forces of solidity and the intangible - what we hope, or fear, but can't quite touch versus what we "know" and can squeeze between our hands, but might not fully understand. There's layers upon layers, folks.

If you pick this book up and want the life of King Arthur in all his medieval French-inspired glory you are going to be disappointed because that is assuredly not what this is. But it could turn into something recognisable in future books in the series, I suppose, there is definitely the potential for that. The foundation has been laid: there is a sword, for example, and forest courts of healing. But before that foundation was set in the ground, we get to hear every moment of the quarrying of the stone. If Marion Zimmer Bradley tied a rope around your heart so you inhale everything vaguely Arthurian, then stick with it! The weird (in all its spellings and connotations) seeps through even the grittiest moments like honey through sand.

All in all, the only things I could fault would be: that the battles sometimes went on for a bit and let my mind wander, but that's something I struggle with in television and books so I don't think it's worth marking what was an amazing book down on at all; and that the Roman names were in places a little jarring and hard to remember for me (I couldn't name all of Lucanus's fellow Wolves now, for example!). I've mentioned a lot of positive features already, but I especially loved the variety of characters: men, women, children, all of different social backgrounds and with drives that felt real.

If you want me, I'll be busy adding other books by this author to my TBR pile...