Retells the Arthurian romances from Merlin's perspective with engrossing historical detail. ( )

A fascinating spin on the same old King Arthur story. Stewart focuses on Merlin as the main character in this series, starting with his young years as a bastard and continuing through his demise shortly into Arthur's reign. Stewart's strength was in bringing these so well-known characters to life and giving them depth. Her weakness was incredibly slow pacing. Yes, we knew what was going to happen, but that doesn't make the story completely unimportant. Foreshadowing was well-used, between Merlin's foresight and the reader's assumed knowledge of the basics of the story, impending doom was alluded to well.

I was very disappointed by the view of women in this series. With the exception of Nimuë at the end of the book, every woman presented is shown to be either frivolous or a manipulating evil witch. To some extent this is forgivable, as that was no doubt the sentiment towards women during the time that the events supposedly took place, but having read a story like The Mists of Avalon, it's not hard to see how it might have been otherwise. ( )

http://shelfandstuff.blogspot.com/200... ( )

Written from Merlin's point of view, one of the best accounts of the Arthurian legend in my opinion. ( )

An excellent trilogy. Don't waste time with the 4th book, about Modred-it is not up to the quality of these three. ( )