Once & Future

Loved the fresh take on King Arthur. It's been done so many times, but never quite like this, which I thought was great. Love the female King Arthur, Ari (a little brash at first, a little bull-headed, but lovable), but more than that, LOVE the redemptive story for Morgana. It's a really smart, sensitive way to retell the story in a way that fits our cultural atmosphere (and haven't we been doing that to this legend ever since it began...retelling it to fit our own times).

Two and a half stars. Partly because I just didn't enjoy the story very much, and partly because there were some very weird narrative decisions made by the authors. The first half or so felt like straight King Arthur fan fiction, and because I have only the vaguest knowledge of the King Arthur stories, I felt like I was missing out on a lot of what was happening below the surface. Secondly, the while the dual POV (Merlin and Ari) was generally well utilized, there were some parts where we, as the reader, missed out on some scenes and actions because the story kept us with one narrator over the other. Thirdly, the last act begins with a "One Year Later" gesture, which I absolutely hate reading about. It's lazy storytelling.

However: the show more diversity rep was great, and parts that I found wacky are very likely to be straight up fun for other readers. I also enjoyed how many genres were mashed together; that part was lots of fun. show less

"I, um, come from a society with a history of gender assumptions based on physical markers, aesthetics, et cetera."
"Ew," Ari said.
"That's wicked sad," Kay added.
Merlin, at least, looked deeply ashamed. "You have no idea."

I... don't know what happened to me halfway through this book.

It started out brilliant, and sucked me in almost immediately. An adopted queer teenage girl with Arabic background, a gay wizard who ages backwards and uses songs to do magic, both of them being in same gender relationships, a nonbinary side character, an ace side character, same-gender adoptive parents, and a wonderfully diverse cast in terms of both race and sexuality. A fresh, beautiful take on Arthurian myths that somehow mixes both the past and the show more future, reenacting the myths of old, but in space. Also, the big bad tyrannical empire this time is not actually a government, but a corporation, and if that isn't relevant then I don't know what is.

I absolutely loved Merlin and his memories of all the Arthurs, the feeling that this is really an unending cycle, that they are all so different and yet still have the same soul, the same story, the same end.

So why did the second half leave me uninterested and kind of disenchanted? I really have no idea, but somewhere around the one-year timeskip I felt myself losing interest and becoming numb to the twists.

It might have had to do something with the character deaths (not telling you who, obviously, but damn I didn't like that), or the fact that these apparent teenagers are going around having sex, getting married, and having literal babies. Not that those things don't happen to teenagers, but it's far from the norm, and just in general, this felt like it should have been a New Adult novel. We already have so few of those, so the missed opportunity made me kind of bitter.

I also feel like there might have been a symbolic reason behind Ari, Val, Lam and Kay all having names with three letters, but having the last three be so similar was indeed kind of annoying. I wondered why Percival couldn't have been Percy or Perce or something instead. This is just a minor pet peeve, but still.

I am both scared and intrigued by the hints we have for the sequel (you, because you've never imagined it, and you because you believed you'd escaped it), and duologies are my favourite format that are also rarer than I like, so I'm still excited about next year.

NOTES:
- This should definitely have a content warning for genocide of a non-white people.
- The ace side character is only referred to as ace, but the way she describes it implies she's supposed to be aro as well.
- There seem to be three recognised nonbinary genders in this world, referred to as "fluid", "set" and "non". This was a little strange, but not necessarily bad. show less

*I received a complimentary copy from Jimmy Patterson Books. All opinions expressed are my own.*

Once And Future is a book I had no expectations about before reading. I simply had no idea what I was about to read. Lucky for me, I absolutely loved it! I've been hoping to find a story with diversity of race, culture, sexuality and gender identity, and viola!
The female Arthur (Ari) and backwards aging Merlin are simply genius. What a brilliant concept to shake up a legend of old! But, the authors went further by writing these characters as a diverse casting of race, culture, LGBTQ, including Ari and Merlin. Then, still the story goes even further with it's atmosphere of inclusivity. Imagine this place where everyone is accepted.
The plot show more was action packed and had plenty of humor and layers of smaller things happening within the bigger picture. I found Merlin especially funny. Ari is chosen for this crazy thing, fighting for justice and fighting the corporate world, and I don't know how she keeps it together. I liked all the characters. My only complaint is I had trouble keeping their names straight because they were too familiar with three letters. Overall, I think it's a great positive thing to have a story with such diversity and acceptance. The authors are truly imaginative, and I'm excited for the next book. show less

I admittedly don’t have a lot of knowledge of Arthurian legends, but I feel like this didn’t need to be related. Maybe it would’ve worked better story-wise if they didn’t try to make this a a futuristic sci-fi. Like unleash a band of alphabet army teens to fulfill a prophecy with the help of a magical being that’s not fantastic at his job? Sign me up! But don’t try to shoehorn King Arthur elements into it with a dash of anti-capitalism / anti-surveillance for some strange reason.

Once & Future is also the most immature YA story I’ve read in awhile. Yet our teen heroes are cursing and fucking up a storm. All the characters act their age until they get turned on. It’s… jarring.

I also had every intention of giving book 2 a show more try because allegedly it’s better, (and the bar is pretty low)… but then the ‘Circles and Curses’ chapter happened and ya. I’m good. show less

Not being as familiar with the King Arthur myths, I found this story to be very fun. Im sure there are things in the story that people more familiar with the myths would freak out over, but having the baseline knowledge was enough to enjoy the story. I loved how queer the main cast was, though I felt that the story moved just a hair faster than I would have liked. I am looking forward to reading the next book in the series once I get my hands on it.

Rarely am I this happy to reach the end of a book and learn there's a sequel expected out next year. To be fair, it would be really strange, considering how the book ended, to not have a sequel, but still. I really enjoyed the futuristic world and the retelling of the King Arthur story. The book features a number of queer characters and in an otherwise dystopian future, humanity does appear to have achieved comfort with a variety of gender and sexual identities. Furthermore, it has the urgent immediacy of a lot of YA fiction and the creativity of retelling a very old story in a new and compelling way.