Knight Life

This book spins traditional Arthurian legend on it's head as it bring the very medieval King Arthur into present day New York. Arthur, having been defeated by Modred way back in the days of Camelot didn't actually die, but instead was hidden in a cave. Hundreds of years pass, and eventually he, and an ageing backwards Merlin, emerge from their respective caves and find themselves in a bustling NY city where they have the idea that Arthur should run for mayor. Arthur reclaims Excalibur (a very funny scene where the Lady of the Lake emerges, complete with fish on her head and in front of two homeless men), finds a reborn Guinevere (who is in an abusive relationship with a man called Lance) and a drunk Percival who is down on life as he's show more never been able to die due to having drunk from the Holy Grail. Throw in Morgan La Fay (at one point a fat, almost suicidal woman depressed because her old adversity hasn't been around for hundreds of years) and her son, Moe Dreskin (a PR guru who changed his name because no one would hire someone called Moe Dread in his line of work.)

This is a lot of fun - Arthur trying to build a successful political campaign, Merlin trying to keep Arthur from repeating mistakes while being trapped in a child's body etc and the best thing about it is that it doesn't take itself too seriously. Obviously there are plot holes the size of a small country there, but lets face it - we're dealing with magic, mythical kings, time-travel and re-incarnation, does anyone really care about how they all ended up in NY instead of in Wales or something?

Last year I read [a:Helen Hollick|477847|Helen Hollick|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1282688699p2/477847.jpg]'s wonderful Arthur trilogy and yes, that was more historically accurate (and avoided the stuff I hate about Arthurian legends once Mallory got ahold of it) but this is a very different kind of book and extremely enjoyable in its own right. Very few books make me laugh out loud, but this one did numerous times and I very much look forward to reading the sequels. show less

Merlin has escaped from the cave Nimue imprisoned him in, and has in turn released Arthur Pendragon from the cave he was entombed in after Mordred wounded him. In modernday New York Arthur meets up with the reincarnated Genevieve and faithful knight Percival as he runs for mayor. Morgaine, Arthurs sister, and Mordred, their son, tries to destroy Arthur and Merlin.
A funny fastpaced read, but not extremely engaging.

Fast-paced and laugh-out-loud funny! Peter David has taken a somewhat goofy idea - King Arthur coming back and running for mayor of New York City - and managed to create real characters from mythic archetypes. The book is light-hearted but also has heart in all the right places.

Fantasy parody of the Arthurian myths/books in which King Arthur appears in modern-day New York in the guise of one Arthur Penn, and decides to run for mayor of the city. With his refreshing and bold new ideas, he quickly gains notoriety with the help (?) of Merlin, now in the form of an eight-year-old boy, Gwen DeVere, his secretary, and Percy Vale, his accountant as well as a host of other familiar characters. I thought the humor was a bit forced at times, but it was quite funny in other places. Full of puns and wordplay, but not as skillfully written as the author’s later fantasy parodies featuring Sir Apropos of Nothing, which I REALLY enjoyed. This one was good, but not great.

An interesting idea, which is usually handled pretty well.

Amusing and fun.
Not enough to tempt me into reading further.

#1142 in our old book database. Not rated.