Guest Post! Stephen R. Lawhead Book Review

Hello readers! Life has been very crazy for me over the past few months, so I asked a writer friend of mine to a post for me. If I am not mistaken, I believe this is our first guest post on the blog and I am very very excited. So no more delay! Hope y'all enjoy and let us know in the comments if you would like to see more guest posts!

I suppose I should introduce myself as I am a guest writer for this fine blog. I am Nathanael: avid fiction reader, amateur writer, and collector of random bits of knowledge. Alright, enough with the introductions, onto the content.

There are certain stories that are so ingrained into our cultural zeitgeist that everyone at least knows the basics of them. Classic stories, ones that have been told and retold throughout the years, ones that everyone seems to know slightly different versions of, stories like Robin Hood or King Arthur. And while there are many other good retellings and adaptations of those two tales, there is one author in particular that has my personal favorite versions, and that man is Stephen R. Lawhead.

Lawhead is an author who has been around for a bit, his first book published in 1982 and his most recent in 2020. He has 42 fiction books to his name and has gone through many different types of books and a couple different genres. He is most well known for his pseudo-historical fiction novels and his sci-fi and fantasy novels, but he has had a stint writing children's books. As a side note I would rather recommend his sci-fi and fantasy books, they are interesting reads if nothing else. His works are largely influenced by his love and vast knowledge of history, especially of the celts. Which brings us back around to the two series that pertain to our current topic: The Pendragon Cycle and the King Raven series.

The Pendragon Cycle, as you might be able to tell if you have a bit of knowledge of Arthurian lore, is a retelling of the legend of King Arthur. It is composed of five (or six, depending on who you ask) books: Taliesan, Merlin, Arthur, Pendragon, and Grail. There is another book that he wrote, Avalon, that some consider to be part of the series, but its canonicity is questionable.

King Raven is a trilogy (Hood, Scarlet, and Tuck) that tells the story of Robin Hood, albeit in a very different fashion than most people are used to.

So what makes these serieses such good adaptations of those two stories? Well firstly I should point out that these are not “in name only” adaptations. They share characters that are very close to one to one with the original cast of the legends, they follow very similar plots and share similar themes and ideas. King Arthur is still a warrior king who pulled a sword from a stone, Bran ap Brychan (or “Hood”) is still a lord of thieves who has a band in the woods and a complicated past. However it is the changes that are what makes these serieses really special.

I should note before we continue that I will have to give information about these books to explain my love of them. While I’m not going to give major spoilers, I will be talking about the story, characters, setting, etc. so if you want to go in completely blind now would be the time to stop reading this blog and start reading the books.

The first major change that you will probably notice is the setting. These stories are not set in the classic perception of what most people think medieval England was like. They are very, very grounded in extremely real historical settings. 11th century Wales for King Raven, and 5th or 6th century Britain for Pendragon. Oh, and Atlantis for Pendragon, but that's beside the point and only in the first book. He grounds us in these very real settings (Atlantis exempted of course) by telling us about the culture of these times and places, he uses real names from those periods, and he links events in the story to real historical events. King Raven takes place not long after The Battle of Hastings for example. And when Lawhead tells you about these time periods, you should believe him. He knows what he is talking about and he has spent a great amount of time researching and fact checking. This aspect of the story may not appeal to a wider audience as it does to a history buff like me, but it certainly serves to make an impression and gives a sense of identity that it would not have otherwise. If you are a fan of worldbuilding you will probably get a kick out of how in depth his settings are.

I find him also good at explaining these time periods. He doesn’t let you get lost in the flood of information, and he uses elements from the original story quite intelligently to give you an idea of who people are and what is going on. I would give examples but I would rather not spoil the experience of it.

The second major changes are to the plot, the events of the story. He starts both of these stories in untraditional places. Pendragon begins a full generation before Arthur, and where most Robin Hood stories tell Robin Hood’s past in flashbacks or as a short introduction, King Raven covers that in the first half or so of the first book. Lawhead also expands on these legends. He adds scenes, stories, and whole side plots that are original and his. None of this content overstays its welcome, but they do help make the story more cohesive and allows him to draw these admittedly kind of short tales into the epics they feel like they should be. A good example of this is the entire first book of Pendragon actually. It follows Taliesen as the name of the book might suggest. He is the father of the now legendary Merlin. Most of the plot of the book draws from Lawhead's own creations and other myths and legends that have nothing to do with the Arthurian legends. (Such as how Atlantis ties into all of this. If you want to know more, read the book.) However, it still falls right in with the original story and the plot of the series because it sheds quite a bit of light onto why Merlin is the way he is.

The third major change is to the characters. They are still basically the same characters that you know and love, but they are humanized, they have arcs. Characters from legends such as these tend to be static, they barely change, they are heroic, iconic. What Lawhead has done is he has taken those ideals, those iconic characters, and he has made more flawed, more dynamic, more human versions of them, that he slowly grows over the course of the story into their ideal selves. He uses the preconceived knowledge of these characters, subverts them, then lets you see how they got to the legends we now know. From an adaptation point of view I think it's genius. However, I will criticize this aspect somewhat, just to be fully transparent. In order to be hooked by the characters' arcs, you do have to have some knowledge of the original characters, and then be interested in seeing how Lawhead's versions get to that point. It takes a bit of active effort to get engaged, but I do think it is worth it if you can manage to overcome this aspect of their characters. His characters are fascinating from a literary level, but as I said it can take some work to get invested on an emotional level.

Lawhead gives a good example on how to adapt a story. He cares deeply about and respects the source material he draws from, while still being creative and original. He makes changes to the parts of the story that he thinks are weaker, and leaves alone the strengths of the original. These versions are very recognizable as the stories they are, but they also make enough changes, have enough new content, and reflect on enough new content to warrant their existence. He has fun with the concepts, taking the things he loves, (history, culture, etc…) and putting it in his story, and you can feel the passion he has for these things emanating from books. Are they the most faithful adaptations? No. (Atlantis for goodness sake!) Are they for everyone? No. But are they a worthwhile read and an example in how to make a good, original, adaptation? I think so, yes.

If anything I talked about was a deal-breaker for you I would still recommend looking into his other books, some of them are very different from these two series. Lawhead is a fascinating author to me for the sheer range of content the man has produced. I find all of his work thought provoking, and he will occasionally tackle some very interesting themes. However those books are some different discussions for a different time.

Alright, that’s enough from me. I do hope you found my little sales-pitch on these serieses at least somewhat interesting. Have a lovely morning/afternoon/evening. I bid thee adieu.